Status Updates From Benediction (Vintage Contem...

"PEOPLE BEGAN TO COME to the house in the middle of the morning, to offer sympathy and gifts of food, and Berta May came over again to help. Mary and Lorraine had dressed in good clothes by now and they met the people at the door and brought a few in for a brief visit."

-Haruf, Kent. Benediction.

"WE HAVE TO GO over there a last time, Berta May said. I want to tell him good-bye. I want you to come with me."

-Haruf, Kent. Benediction.

"IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING the sermon Lyle began to wander in the town. After supper with his wife and son, he’d put on a jacket and cap and begin to walk—after the sun was down. It was usually nine or ten before he began."

-Haruf, Kent. Benediction.

"AFTERWARD IT WASN’T CLEAR what Lyle expected the sermon to accomplish. But he wasn’t even half-finished when some of the congregation, men mostly, hurrying their wives and children with them, but some women too, began to rise up from their pews and glare at him and walk out of the church."