Benediction

33

THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW she was gone until half the morning had passed. Dad woke late and turned his head on the pillow and saw she was not in the bed, though that was not unusual, she often was up and dressed and out in the kitchen working by the time he woke. He called for her. Then he tried to push out of bed but was too weak and called again. Finally he couldn’t wait any longer. He wet the diaper he was wearing and he lay there wet and sopping under his pajamas, feeling angry and uncomfortable.

After a while Lorraine came in. Where’s Mom?

I don’t know. I been calling for her.

She’s nowhere in the house, Lorraine said. I can’t find her.

Is she over next door?

Maybe. Can I help you, Daddy?

I made a mess of things.

Did you?

I’m all wet down here on myself. Some of it might of come out. I got to get out of bed but I can’t without somebody helping me.

Will you let me change you and put some dry clothes on?

I want Mom here.

I know. But Mom isn’t here right now, Daddy.

Where is she?

I’ll have to find out. Let’s get you cleaned up first.

She helped him from the bed and he hobbled into the bathroom in his sagging pajamas and stood like a child at the hospital commode while she peeled off his pants and the diaper. She handed him a washcloth to clean himself and afterward she washed his skinny behind. He was shaking. Goose bumps appeared on his flanks and legs.

Do you want to sit down here for a while? she said. See if you can go some more?

Yeah. I better.

She went out, giving him his privacy, and looked out the front window to the street and came back and helped him put on a new diaper and clean sweatpants and a cardigan sweater. He came out of the bathroom shuffling, sliding his feet in his slippers, using his cane, and moved to his chair by the window.

The car isn’t here, Lorraine said. I just looked. She must have gone to the store.

She’s been gone too long for that. You want to ask Berta May if she knows where she is? You’ll have to go over there. She don’t answer the phone every time.

Next door Lorraine stood on the front porch and when Berta May came to the door they went inside the house and Berta May said she hadn’t seen her mother this morning. Then Alice came in and they asked her and she told them she was riding her bike when Mrs. Lewis came up in the car and said, Now you be careful out here. Are you watching for cars? And I said I was watching.

Then what?

Then she drove away.

Do you remember what she was wearing? Lorraine said.

She had a dress on.

You’re sure.

Yes. A blue one.

Back at home Lorraine began to look around more carefully and she found the note now that had blown off or fallen off under the little stand where the phone was located.

It was written in brief neat script, with no salutation and no closing, just the one line. I went to find Frank.

She had gotten up early from the bed when it was just turning light outside. Dad looked gray in the dim light, breathing slow and hard, his mouth belling out when he exhaled, making a rattling kind of noise. She removed her nightgown and pulled the dress off the hanger in the dark closet where she’d hung it the night before, and put it on and carried her shoes out to the kitchen, turning the light on there, and sat down on a kitchen chair to tie her shoes. She put bread in the toaster and started coffee, then went back into the bathroom to wash her face and apply a little lipstick to her mouth, watching herself in the mirror, her deeply wrinkled face, and brushed her thick short white hair. When she went back to the kitchen, the coffee was ready and she filled a thermos and spread butter on the toast, put it in a plastic bag, and took the thermos and her purse and went silently out the front door into the beautiful cool Sunday morning.

In the street she stopped to talk to Alice on her bicycle and then headed west on U.S. 34, toward Brush, and passed Fort Morgan on the interstate and went on toward Denver. Along the way she drank the coffee and ate the toast.

She was all right until she got to Denver. But then there was a lot of road construction and they had the men at work even on a Sunday morning. She got lost in the detours and roadblocks and ended up in the north side of the city. It was half an hour before she had any idea where she was at all.

She pulled into a corner gas station. There were no other cars at the pumps or parked at the cinder-block office but she could see an old man sitting behind the counter. She got out and locked the car and looked all around and went inside. The man looked up. He wasn’t as old as she had thought. It was just that he had gray hair, which was combed back on both sides of his head, with a wave pulled up above his face in the way the boys used to do when she was young. He’d been reading a newspaper spread out on the counter.

Good morning, she said.

Yeah. Morning.

I’m just going to tell you right out. I’m lost. All that construction turned me in the wrong direction. I’m trying to get downtown.

Lady, he said, you don’t ever want to tell people you’re lost. You don’t know what they might do to you.

Oh, I don’t think people would do anything to me. Look at me here. I’m an old woman. She stood in the middle of the little room watching him.

You never know, he said. You can’t tell.

