The Plight of Tucker Thompson

Millie Thompson hung her apron on a peg by the hearth. Her husband, Jake, knelt before the continual fire, prodding the logs with an iron poker, coaxing more warmth for the snowy winter evening. He added a small locust log, and flames curled around it and into the flue.

“Where’s the boy?” asked Millie.

“Was just here.”

Next to the fireplace was the roughed-in stairway Jake had just built to replace the pole ladder that led to the loft bedroom of their log home. The balustrade and banister were still in his workshop awaiting finishing touches. Their toddling son, Tucker, had pulled a small wooden cart up the steep stairway to the landing where he was playing near the edge.

Millie gasped when she saw him. “Jake, he could fall.”

Jake dropped the log in his hand, hurried to the stairway, and reached up for the boy, who came to him. Jake lifted him down and handed him to his mother.

She cradled the boy from side to side and cooed to him, “And where were you going, young Tucker, young Tucker?”

The landing and stairs that Jake had built had long since become a relic in the large Victorian home that had grown up around them, lapped siding hiding the old logs and a sizable addition providing more bedrooms and a kitchen. Old Tucker Thompson stood at an upstairs window and watched a rolling ball of fire, which sounded like a gas furnace to him. He associated gas furnaces with Detroit where he had always wanted to go when he was younger. He had seen pictures of hot pots pouring molten iron, first in magazines and then on television. But he was ninety-two years old and had never left his small hometown in West Virginia.

He was watching the sunset when his neighbor, Jim Trout, came out of his kitchen door and climbed on and started his tractor. Jim and Tucker had been friends since childhood and Tucker was always glad to see him. He worked at the window latch, wanting to shout out to Jim. Jim jumped down, leaving the tractor running and went into his house to get something. He was gone for quite a while and the heated exhaust started the high grass burning. Pretty soon the whole field was on fire.

Tucker marveled at the waving line of fire as it approached the grove on the south side of his house. When the trees caught fire, the flames shot higher than the roof gables. In the second story bedroom Tucker had to pull down the shades. The light was too bright. He went into the bathroom across the hall and took a cold shower and washed his thick, white hair. He liked the way it was soft and billowy and curled up at the ends the day after he washed it. He smiled at himself in the mirror and went to bed. It had been a hectic day with all three of his children there, and they had argued about the rest home, and he was tired.

The firefighters, local volunteers, all knew Mr. Thompson but had no idea anyone was in the house. No cars were in the driveway and the house was dark. The only ones who might have suspected he was in his house were the Trouts, and they were frantic about the fire and didn’t think about Tucker. The firemen battled the blaze until just before midnight, going home tired and black.

Tucker and his two daughters, Kate and Julia, and Julia’s husband Mark had eaten dinner together and then, because he was tired, Tucker had gone to his room. After they did the dishes Julia checked on her dad. She found him sleeping on top of his made up bed with his comforter pulled over him, and they decided they could risk leaving him alone to go to a movie. When they came home, Julia ran frantically up the stairs into her father’s room and found him sleeping peacefully and snoring. The house hadn’t been touched. The grove had burned and one side of Tucker’s tool shed was badly scorched, but the firemen had stopped the fire before it reached the house or hit the woods on the other side of the Trouts’ place. Local townsfolk say the hay bails that were rolled by Jim Trout’s fence glowed for three days.

Tucker noticed the smell in the morning and it made him think of burnt toast. He fluffed his hair, went downstairs and made tea in the kitchen.

“A fine day,” he declaimed, “for tying up loose ends and settling your affairs and crossing your bridges and putting out fires.” Tucker vaguely remembered something about a fire but thought he’d watched it on TV. He looked out the front door and saw the paper on the porch. When he opened the door and smelled the sizzling remains of his grove, he drew back in disgust. He held his nose, reached out and picked up the paper and quickly retreated into the house, slamming the big oak door behind him.

The local paper reassured him. He recognized the picture of Onnie, the sheriff, standing next to his police car in front of the hardware store, and laughed at a juicy piece about the librarian who had gotten a DUI and spent the night in the jail.

Tucker had grown up in these hills near the western border of Virginia, had worked the small farm with his simple mother, married Jim’s older sister, Birdie Trout, and raised his two daughters, Kate and Julia. The girls had both worked their way through college in Charlottesville and Julia stayed there after graduation and married her husband, Mark Wiseman. Kate had moved to Covington and married Don Warner but the marriage ended in divorce and Don moved to California. Tucker and Birdie had managed the farm together until she died unexpectedly from an infection. After that Tucker kept pretty much to himself, working in his garden and canning in the shed. His girls took turns driving over from Virginia on weekends and made sure their dad had everything he needed.

As Tucker grew older, he retreated further and further into his mind and into the old house until the doors became barriers to things he couldn’t understand and he would stop at them and often not be able to go past them, even to walk in the grove. His garden turned to weeds and the things in his shed grew dusty and full of cobwebs. Julia and Kate took turns staying with him, Julia at night and Kate during the day. Occasionally, Julia’s husband Mark would fill in and give the girls a break.

Tucker usually took catnaps all day long and then at night he only slept for two- or three-hour stretches. He would get up and walk around in his robe, patrolling the house. Once in a while he would shout out the windows at shadows, or move the furniture around, or play boogie-woogie beats with his left hand on the old, upright piano that had been Birdie’s, or run the blender, or cough up a lot of mucous, or tap on the wooden floor with his foot and slap his knee to some inner song, or play what he thought was mournful music on his harmonica. Julia seldom got much sleep at her dad’s house. When Kate came in the morning Julia was always tired.

“We’ll switch,” said Kate one day. Kate drove over from her home in Covington every morning.

