Cyrus
Cyrus Gentry came to the plant in 1979, from an Ohio dairy that had shut down. He was thirty then, tall and slow-talking, with a long face and wire glasses, and the quietest person I ever worked beside.
He never raised his voice. He whistled hymns while he scrubbed the floor drains, always a half step off, and none of us ever had the heart to tell him.
He had a little girl, Wilhelmina, who went by Billie. Her mother had left when Billie was three, and Cyrus raised her alone in a rented house on Tackett Road.
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On Saturdays when he worked a half shift he would bring her along, and she would sit on an overturned milk crate in the corner of the cheese room with a coloring book, swinging her feet.
Every hour or so Cyrus would pull a handful of curds from the press and drop them in her palm, still warm, still squeaking against her teeth.
He was the one who covered for the rest of us, and I have to tell you that part, because it is the part that shames me worst.
When Annalee, our oldest, had the croup, Cyrus took my Tuesday and my Thursday and never put it on a list. When my father died and I needed a week, I got two.
He never once asked for anything back. I had gotten so used to it that I did not notice it was a debt. That is the thing about a good man. He never sends you the bill.