She got in the car and drove off up the street. The street looked hot and dry. A dust rose up behind her.
When they went back into the house Dad was asleep again. Later in the morning they woke him when Rudy and Bob came to show him the store accounts, knowing he’d be disappointed if they didn’t.
The window was open in the bedroom and there was a warm breeze blowing in but even so Dad lay in the bed with the blanket pulled up over him. Now he propped himself on the pillows and Rudy and Bob carried two chairs into the bedroom and Lorraine followed them and sat in the big chair that was always in the corner. Dad looked at the two men.
Lorraine’s going to join us here, he said. I mentioned that the last time.
We know, Dad, said Rudy.
Okay. I didn’t know if you remembered.
Yeah. We remembered.
Well. How you doing? How’s it going these days?
We’re doing good. And you, Dad, that’s what we want to know.
I’m going down, I guess, he said. I can feel it.
Are you hurting?
Not very much.
He is, Lorraine said. But he won’t take all his pain pills.
You ought to take your pills there, Dad, said Bob.
I will when it gets bad enough. I want to be awake as much as I can. I don’t want to faze out.
Yeah, but if you’re in a lot of pain, Dad. We wouldn’t want to think you was hurting too much.
I appreciate that. That’s what they keep saying too.
He won’t listen to us, Lorraine said.
No, he always had his own mind, didn’t he, Bob said.
And I still got it, Dad said. What’s left of it. You sound like I’m not here already. I don’t want no pity either. You remember that. He looked at the two men and looked at Lorraine. All right, will you show me the accounts? You better do it soon. I seem to sleep all the time now. I seem to want to sleep.
Rudy stood and laid the store accounts in their folder on the bed beside Dad and he picked them up. Hand me my glasses there will you, honey? he said. Lorraine gave him his glasses and he looked briefly at the papers and then pushed the folder across the bed to her. You look at them, he said.
I will. Can they be left here?
We have other copies, Bob said.
I’ll look at them later.
So, Dad said. Everything’s all right down there?
Yes sir. No problems to talk about this week.
I don’t guess I’d much care if there was. I’m too tired.
You need to rest. That’s the best thing. Leave this to us.
He studied them for a while. I was thinking about that old spinster lady again after you left the last time. She come to my mind. When I was laying here. What’s her name?
Miss Sprague, Rudy said. The old lady with the freezer, you’re talking about.
Yes, her.
Did you change your mind? You want us to repossess it?
No. But she’s all alone, isn’t she.
There’s nobody over there except her, that I know of. Never has been. So far as anybody else knows either.
I want you boys to help her.
How do you mean?
I don’t know. But I want you to find some kind of help for her. Somebody to look in on her.
You mean hire somebody.
Something like that. You figure it out. Lorraine can help you. I don’t want her left alone over there in that house of hers.
Yes, we can do that, Lorraine said.
You can pay for it out of the store. Get some kind of caretaker for her. Some older woman or somebody. But it needs to be taken care of.
We will, Rudy said.
And another thing. I was remembering that fellow Floyd down there in Oklahoma.
About his story, you mean?
The one that drowned, Dad said. That’s not funny no more. The man went over the side of that boat into the lake and didn’t come up. He was alive, then he died and his life has to mean more than just a story some guy that comes up here from Texas tells us that’s on some combine crew.
You want us to do something there too? Rudy said. I don’t see what we can do about that.
No. I’m just saying. Telling you what I’ve been thinking about while I’m laying here. It’s not funny to me no more. Not this morning, anyway.
If that’s how you feel, Bob said.