All right, I won’t say it again. But can you help me or not, do you think?

Yeah. I can help you.

He got up and went over to the rack on the wall next to the entrance and took down a map of Denver.

Oh, she said. Do you have to do all that?

What else am I going to do?

He went around to his side of the counter and opened the map and showed her where she was and pointed out the streets to take downtown.

But I can’t drive according to maps, she said.

He looked at her. Why not?

I don’t know. I just can’t. It’s the way I look at things and the way my mind works.

Well, can you just remember, if I tell you?

No. Not like I used to.

I don’t know what I’m going to do then. What do you want me to do?

I want you to tell me slowly and I’ll write it down. I’ll take the turns you say, left or right, from off the paper.

But I got this map here for you. It’d be the same thing.

No, a map wouldn’t do any good.

Well, he said. If that’s what you want.

Then he told her very patiently and she wrote on the blank side of a flyer for a car auction all the directions he gave her, and folded the paper and put it in her purse.

How’s the gas in your car? he said. You don’t want to take any chances.

Thank you for asking. I’m all right that way. But I wonder if I could use your restroom.

Go ahead. It’s right there.

The restroom wasn’t very clean. She put paper down on the toilet and afterward washed her hands thoroughly, and looking in the mirror she applied some new lipstick, and she thought her red mouth and her white hair looked striking together, then she came back out to the office where the man was. Thank you, she said. I feel like I ought to buy something, for all your trouble.

Is there something you need in here?

No. I don’t think so.

Then you don’t need to buy anything. It’s no trouble. Just don’t tell nobody else you’re lost.

I’m not lost now, she said. Aren’t these directions good?

Yeah, they’ll get you there.

Thank you, she said. You’re a good man.

No, he said. He looked out toward the gas pumps. I don’t know if my wife would agree with you.

Why not?

All the water under the bridge.

You mean something happened.

Yeah.

But you’re still together.

As of this morning we are.

Do you still want to stay with her?

She’s the one I want. Always has been. There’s no mix-up in that direction.

Then you’ve got to make her see it that way.

Doing what?

I don’t know. That’s for you to know.

I’m pretty sure she’s give up on me.

No, she hasn’t. I doubt if she has. You wouldn’t still be in the house.

No. I think she has. She’s give up. It’s over for her. She don’t feel the same way no more.

But you’re a good man, I can see that. I could write her a note as a testimony.

Oh lord, wouldn’t that be something.

Do you want me to?

Yeah. Sure. Why not? Hell, what harm’s it going to do?

You have any more paper to write on?

Sure. Write on this.

He gave her another flyer with a blank back.

What’s your name? she said.

Ed.

She started to write, then stopped. Your wife’s name?

Mary.

That’s my name, she said.

Glad to meet you, he said. He stuck his hand out above the counter and they shook hands. She wrote, Dear Mary, you don’t know me but I met your husband Ed this morning at the gas station and he was very kind to me. I have the feeling he’s a good man. I have a good one at home myself so I know, even if some people might not think so but I’ve known him for fifty years. I wish all happy days for you. Signed, Mary Lewis, your friend (unknown). She folded the paper. Don’t read that till I get away from here, she said.

Why’s that now?

It wouldn’t be any good then. It would jinx it.

I won’t, he said. You take care of yourself now.

I’m on my way to see my son, she said, and went out and got in the car and drove away.

In downtown Denver there wasn’t much traffic yet since it was still only midmorning on a Sunday, and by sheer luck and instinct she drove to the street where Frank’s apartment was located and parked and locked the car doors and walked up the sidewalk to the porch of the old run-down frame house. It had not been painted in the years since she and Dad had been there. She knocked and waited. She looked at the next house and it looked just like this one. She tried the door. It was unlocked. She stepped into the dark hallway which ran back to two closed doors the way she remembered, and she went quietly up the stairs to the apartment where Frank had lived. A short Mexican woman came to the door. A program in Spanish was playing on the TV behind her. Is Frank here? she said.

What?

Does Frank still live here?

Is no Frank here.

Mary looked at the other doors. Have you been here a long time?

Me?

Yes. How long has it been since you moved here?

I don’t know.

You don’t know?

Not very long.

Is anybody else here?

My husband is sleeping.

She looked past the woman into the apartment. I’m looking for my son. I’m looking for Frank Lewis.

I don’t know this man.

We haven’t seen him for a long time. I don’t know where he is. He wouldn’t talk to us.

