Benediction (Plainsong #3)(61)

You see anything you want? he said.

But these are your things, she said.

I want to give you one.

You don’t care?

Whatever you want.

She picked a snake rattle.

That’s not much, he said. Take something more.

She held up one of the arrowheads.

He fumbled in the box and brought out two of the old smooth silver dollars and handed them to her and shut the lid.

Then without warning he reached up to touch her face. She jerked away. He let his hands fall and he looked at her, his eyes watery and staring.

What do you want to do? she said. I don’t know what you want.

I wanted to touch your face, he whispered. That’s all.

She looked at him. Go ahead, she said. She leaned over closer to him.

He raised both hands again and held her face in his old loose-skinned hands and shut his eyes. She watched him, she could see his eyes moving beneath his closed eyelids. His hands felt papery and cold on her face. Then he released her. She looked at him. Thank you for these things, she said softly, and turned and went to sit again with Berta May and Lorraine and showed them what she had. Dad stared out the window. Soon he was asleep.

When they got up to leave, Berta May said, Don’t wake him. We’ll just slip out.

Thank you for coming, Mary said. I know he wanted to see you once more.

That afternoon when Lorraine came in to his bedroom he was asleep under the sheet in the new pajamas they had bought in the department store on Main Street. His mouth was open, his closed eyelids fluttering, and his hands were rested over his chest. She thought at first that he had died and she came to the bed and bent over his face, then she could feel the faint air he blew out and could smell his sour breath.

She sat down in the chair next to the bed. The window was open overlooking the backyard, the brown shade was pulled down to keep the sun out. It was dim in the room and the air was warm but not hot.

Dad woke and opened his eyes. He stared at Lorraine and she smiled at him. He lifted his hand toward her and she held it, looking into his eyes.

Hello, Daddy, she said.

Yes. Hello. He spoke very quietly, slowly.

Daddy, when you were touching Alice’s face, what were you thinking?

That was this morning.

Yes.

I just wanted to touch a girl’s soft face again.

Did you touch mine like that when I was little?

He stared at her for a long time. I don’t think so.

Why didn’t you?

I was too busy. I wasn’t paying attention.

No, she said. You weren’t. She lifted his hand to her cheek now.

Forgive me, he whispered. I missed a lot of things. I could of done better. I always loved you.

You never told me that when I was her age.

Can you forgive that too?

Yes, Daddy.

I want to tell you now, he said.

She watched him, his watery eyes staring at her.

I loved you, he whispered. I always did. I approved of you completely. I do today.

She kissed his hand and put it back on his chest and leaned far over and kissed him on his cracked lips.

Thank you, Daddy. I feel the same way. I hope you know that.

He shut his eyes, the tears squeezed out onto his cheeks. She stayed next to him, not talking anymore, and when he went to sleep again she went out and climbed the stairs to her room on the second floor and lay down in the bed in the hot afternoon while the wind blew the curtains in and out at the window.





36


AT THE PARSONAGE John Wesley used most of that same long hot summer afternoon to clear everything from his computer. Then as the day stretched toward the end, when the sun had moved far westward, he came out of the bedroom and walked down the hall to his parents’ room at the front of the house and looked in the drawers in the walnut bureau that had belonged to his mother, but she had taken all her clothes and makeup with her to Denver. He drew the curtain back from the window and looked out at the corner of the street and into the high branches of the trees. The late-afternoon light in the street had a slanted look. He walked back down the hall and searched the upstairs bathroom in the cabinets and chests, but there was none of her mascara or lipstick on the shelves or in the drawers.

Downstairs in the kitchen he took out the box of wood matches from the junk drawer together with a flat dish from the cupboard and carried them into the bathroom. He struck a match and smeared the charcoal end on his fingers, it made a black stain. He lighted a dozen more matches and set them in the dish. Then he began to blacken his face. When he was finished he stood looking at himself in the cabinet mirror, all his face was dark now, and he shut the light off and dumped the match ends in the trash can and rinsed the dish and put it away and drank a glass of water at the sink and went out the door to the garage.

There was a long narrow driveway running alongside the house to the garage. Grass had grown up in the gravel. In the garage he pulled the overhead door shut and locked it and locked the side door. Light filtered in from the small windows at the sides.

From the rear of the garage he brought out an old wood chair and set it in the middle of the floor where the fine dirt was black and shiny with oil leaks from the car. Then he brought out the wood box from under the workbench. On the bench were a steel vise and cans of nails and old hammers and wrenches all coated with oily dust. He set the box on the chair.

After that he got out the cotton rope he’d bought at the hardware store on Main Street and hidden in the corner by the workbench.