Benediction (4 page)

He better start getting accustomed to them, Dad said.

The women turned and looked at him. They’d thought he was asleep. His head was turned
toward the window and he wasn’t looking at them when he talked.

Nothing goes on without people noticing, he said.

They waited. But he said no more.

After a while Willa started talking again. He had some kind of trouble in Denver,
I heard. I believe that’s why he was sent here.

What kind of trouble? said Mary.

I heard he was disciplined by the church for supporting some other preacher who came
out homosexual in Denver. I believe it was something of that nature.

Wherever did you hear that, Mother?

A woman friend. Somebody from out of town told me about it.

Well, they’re people, Alene said.

Well, of course. I know they’re people. I’m not saying that. I’m only saying as an
example of the kind of man he is. What we might expect.

The room was quiet then. They could hear Lorraine and the young girl on the front
porch, the soft talking and the regular small complaint and recover of the porch swing.
The hot sunlight streamed in through the window beyond Dad.

I think I’ll go outside, Alene said. Excuse me, please.

There’s more coffee, Mary said.

No thank you. It’s good to see you, Dad. He looked over at her and nodded.

She rose and straightened the skirt of her dress and went out to the porch. Willa
and Mary watched her leave.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Willa whispered. You see how she is. She’s been
this way ever since she came home.

She’s not happy, Mary said.

Nobody’s happy. But she doesn’t have to be unpleasant in somebody else’s house.

We’re glad to see her, Mary said, and stood and went back through the dining room
to the kitchen. She looked out the window to the west. The backyard was in shade from
the trees, and beyond, the corral and barn were in hot bright sunlight. She brought
the pot of coffee and poured some into Willa’s cup.

Just half, Willa said. I need to go pretty soon.

Mary looked at Dad. He was asleep now, his old bald head fallen onto his chest, his
big hands folded in his lap.

Out on the porch they made room for Alene on the swing and the three of them, the
two women and the young girl, moved slowly in the heat. Lorraine introduced the girl
to Alene.

I’ve been waiting to meet you, Alene said.

Do you know my grandmother?

I’ve known her a long time. She and my mother have been friends for years.

Grandma has a lot of friends.

Yes. She does.

But she doesn’t do anything with them.

You don’t when you get older. But maybe you and I could do something together.

That’s what she said. The girl looked at Lorraine.

We’ll all do something, Lorraine said.

What grade are you in, honey?

I’ll be in the third grade this year.

That’s the grade I taught.

I don’t know my teacher here. I don’t know who she’ll be.

Do you want to find out?

I guess so.

I’ll take you up to school if you like. Maybe we can meet her. Or at least find out
who she is.

Do you teach here?

No. I taught in another town close to the mountains. I’ve stopped teaching now.

We used to live close to the mountains. When my mother was alive.

Willa came out on the porch and they introduced her to Alice, and then the two Johnson
women went out to their car and drove home to the sandhills and Alice went back to
her grandmother’s house.

F
ORTY YEARS AGO
, when it was over, Dad Lewis was only surprised that it had taken so long to find
him out. He hadn’t been all that clever about it.

After he’d made the discoveries, Dad wouldn’t put it off and on Saturday after they’d
closed for the day and the last meager purchase had been made and the change tendered
across the scarred wood counter and the last customer had gone out the front door
onto the cold darkening sidewalk on Main Street, Dad said, Are we locked up?

Clayton was standing before the front door looking out at the empty winter street.
It looks like it wants to snow, he said.

Does it, Dad said. Has everybody gone?

Yeah, they’re all out. I’m ready to go too. I’m wore out today. We were busy.

Come back here to the office first, Dad said.

Something more to do?

No. Just come back to the office.

He turned and walked past the long narrow ranks of plumbing supplies and the assortment
of plastic elbows and metal clamps, past the spools of chains and nylon ropes and
thin cording hanging at the end of the aisle and went into the office at the rear
of the building back at the alley and sat down behind the desk.

Clayton, the young clerk, followed him and stood at the door, leaning against the
doorframe, rolling down his blue shirt cuffs as he did every day after they closed.

Sit down, Dad said.

Something going on?

Come in and take a seat.

I hope this won’t take too long. Tanya’s waiting on me. We was talking of getting
a sitter and going out for dinner somewhere. Having a night out.

Were you. Have a seat first, Dad said.

Clayton stepped into the room and sat down. What is it? he said.

Dad looked at him and looked past him out through the open office door for a moment.
A car went by in the alley, the top of it visible through the square window in the
outside door. He turned in the swivel chair and took down the wide blue-backed cash
receipts ledger from the shelf behind him and turned forward again, coming around
slowly in the chair, and opened the book on the desk, finding the pages he wanted,
and turned the book a half turn so it was right side up to Clayton. You want to say
something about this? Dad said.

Clayton looked at him and then down at the ledger pages. He studied the figures and
then looked up quickly. I don’t get what you mean.

I think you do.

No, I don’t neither. Are you accusing me of something?

Are you going to make this harder than it needs to be? Dad said. You sure you want
to do that?

He pointed his finger at the total for the month just finished and turned back a page
and indicated the total for the previous month.

Have you got those numbers in your head?

I don’t get what this is about, said Clayton.

I’m showing you. Keep watching.

