I set the phone down and simply stayed put in the darkness. My coffee had turned ice cold. My fingers were trembling, and while I tried convincing myself it was just the chill, I knew better.
I am seventy years old. I have laid my wife to rest. I have buried both my mother and father alongside most of my companions. I have endured heartbreak more times than I can count, believing by now that nothing could possibly catch me off guard.
Let me backtrack, because you need some context first.
My moniker is Frank. I reside by myself in a modest home situated at the end of Maple Court, a peaceful little cul-de-sac in a quiet suburb where excitement is virtually nonexistent. Or at least, that was my prior assumption.
My late wife Ellen and I purchased this dwelling forty-one years ago. We raised our boy here, weathered arguments, made peace, and grew grey together. She passed away three springs ago, and the house has felt cavernous ever since. I keep the thermostat adjusted to her preferred setting. I continue sleeping exclusively on my side of the mattress. Certain routines persist long after the person behind them is gone.
Then there is the truck.
It is a 1994 Ford pickup, faded azure, sporting a dented tailgate and a fractured corner on the windshield. It isn’t much to look at—I am well aware of that. People spot it in the drive and likely assume it belongs to a fellow who can afford nothing better.
Yet that vehicle and I share history.
Ellen and I acquired it together back when our son was still attending high school. We drove it up to the lake every summer. We hauled timber in the bed when constructing our back deck. We rushed to the hospital in it the night Ellen’s mother suffered her stroke, and we drove it home from the cemetery three days later without exchanging a single word the entire trip.
