Benediction by Kent Haruf

out on the porch and stopped,
     looking at Dad.
    What are you doing?
    Nothing.
    Oh don’t give him one of those things. He doesn’t need something more to make him
     worse.
    What can it hurt, Mom? Come sit down.
    I’m just holding it, Dad said.
    You’re both foolish, Mary said. She seated herself and after a while she and her daughter
     began to move the swing.
    Do you remember when you caught us smoking in the barn? Lorraine said.
    Corrupting your brother, Dad said.
    It was my job. I was the big sister.
    By three years.
    Big enough.
    I made you smoke the whole pack afterward.
    It was only a couple more cigarettes.
    Was it.
    But you stood there and made us.
    It didn’t do any good. Did it.
    No.
    How old were you?
    I was eleven, Frank was eight. About Alice’s age.
    Who’s Alice?
    The little girl next door with Berta May.
    All right.
    Her mother died of breast cancer.
    I remember now, Dad said. I know.
    Later, when the three of them were still talking, Dad said: You could come back and
     run the store. You’re already here. You wouldn’t even have to leave. You could stay
     here and run it.
    I don’t know if I want to do that, Daddy.
    It’s all in the will, he said. It goes to Mom and then to you aftershe’s gone. You could learn how. You’re quick and you know how to manage people. You
     manage people already.
    Just four people in the office.
    That’s enough. You wouldn’t have to take care of that many here. There’s Rudy and
     Bob and the bookkeeper. They’ve been with me so long they don’t need much managing.
    They’re used to you, Lorraine said. They wouldn’t want somebody new coming in and
     telling them what to do.
    They’d get used to it.
    I doubt it.
    They’d get used to it. Or else, you’d let them go. You can think about it. Will you
     do that?
    I don’t know, Daddy. We’ll see. What do you think, Mom?
    I think it’d be nice to have you here. You could live with me in the house.
    We’d make each other unhappy. You know we would.
    Well, I don’t either know that, Mary said. You wouldn’t make me unhappy. But you mean
     what I’d do to you.
    I didn’t mean anything, Mom. I’ve just been away for so long.
    They looked at Dad. He was staring out into the street past the trees and the fence.
     Does it hurt you, Daddy, for us to be talking about what will happen after you’re
     gone?
    I don’t want to know all of that. What I want to know about is the store. I want that
     figured out.
    But if I took over, what about Frank?
    What do you mean? Frank won’t be coming back.
    But what about him? How is he mentioned in the will?
    He’s not mentioned.
    Why isn’t he?
    Because he left.
    So did I.
    But not like he did. We don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. We don’t know nothing
     about him no more. We haven’t had contact in years.
    I used to hear from him, Lorraine said. He’d call me on the phone at work.
    When was this?
    When he was still in Denver. Then I didn’t hear from him anymore. I tried to find
     him but I couldn’t. We used to meet and go out to a bar and talk.
    Honey, we know you did that, Mary said. We thought you were talking about something
     different.
    He always wanted to meet at a particular bar downtown. He’d come in as he always did,
     like he was sick, or hungry. Maybe he was, both. He’d sit down and look around. I’m
     paying, I’d tell him. Then I’ll have something good, he’d say. We’d smoke and when
     the drinks came he’d take a long swallow and say, Goddamn. Here’s to happier days,
     and then he’d start talking.
    About what? Dad said.
    Oh anything. His work. His friends. What guy he was living with.
    We don’t need to hear about that.
    I know, Daddy. He was just so sad sometimes and so blue.
    He was always sad, Mary said. As he grew older, I mean. Not when he was little.
    He’d be drunk by the time we finished for the night. Sometimes he’d get funny too.
    What do you mean?
    Oh, he could be funny. He had style. He could be really