He turned back the pages in the ledger to the same months four years earlier. You
see these? he said. He pointed to the total for the earlier year.

The store’s making an average of three hundred dollars a month less than it did four
years ago, Dad said. How would that be? What would be the cause of something like
that, do you think?

I don’t have no idea. People started going someplace else maybe.

Where would they go? This is the only hardware in town.

Maybe we’re just not as busy.

No. We’re still as busy. Inventory tells us that.

Then I don’t have no answer for you.

You could be missing something.

Like what do you mean?

Like something you lost. Something that might of fell out of your jacket pocket when
you hung it up on the back hook this morning and never noticed.

Dad leaned sideways and stretched his leg out straight so he could reach into his
pants pocket, he withdrew a small key and bent forward and unlocked the bottom drawer
of the desk. He sat up again and laid out on the desktop a small receipt book that
had half of the pages missing. The perforated ends inside the binding were still there
but the carbons that should have been in the book were torn away.

I found this laying on the floor below your coat back in the hall, he said. Kind of
leaning up against the wallboard. So then I could see how you were managing it. A
customer comes in and buys something and you give him a receipt out of this private
little extra book here of yours and then after he goes out the door and the door is
shut good you pocket the money and nothing shows. It couldn’t be nothing too big.
Because I would notice that. And you had to be sure I was at the back of the store
or back in the office here or maybe gone home to lunch, and I don’t guess you could
of done it too often or even somebody as trusting as I used to be would get suspicious.
Then too I suppose you had to worry about somebody returning some shovel or garden
hoe and presenting this false receipt to me and not you, to get reimbursed. You had
to worry about that a lot, I guess. But somehow that never happened, did it. But I
figure after a while you got too greedy, didn’t you. If you was only taking three
or four hundred dollars a year I’d never of noticed anything. Or maybe even a thousand
dollars a year. But that would have to be only if you hadn’t of lost this little ticket
book out of your coat pocket, isn’t that right.

Dad stopped and stared at him. Clayton didn’t say anything.

Well, I’ll tell you, Dad said. It makes me sick. That’s what it does. It makes me
wonder about the whole goddamn human race. And I don’t want to think that way. What’s
wrong with you anyway?

Across from him Clayton’s round face had begun to sweat. Later Dad would remember
that, how Clayton appeared to burst out in a sudden sweat, and it was wintertime,
February, cold outside, and it was not even warm in the little windowless office there
at the rear of the hardware store.

How much time will you give me? Clayton said.

Time for what?

To pay you back.

You can’t pay me back.

Not right away. But I could if you gave me enough time.

No you couldn’t. I’m not going to have you around here anymore. You don’t work here.
I don’t want to see you again.

But I got a wife and two kids to think of.

Yes, Dad said. I know you do. You should of been thinking about them, what you brought
them to by this.

Clayton stared at him. He wiped his hand across his forehead and dried it on his pants
leg.

Are you going to the sheriff? he said.

No. I decided not to. On account of your kids. But I’m going to have you sign this.

Sign what?

This paper here.

What is it?

Dad removed a sheet of paper from the drawer in front of him and pushed it across
the desk. Clayton read it. The paper was typed out neatly, telling how he’d stolen
from the store and admitted as much and it said how many thousands of dollars the
sum was and it said he admitted that too and then there was a place at the bottom
of the page for him to sign his name and to provide the date.

What will you do with this if I sign it?

Oh, you’re going to sign it. There’s no question about that.

All right. Say I do. Then what?

Then I’ll keep it locked up in the safety box at the bank. In case you ever think
of moving back to Holt.

But I’m not leaving Holt.

Yeah, you are.

You mean you want me to leave town too?

I’d have to run into you sometime, Dad said. I’d have to see you again on Main Street
someplace.

But I grew up here.

I know. I knew your father and mother. Son, this is a sorry goddamn mess all around.

But what am I supposed to do?

You’ll have to figure that out. That’s not for me to say. Maybe you will learn something.
I don’t know about that.

What about—Clayton looked desperately around the little office—what am I going to
tell my wife? How can I explain this to Tanya?

That’s one more thing I don’t have no idea about. It’s not going to be a lot of fun,
I know that. It wouldn’t be for me.

Clayton studied Dad’s face, but there didn’t appear to be anything forgiving or tractable
there. All right then, goddamn you, he said. He took up a pen from the desk and signed
the paper quickly and shoved it away from him back across the desk.

Dad reached forward and took up the paper and looked at it, examined the signature
and the date, and folded the paper twice and put it in his shirt pocket.

Now I think you better go.

This isn’t treating me fair, this way.

No? I thought to myself I was being more than fair.

I deserve better. I’ve been working for you for going on five years.

That’s why I’m saying you better go now. Otherwise I might forget that.

The next day, Sunday, Clayton phoned Dad at home early in the afternoon. I need to
talk to you, he said.

We did all our talking last night.

I know. But I need to have one last talk with you.

About what?

Can you meet me at the store?

What are you going to do, shoot me or something? Dad said.

No. Christ. It’s nothing like that. I just need to try to make this right.

You can’t make it right.

I’m asking you. I’m saying please will you. Just talk to me.

Dad thought about it for a moment. All right then, he said. I’ll go in by the back
door and let you in the office. In one hour. Two o’clock sharp. Don’t make me wait.
This is not going to make no difference though.