Benediction Read Online Free PDF Page B

succession and she showed it. Her belly was
     round and slack and had white stretch marks. She had wide hips. Her large breasts
     sagged a little. But she wasn’t bad-looking.
    You can have all this, she said. You can have all this as often and regular as you
     want it for an entire year. I know some special things too that might interest you.
    If what, Dad said.
    If you tear up that paper he signed last night and we all forget anything ever happened.
    He looked at her face. Her face was quite pretty. She was watching him closely, her
     eyes fierce and hard and scared, daring him. Waiting.
    No, he said. No, I’m not interested. You’re going to take this wrong but I’m not going
     to do anything like that. Your husband’s wrong as hell to get you into this.
    I don’t care about that, she said.
    You will.
    She opened the front of the raincoat wider, as if she hadn’t offered herself sufficiently.
     She changed her stance, pushing herself forward, displaying her body. She put a hand
     on one hip, moving the skirt of the coat out of the way. She turned slightly to show
     herself in profile. Do you see? she said. Are you looking?
    Yes, he said. And I’m married and my wife is all I want and all I’ll ever want.
    You’re not looking good enough, she said.
    Yeah I am. I think you better go on now.
    You’re going to regret this. You’re going to wish you could change your mind.
    No. That’s not going to happen, Dad said. Now I want you to get out of here.
    She pulled the coat together and looked at Dad sitting in the swivel chair at the
     desk. Then the coat came open once more and her breasts swung and bobbled with the
     violent motion and she slapped him as hard as she could across the face. It left a
     bright red mark. Then she turned and went out of the office.
    It snowed that night as Clayton had predicted the day before that it would. A wet
     snow more like one in March or April than one inFebruary, and the next day Clayton and Tanya took the two children and some few quick
     belongings in suitcases and cardboard boxes and drove a hundred miles south and moved
     into a house with her parents.
    In the spring a couple of months later on a slow day Dad received a call. He was in
     the little office again, in the middle of the morning. The voice on the other end,
     a female voice, was already screaming when he picked up the phone.
    You son of a bitch! He killed himself! You son of a bitch.
    Who is this?
    You know who it is. He went to Denver and started drinking and took a gun and blew
     half his head off. He never even left a note. Because of you. You did this. You’re
     the one that made him. Oh I hope you rot in hell! Oh goddamn you! I hope you burn
     in hellfire forever.

5
    M IDMORNING she was out on the front porch in the still fresh bright heat of the day with the
     old wooden-handled broom she kept for the porch and sidewalk, sweeping across the
     gray-painted wood boards, some of them warped and coming apart at the joints. At the
     front window she looked inside and Dad was sitting in his chair staring out into the
     side yard. She wondered what he was thinking about. If he was thinking about how his
     death would come for him, in what manner it would take him away. He never talked of
     it. She swept up the dead tree leaves and the dirt that had blown in. There was always
     dirt on the front porch, even in winter. She was glad of that, in a way. She was sweeping
     it off onto the bare ground next to the cement foundation of the old house when Lorraine
     came out and said she had a phone call.
    I didn’t hear the phone.
    It’s some woman asking for you.
    Did she say who it was?
    No. But I wish you’d let me do this, Mom. You don’t need to be sweeping out here.
    Yes I do. I have to get outside. This gives me an excuse to be out here. She leaned
     the broom against the house wall and Lorraine handed her the phone and went back inside.
    Yes. This is Mary. She stood facing out across the street.
    This is