Eventide by Kent Haruf

counter, and she had scrubbed the enameled top of the old stove, tidied the kitchen table and set chairs in place around it and had swept the floor. She was in the downstairs bedroom when Guthrie came in and found her.
    You about ready to go? he said.
    I thought Raymond had better stay down here, she said. He won’t want to climb the stairs with that cast on his leg.
    I hadn’t thought of that, Guthrie said. He watched her draw the sheet tight and tuck it in and spread a quilt over the bed. What about Victoria and Katie? I thought this was their room.
    I’m going to move the crib out into the parlor. And make up a bed on the couch for Victoria.
    You think she’s going to stay a while.
    She’ll want to.
    What about her classes?
    I don’t know. She’ll want to be here to take care of him. I know that.
    He isn’t going to like it, Guthrie said. Raymond won’t want her staying home and missing school on his account.
    No. He won’t. But I think he’ll have to accept it. Will you help me take this crib apart so we can get it through the door?
    I’ll get my tools.
    Guthrie went out to the pickup and found pliers and a couple of screwdrivers and a wrench in the toolbox behind the cab and came back inside. After taking the crib apart and wheeling it into the parlor, they put it back together and stood it against the wall, then made up a bed on the old couch with clean sheets and a pair of green wool blankets and a much-yellowed pillow that Maggie found in the closet. They stood back and looked at this new arrangement. The walls of the room were papered over with an ancient flower pattern that was a good deal faded and showed water stains at the ceiling, and the two plaid recliner chairs were set across from the old console television.
    I think we can go now, Maggie said.
    They shut the lights off and went out to the pickup. From the outside the paintless clapboard house appeared all the more desolate in the blue glow of the yardlight at the corner of the garage. So insubstantial and paltry that the wind might blow through and find no resistance at all.
     
    W HEN THEY HAD COME OFF THE GRAVELED COUNTY ROAD and had turned north on the blacktop toward Holt, Maggie said: I can’t help but worry about him. What do you think he’s going to do now?
    What can he do? Guthrie said. He’ll do what he has to.
    You’ll help him, won’t you.
    Of course I will. I’ll be out there tomorrow morning before school. And I’ll come out again after school lets out. I’ll bring Ike and Bobby with me. But he’s still going to be alone.
    She’ll want to stay with him.
    Victoria, you mean.
    Yes. And Katie.
    But that can’t last forever. You know that.
    I know, Maggie said. It wouldn’t be good if it did. Not for him or them either. But I’m still worried about him.
    They drove on along the blacktop. The narrow highway looked empty and forlorn ahead in the lights of the pickup. The wind blew across the flat open sandy ground, across the wheat fields and corn stubble and across the native pastures where dark herds of cattle grazed in the night. On either side of the highway farmhouses were set off by faint blue yardlights, the houses all scattered and isolated in the dark country, and far ahead down the highway the streetlights of Holt were a mere shimmer on the low horizon.
    Maggie sat next to Guthrie in the cab and stared ahead at the center stripe in the road. I think I’ll ask Victoria if she wants to stay with me, she said. She won’t want to be alone in that house tonight.
    She’s going to have to stay in it sometime.
    Not tonight, Maggie said. She’s had enough to get used to for one day.
    She’s not the only one, Guthrie said. That poor old son of a bitch. Think of him.
    Yes, Maggie said. She looked at Guthrie and slid over nearer in the seat and sat close beside him. She put her hand on his thigh and left it there as they rode along in the dark. They passed the small square sign at the side of the road that announced they