Will you pray for Dad?
They went in the room and sat on the bedside chairs and Mary and Lorraine and Berta May and Lyle held hands, looking at Dad. He lay facing the door now. They bowed their heads. May we be at peace together with Dad Lewis here, Lyle said softly. May there be peace and love and harmony in this room. May there be the same in all the difficult and conflicted world outside this house. May this man—he stopped and spoke directly to Dad in the bed—may you leave this physical world without any more pain or regrets or unhappiness or remorse or self-doubt or worry and may you let all your trials and troubles and cares pass away. May you simply be at peace. May each of us here in this room be at peace as well. Now we ask all of these blessings in the name of Jesus, who himself was the Prince of Peace. Amen.
Thank you, Lorraine whispered.
Afterward they talked quietly and watched Dad and looked out the window to the hot summer day, to the flatland beyond the house.
Would you be willing to tell us about your life? Lyle said. This would be a good time to talk.
Oh, nobody wants to hear that, Mary said.
Yes, we do. Of course we do.
She looked at him and then looked at her old husband lying in the bed with the sheet and blanket spread over him.
We met on the corner of Second and Main Street in the summer of 1947 right here in Holt. I was coming out of a store and Dad was crossing the street.
What store was it, Mom? Was it the Tavern?
Don’t be funny, Mary said. It was the department store. I was standing in front of Schulte’s on the corner trying to think about something.
What were you thinking about?
I was deciding if I had got everything I needed. I was sewing something. And Dad was walking toward me. I was thinking about my sewing and I stepped off the curb and walked right into him. I almost fell down but he reached and caught me. He helped me back up onto the curb. I was embarrassed. Oh excuse me, I said. Please. I wasn’t watching. And he said, I was coming toward you anyways, miss. You didn’t have to fall for me.
They looked at Dad in the bed, trying to see him as a young man. They looked at his back and the shape of his sharp hip and puny legs under the blanket.
That was his little joke. I suppose it doesn’t sound very funny anymore. But I did fall for him. That’s the whole truth. I did with my whole heart. And that’s how and when I fell.
Then what, Mom?
Oh, you’ve heard all this before.
I want to hear it again. We all do.
Well, then we went to the pharmacy. Brown’s Drugstore. They had some little round drugstore tables to sit down at, at the back. We drank soda drinks and got acquainted. Then he asked me out that weekend to a picture show and six months later we got married and two years after that you came along and in three more years we had your brother.
Lyle and Berta May looked at Lorraine now and looked again at Dad, breathing so slow and hard.
What were you wearing? Lorraine said.
What was I wearing when?
When you met Daddy at the corner on Main.
Well, it was in the summer. I’m sure I was wearing a dress. We only wore dresses back then, didn’t we, Berta May.
Stockings too if we was leaving the house, she said.
What was Dad wearing? Lyle said.
Mary looked at Dad. I suppose he was wearing pants.
They laughed, but quietly.
I mean trousers. He wasn’t wearing overalls, like a lot of men did. And he had on a light blue long-sleeved shirt with stripes in it. He was already working at the hardware store. His sleeves were rolled up on his arms. Oh, I can still see him.
Did he own the store then? Lyle said.