They drove out on the Saturday morning in his good car, Lorraine behind the wheel, Dad in the passenger seat and Mary in the back. There was a robe over him and he was wearing his cap.
Now take it slow, he said. There’s no rush about this.
A bright hot windless July day, and they put the car windows down. They began by driving past Berta May’s yellow house and at the south end of the street where it met the highway they turned a block east and went down Date Street past the grade school and the playgrounds and the practice field and then up Cedar past the Methodist church and across to Birch where the banker lived and where the Community Church was located and then up Ash past the old white frame hotel that was only a broken-down rooming house now with a wide sagging porch and on past the Presbyterian church and the Catholic church and over to Main Street. They drove the length of Main without stopping, from the highway north to the juncture where you had to turn east or west. Which way now, Daddy? Lorraine said.
Go over here to the east, he said. I want to look at these streets too.
They went over a block and then south on Albany and over to Boston and Chicago where Rudy lived and onto Detroit where Bob’s house was and then onto the state highway and back to U.S. 34.
You’re going too fast, Dad said.
I can’t go slow on the highway.
Let them go around. It don’t matter.
Where to now?
Back up Main.
They went up the street again past the little houses that were built at the south end and the old water tower on its tall metal riveted legs and past the post office and then the three blocks of businesses.
Let’s go back in the alley here, Dad said.
She turned slowly into the dark alley behind the stores. The mismatched backs of the buildings, the jumble of various things, and only a few cars and pickups parked along the way in the potholed gravel.
Stop here, please, Dad said.
She parked the car and they sat in the alley behind the hardware store. He looked at it all, the old brick wall with white flaking paint and the rusted Dumpster and the telephone pole black with creosote, the old rear entrances of the businesses on either side.
He shook his head. I should of painted that back wall again.
It looks about the same as always to me, Lorraine said.
That’s what I mean.
Wooden pallets were stacked on one another, and there was the scarred wooden door with the window in it that peered out into the alley.
How many times I went in and out that door. Wasn’t that the way, Mary?
How many times do you think, honey?
Fifty-five years times six days a week times fifty-two, he said.
What’s that come to?
It comes to a lifetime.
That’s right. It amounts to a man’s lifetime, Dad said. All right. We’ve been here long enough. Drive us around front now, please.
Lorraine started the car and they came out on Main Street. Should we stop?
Yes, pull in here at the store.
She parked at the curb in the middle of the block. The store was two old brick buildings side by side with high false fronts. Dad sat looking at the plate-glass display windows with the signs touting table saws and generators. The wide front doors propped open on the hot Saturday morning. The new lawn mowers and garden tillers wheeled out on the sidewalk with chains run through them to keep anybody from taking off with them.
A woman came walking toward them, she stopped to peer in through the window, cupping her hands beside her face to block the glare. She glanced up the street and looked inside again and went on.
What did she want? Dad said. We would of had it for her.
She’s got to make up her mind, Mary said. She wants to take her time.