The Stranger Who Tended Roy’s Grave

“Mrs. Hendricks,” Russ said. “I brought a check today. It isn’t much compared to what I owe, but I’d like to give it to the church fund in his name, if that’s all right with you. I’d like to give it to the next kid.”

“Russ,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Put your check away.”

He blinked at me.

“Roy would be mortified,” I said. “He never took a dime for kindness in his life. He would stand right there, with his hat in his hand, and say, aw, now, that’s not necessary. You’d have to give it to him sideways.” I pushed myself to my feet with the cane, and I want you to know that was a trial, because my hip had set up on that cold bench. He jumped up to help and I let him. “But I will tell you what he’d take.”

“What’s that?”

“Have you had breakfast?”

He stood there, a fifty-year-old man with a gray beard, holding his ball cap, and his mouth worked, and then he said, very low, “No, ma’am.”

“Then you follow me home.”

We left the clippers and the mums where they were. I told him we would put the flowers in the vase on the way back. I would not have him leave them lying on the ground. He walked beside me to Roy’s stone, and I filled the vase with water from the jug I keep in my trunk, and he set the yellow mums into it, one at a time, fixing each stem. I stood before my husband’s name and the dates under it and the little cross at the top, and I laid my hand flat on the cold stone like I do.

“Roy Hendricks,” I said. “You old fool. You never told me.”

The wind moved the cedars. It did not answer, but I think it heard.

Russ took off his cap again and bowed his head. I had not asked him to. He said, quiet, “Thank you for the sandwiches, Mr. Hendricks. I’m sorry it took me so long.” And I said amen, and I meant it with my whole heart.

I made him pancakes. I do not cook much these days, one person does not need a skillet, but I mixed up a whole batch of batter and fried bacon and eggs and set out the last of my peach preserves from the summer. He ate like a man who was ten years old and had been given a sandwich. He had four pancakes, and I put two more on his plate and he did not argue.