Free Benediction by Kent Haruf

over him. My mother had it in her breast.
    We heard about that. We’re very sorry.
    Alice looked out the doorway and said, She didn’t have blond hair like that waitress.
    Didn’t she?
    She had brown hair like me.
    Then she must have been a very pretty woman. I wish we had known her.
    How does she get her hair that way? So puffy like that.
    Well. She must blow-dry it and tease it and then pick it.
    As they drove back to town in the car after lunch, Alice was looking out the side
     window at the trees and the houses going by. My mother said teasing your hair could
     damage it, she said.

13
    O N THE PHONE Dad Lewis told Rudy and Bob to bring him the sales numbers in the morning this time
     since in the afternoons he wasn’t much good anymore, then he hung up and turned to
     Lorraine. Don’t you want to sit in with us so you can see for yourself what these
     store accounts look like?
    Daddy, they don’t want me there.
    How do you know that? It doesn’t matter what they want. If I tell them you’re sitting
     in, that’s what will happen.
    I’m still trying to decide if I want to at all.
    You have to make up your mind pretty soon. This isn’t going to go on forever, you
     know that. You can’t put it off much longer. If you don’t want to, I’ve got to do
     something else.
    I know, Daddy.
    So at midmorning the clerks came up on the porch and Rudy knocked quietly on the door.
     They removed their caps and Mary ushered them into the living room and served them
     coffee, and again they sat side by side on the couch as they had each time, as if
     they were attending a funeral service, and Dad was in his chair as always with a blanket
     over his knees and with his wood cane laid on the floor beside him.
    Rudy was a little quick voluble middle-aged man, with a balding head, and Bob was
     tall and skinny and slow, with thick graying hair combed straight back. Rudy held
     the store accounts in a file on his lap.
    You boys doing any good today? Dad said.
    We’re doing pretty good, Rudy said. How about you, Dad? It seems like you’re looking
     a lot better.
    Dad looked at him. Now that is bullshit and you know it.
    Well, you don’t look too much on the worse side, Bob said.
    Yeah. All right. He looked out the window and looked back. You want something to go
     with that coffee, you boys?
    No thanks, Rudy said.
    You, Bob?
    No thank you, I don’t think so. It’s still pretty early in the morning.
    All right then. Let’s see what you got there.
    Rudy stood up and set the file in Dad’s lap and sat back down. Dad took out the reading
     glasses from his shirt pocket and fit the thin bows over his ears and studied the
     pages. The two men bent forward and sipped their coffee, watching him.
    After a while Dad looked up. Any problem with any of this? he said.
    No. Not to speak of.
    Anything we do need to speak of, then?
    No. Don’t believe so, Dad.
    How many lawn mowers we sold this summer by now?
    Ten, Rudy said. He looked at Bob. Wasn’t it?
    That sounds about right.
    Last summer we sold fifteen, Dad said.
    Things have been slower this year, Rudy said.
    Why’s that now?
    They’re not building no new houses in town. That’s mainly it. That’s how I account
     for it.
    What do you say, Bob?
    It’s like what he said. And it’s this new mower we ordered in. It costs more.
    It’s a better machine, Dad said.
    Yeah. But it costs more.
    Well yeah, it costs more, Bob. Goddamn it, it’s got to cost more.
    Bob inspected his hands. People don’t like to spend too much money on a lawn mower.
    All right, Bob. I take your point. Dad opened the file again. Hefound the line he was looking for. What about this accounts receivable? How come that’s
     still so high?
    That’s old Miss Sprague, Rudy said.
    What about her?
    She bought that freezer.
    I remember she bought it. She bought it before I got sick.
    Well. She stopped paying anything on it.
    Did you call her?
    Yes sir. I called her. Called her two times.
    Then did you go to see