Minutes after he pulled into his driveway Saturday, William McVeigh had changed into shorts and a dirty baseball cap, thrown a pair of Polish sausages on the gas grill and stooped over the flower beds in his front yard, pail in hand, pulling up weeds from among the marigolds and alyssum. The work of survival had just begun.
McVeigh returned home alone from Denver, where a jury had recommended on Friday that his son, Timothy, be condemned to die for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. William McVeigh, 57, said that he was exhausted from the trial but that resting would only make him think more about his son's predicament."It'll probably all hit me hard later on," he said in an interview as he worked, shortly before heading inside to watch a bit of country-music television. "I'm just going to try to keep busy. The lawn needs mowing. The gardening's about a week behind. I have plenty to do, and that keeps my mind off this."
Early Sunday, McVeigh was at full speed and on a tight schedule. He went to the 8 o'clock Mass at Good Shepherd Roman Catholic Church, where Father Paul Belzer asked congregants to pray for the McVeigh family. Afterward, he was one of the first to leave.
Then he spent several hours tending his one-acre property here, along a rural highway north of Buffalo. He was due back at work at 10:30 Sunday night for his usual graveyard shift at Harrison Radiator.
He was gracious and friendly, but he said he had agreed to talk only because there was not the usual crowd of reporters and cameramen outside his home.
McVeigh said he intended to visit his son in prison as soon as he found out where he would be held. For now, he said, he just hopes that the media will leave him alone.
"I know it's never going to be over," he said. "That's the toughest part of it for me."