Benediction

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WHEN THE TEST came back the nurse called them into the examination room and when the doctor entered the room he just looked at them and asked them to sit down. They could tell by the look on his face where matters stood.

Go on ahead, Dad Lewis said, say it.

I’m afraid I don’t have very good news for you, the doctor said.

When they went back downstairs to the parking lot it was late in the afternoon.

You drive, Dad said. I don’t want to.

Are you feeling so bad, honey?

No. I don’t feel that much worse. I just want to look out at this country. I won’t be coming out here again.

I don’t mind driving for you, she said. And we can come this way again anytime if you want to.

They drove out from Denver away from the mountains, back onto the high plains: sagebrush and soapweed and blue grama and buffalo grass in the pastures, wheat and corn in the planted fields. On both sides of the highway were the gravel county roads going out away under the pure blue sky, all the roads straight as the lines ruled in a book, with only a few small isolated towns spread across the flat open country.

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