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------- -------- ------- -------Thom had buried two husbands. It didn’t usually work that way in Maine. Mr.Chase and Mr. Titus were tough, stringy men who should have gone through several wives. Instead, Mr. Chase had died young of carelessness occasioned by strong drink, and Mr. Titus had been felled by a tree limb in late middle age. -------Thom was pale and heavy as a child and remained so throughout her life. She was also cheerful and willing, rarely missing a day’s work in thirty years as a practical nurse. -------Mr. Titus left Thom with a square and bare frame house on five acres of woodlot. Thom settled into semi-retirement on her social security and a small pension from the hospital. She took occasional nursing jobs and sold flaky pies. She’d have eaten herself into an oversized coffin if it weren’t for Jerry. -------Jerry had been part of the landscape for most of Thom's life. He was the small figure seen fleetingly at the edge of the woods or in the background of a photograph of the Fourth of July parade. He was scrawny even for a woodsman, a brown nut of a man who had lived in a lean-to since his mother’s house had been taken for back taxes. Jerry was strong for his size and a good worker. He made a few dollars now and then cutting wood and brush, but he had never held a regular job. Mostly Jerry drifted through the years. -------A few months after Mr. Titus’s funeral, Jerry appeared at Thom's back door and asked if she had work. Thom decided she did. -------"Where would you start?" she asked. ------ -------"How about them stumps, Mrs?" Jerry indicated the four foot tall tree stumps that surrounded the Titus house like obscene gestures. "I can cut 'em up for firewood. They're good and aged now. No trouble in your chimbley." -------"Could you dig them out?" -------Jerry thought about that a minute, a whole sixty second minute, and Thom was about to say something when Jerry began to sway. It was a nod, she realized. -------"Ayah," he said. "Take time." -------"I have time," Thom said. -------Jerry dug out the stumps. Thom made him a sandwich for lunch every day and sat with him while he ate. Jerry talked a little in his soft voice. Thom talked quite a bit. It took Jerry a month to dig out the stumps, and by the time he was done he had moved his few belongings into Thom's house. ------- -------“What are you doing with Jerry Weeks?” Ida asked her. Thom was helping Ida cook for company at Maple Lodge. The women would talk all day while they cooked twice as much food as the guests could eat. For every two pies they baked for the lodge, they’d bake one for themselves. They’d split a pie and a gallon of milk for lunch and take home two meals’ worth of leftovers. -------“What do you mean?” Thom said, but she knew what Ida meant. -------“You know what I mean,” Ida said. -------- “Well, he’s a man,” Thom said. -------“Not much of a man.” Ida snickered. -------“How would you know?” Thom asked. “At least he’ll be there when I get home.” -------This was a low blow, though not undeserved, as even Ida might have admitted. Her Harold was somewhere in Louisiana. -------“A little slow, ain’t he?” -------“Depends,” Thom said. -------It was about then that Oriana Walter came into the kitchen and gave Thom the idea. Oriana had been generous to Thom. Among other things, she’d had indoor plumbing installed in the Titus house. She was good to ‘poor dear Jerry’ too, often giving him work, to the annoyance of Roy, her full-time caretaker. -------“He’s a re-tard, Miz Walter,” Roy said. “He’ll make trouble.” -------When Roy annoyed Oriana, she ignored him. Roy grumbled and did pretty much what he pleased around the property, but Oriana paid the bills and got her way. -------“I hear you’re taking care of Jerry,” Oriana said. Ida often complained that Mrs. Walter breezed into the kitchen as if she owned the place. -------“He’s no trouble, ma’am,” Thom said. Forty years as a nurse had taught Thom the value of diplomacy. “He’s real helpful around the house.” -------“Hmmph,” Ida said. -------“He’s cutting wood for winter.” She glared at Ida. “We’ll keep warm.” -------Oriana leaned forward and peered at Thom. Her eyesight was becoming worse each year. When the neighbors saw her ‘57 Cadillac weaving down the center of the road they pulled over. -------“You don’t look well, dear. Why don’t you go to Florida for the winter?” -------“How can I do that, Miz Walter?” Thom asked. She was puzzled and slightly miffed. Oriana was never unkind. -------“Take the bus to Florida, and rent a room in Tarpon Springs.” Oriana had been insulated from much of life by her dead husband’s money, but she had flashes of practicality. ------- -------That October, Thom and Jerry did as Oriana suggested. They took a basket of food for the two-day trip and found a cheap room over a souvenir shop in Tarpon Springs. They bought day-old fish from the local market and cooked it on an illegal hot plate. Thom’s good nature expanded in the warmth, and Jerry seemed as much at home poking about the docks as wandering in the pine woods. He traded forest lore for fish stories. Jerry could talk almost eloquently about the woods for exactly seven minutes. After that, he began to repeat himself. If Thom were listening, she’d stop him with a nod. Jerry spent time each day admiring the bizarre varieties of sponge that were sold in the store below their room. -------“Them sponges...,” he’d say. -------“I know,” Thom said. -------They returned to Maine in the spring, tanned and well. -------There were others besides Ida who would have liked to know what went on between Thom and Jerry. Thom was her cheerful self, and Jerry began to emerge from the woods. Thom managed to get him to church a few times. He was still Jerry, even in a starched shirt and tie, but he caused no fuss, and everyone was pleasant to him. Once they were invited to a party for the “help” at Maple Lodge. Jerry sat stiffly on a straight chair, his feet barely touching the floor. He didn’t say a word, but he smiled the entire time. ------- -------Near the end of their third winter in Tarpon Springs, Thom and Jerry were sitting together on a park bench that overlooked the boats. Jerry watched the sponge divers clean their equipment while Thom read the paper. Eventually Thom dozed off. -------Jerry didn’t like to wake her. He didn’t like to do anything that Thom hadn’t asked him to do, but it was past time for lunch. -------“Thom,” he said, softly. When she didn’t answer, he poked her shoulder. He sat and looked at her for a long time, his hand lightly touching her doughy arm. Then he got up and went for a policeman. -------The police had some difficulty understanding Jerry, but gradually it became clear that Thom and Jerry might not be man and wife, and that Jerry had no resources and not much of an identity. Thom was buried in a local cemetery and the police gave Jerry a bus ticket back to Maine. ------- -------People were as nice to Jerry as they knew how to be. Thom had no heirs, and the taxes on her house had been paid. The selectmen thought they could let things go for a while. No one knew what to do about Jerry. -------Least of all, did Jerry know. He cut a winter’s worth of wood. He turned on the television, but couldn’t remember how to change the channels, and after a while he lost interest in watching the weather reports. He took the cardboard box from under Thom’s bed and looked at the money. He had no idea how much was in the box or what to do with it. He took a little for his pocket and put the rest back. He sat on the bed for a long time. -------A month after he came back from Florida, five weeks after Thom died, Jerry took a coil of good rope from the tool shed and went into the woods. ------- 2 Apr 03 ------- |