Benediction Read Online Free PDF

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.
    Thank you.
    Just before two, without telling Mary what he was doing, Dad went out to his car and
     drove across town to the hardware store and went in by the alley and left the door
     unlocked and turned the lights on. He entered the little office and switched the light
     on there and checked to see that the gun was in the drawer of the desk and then put
     it back, then he heard the car and Clayton was coming in at the alley door. He sat
     and waited, only it wasn’t Clayton who appeared. It was his wife, Tanya, the young
     blond woman.
    Where’s your husband? Dad said.
    He isn’t coming. I’m here.
    What are you doing here?
    She stepped into the little close windowless office. She was wearing a long coat,
     a man’s raincoat, a kind of slicker. She came around the end of the desk and stood
     three feet away from Dad. Then she opened the coat. She was naked under it. A young
     woman who had had two children in rapid