No? Why?

Because of him and my husband. What happened between them. And all of us.

Did he hit him?

No. It wasn’t like that.

Oh, I’m sorry for you.

Mary looked at her, and her eyes smarted with tears now. Thank you, she said.

I’m sorry you can’t see your son.

Thank you for your kindness.

Then the woman suddenly reached and hugged her and Mary held the woman tightly in return and stepped back and thanked her again and managed to smile a little and went down to her car. She sat a while. Then she drove until she found Broadway and the corner café that Frank had worked in and parked where Dad had parked when they had come looking for Frank on that winter evening when the floodlights were all lighted up at Civic Center.

The inside of the café wasn’t black and white anymore, but all yellow and brown. There were a lot of people out on Sunday morning eating brunch. She stood at the door waiting until someone would come to lead her to a booth or table. She couldn’t see Frank among the waiters hurrying in the room.

Then she was seated at a small table near the back and she ordered a breakfast of eggs and toast and coffee and sat watching the people with their families and their friends, they all had someone to dine with and talk to. The waitress who came was a young girl. Later when she brought the bill Mary said, You don’t know anybody by the name of Frank do you?

You mean here?

Yes. Somebody who works here.

There’s nobody by that name here.

He might have been called Franklin.

You could ask Janine. She’s worked here the longest.

Where is she?

That’s her over there.

Would you ask her if I could talk to her?

We’re pretty busy.

Just for a minute. Would you ask her, please?

The girl went over to the woman wearing red-framed eyeglasses, she looked too old to still be working. The girl said something to her and after a while the woman came over. You’re looking for somebody?

I’m looking for a young man named Frank. Or he might have called himself Franklin.

Franklin Lewis? He used to be here. When I first started he was working here. That was a long time ago.

I know. It would have to be. He’s not here now?

He’s been gone for years. And he wouldn’t be very young now. I’m lucky I even remember him.

Where did he go?

No idea. Him and his boyfriend took off someplace together.

His boyfriend.

That younger kid he was with.

Why did they leave?

The waitress looked at her closely. Ma’am, how much of this do you want to know?

Whatever you can tell me.

All right then. The owner found Franklin with some of the café’s money. I heard he’d been taking it for months.

I don’t believe that.

You said you wanted to hear this.

I don’t believe Frank would steal.

He had some of the money, that’s all I know. I don’t remember how they discovered it but the owner gave him a break, told him he could just give it back and leave.

He must have had a reason, Mary said. Her eyes filled with tears again.

I’m sorry. Can I get you something?

No. I’m all right. I just need to sit a minute.

The old waitress moved away and Mary sat still for a while and then stood up and placed money on the table and went out to her car. It was a little past noon.

She was four hours driving home. She drove cautiously getting out of Denver and went too slow on the interstate so that cars and trucks racing past honked at her. By the time she reached Brush she was so tired that she stopped in the parking lot at McDonald’s and put the seat back and rolled the windows down. She went to sleep at once. An hour and a half later when she woke she was sweaty and hot.

She started the car, turning the air-conditioning on, and ordered a large cup of iced tea at the drive-up window and then drove back to Holt through the wide-open flat country and the mile roads and the pastures and the stubble. In town she turned north on her own street and looked at all the houses and then parked at home. She took her purse and the empty thermos and passed through the wrought iron gate and on up to the house. It was quiet inside. As soon as she stepped through the door Lorraine came out from the kitchen. Mom. Are you all right? You look tired. You had us scared.

I’m all right.

You shouldn’t take off like that all alone.

Well, I did.

And you’re all right. Nothing happened.

I’m worn out, that’s all.

Did you find him?

No. He wasn’t at the café.

That was so long ago, Mom.

I had to look somewhere. I tried his apartment too. I don’t know where he is. He’s disappeared. He’s out in the world someplace, in thin air. He’s not coming back.

No. I don’t think he is, Mom. He doesn’t want to be found anymore.

I can’t just forget him. I can’t.

I know.

Well, she said. She put her purse and the thermos on the table and looked around. How’s Dad?

About the same. Maybe a little worse.

What did he say about me leaving?

He didn’t know what to say. Neither one of us did.

Well, I’m back now.

She walked into the bedroom and he was lying on his back, the sheet over him. He turned to see her. His eyes looked dull. Is that you? he said.

Yes, honey. I’m home now.

Did you find him?

No. I never found him. She came close to the bed. How are you this evening?

Not much good.