“No, that’s all right,” said Julia. “This works out for me. I can go back to the motel and sleep until noon.” But she seldom did. To be with her dad, she and Mark had closed their house in Charlottesville and rented a motel in Lewisburg by the month where Mark clacked away all day on his computer. Julia tried to rest but usually ended up walking around town looking in the shops or reading in the library. When Mark finished his work, they would have dinner somewhere before Mark dropped Julia off at her dad’s.

“You’re exhausted. You’ve got bags under your eyes,” said Mark at dinner.

“Thanks for the encouragement,” said Julia, trying to keep her eyes open.

“Why can’t we just put him in the rest home?”

Julia became more alert. “We’ve had this conversation before. Kate and I agree. He was born in that house and he’s been there for ninety-two years. We can’t just move him somewhere.”

“He probably wouldn’t even know.”

“He’s still lucid sometimes.”

“Yeah, but only sometimes.”

“But those times would be an agony to him if he wasn’t home and didn’t have the memories of Mom around him.”

“Well, I’d like to get my wife back,” said Mark, ending the conversation by pushing his chair back, throwing the napkin on the table and going to the rest room.

The bird clock warbled seven but Tucker occasionally forgot about the clock and thought he heard real birds. He cocked his head and cupped his ear and listened eagerly. “This could be the start of something big,” he said, wondering what he meant, and then hoping the meaning would make sense.

Julia came into the kitchen groggy and disheveled, but seeing her father brought a smile to her face.

Tucker looked at her for a moment and said, “Birdie would’ve wanted you to know.”

“Know what, Dad?” asked Julia, starting the coffee pot she had prepared the night before, then pulling a chair out across from her father.

“How we lived that last year together.”

They sat at an antique pine table and Julia propped her chin in both hands. “How did you live?” she asked. This was a new story and not one of the usual repetitions. It had been thirty years since her mother had passed away.

“We had an arrangement, if you know what I mean.”

Julia’s grin broadened. “What kind of arrangement, Dad?”

“Your mother decided that I snored too much and moved into the other bedroom.” Tucker Thompson leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “And she never came back into the bed with me.”

There was a long pause. Julia didn’t know what he was getting at, but she knew enough to outwait him. She got up from the table and went over to the coffee pot and put cream and sugar in her cup and poured from the half-filled decanter while dripping coffee sizzled on the Teflon hot-pad. She returned to the table and sat across from her father again, sipped her coffee and smiled at him some more.

The floorboards creaked when Tucker stood up and turned his chair around and straddled it backwards. He looked at Julia and raised his eyebrows a few times. Julia smiled and waited. Tucker looked down at Julia’s open robe and said, “So forgive me if I gape, you know. I’m making up for lost time.”

Julia laughed and pulled her robe together. She stood up and went around the table and kissed her father on the forehead and said, “You silly old fart,” then swished over to the refrigerator and opened it and studied the contents.

“Hell, I remember when you weren’t nothin’ but a little squirt blossom,” said Tucker. “You turned into a pretty good looker.”

Julia decided on an apple. She knew by the dishes in the sink that her father had fixed himself a bowl of oatmeal earlier.

“You and me, Pop,” she said. “What are we going to do this morning?”

“I’m content just watching you.”

Except for the tiredness in her eyes, Julia didn’t look sixty. She was still attractive and moved gracefully. She and Kate were completely different. Julia took after her mother. She was short and full bodied, with a happy, round face. Kate was big boned like her father and tall with an angular face. She wore old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses and was the more stern and serious of the two. Now she came in the door carrying groceries.

“Hi, honey. Did you sleep?”

“A little. Mel Torme over here was in a soft jazz mode.” She cocked her head toward her father who slapped a riff on his knees and stood up.

“I’m gonna scram. Gravy ain’t wavy,” he said, and headed into the living room.

“Dad seems in a rare mood today,” said Kate, setting the bags down.

“He’s been teasing me and looking down my robe at my boobs.”

Kate laughed and looked carefully at Julia.

“You look tired. You should switch with me. I’ll take nights and you and Mark can come over together in the mornings and watch him together.”

“We had the argument about the rest home again last night. Mark thinks we should get him out of here and clean up the place and sell it. He thinks the fire is an opportunity, that we can convince Dad that it’s not safe here. But I just can’t imagine him not being here.”

“Maybe it is time. He’s ninety-two. He doesn’t go out anymore. And I’m worried about him falling. He goes up and down those steep back stairs all the time.”

Julia walked to the living room doorway and looked in on Tucker as he read a magazine, then walked back to the kitchen door and looked out at the scorched trees. She leaned her head on the glass. “I’m too tired to think,” she confessed.

Kate came to her, turned her around and held her by the shoulders and looked into her face. “Get out of here and don’t come back until tomorrow morning. I’m staying the night. You spend time with Mark and rest and we’ll figure it out when you two come back together.”

After Julia left, Kate went in to check on her dad, found him dozing, and began her usual routine of cleaning. Later, when she started the vacuum cleaner, Tucker woke up. He stood up and went to the front door.

“That was some fire, wasn’t it? Almost got the shed. I need to check on something,” he said. He opened the door and went out.

Kate was startled and hurried to the door. She watched him lumber across the yard. He was still strong and erect. His gait was slow but he moved with determination through the burnt trees and jerked the shed door open and went inside. Kate wondered if she should follow him, but went back into the kitchen and opened the window instead so she could hear if anything banged around, if he fell.

Tucker looked around the shed, at the canning jars in disarray, their lids rusty, a wooden box of tools, a bucket of rags. In a corner, behind a row of rusty chains and cables hanging from hooks, stood an old pine coffin. Birdie had been cremated when she died, but Tucker had had to purchase the coffin to show her at the wake. And at five hundred dollars, Tucker decided to keep it around. He’d certainly need it again someday. He moved an old box of hinges and knobs with an abandoned bird’s nest out of the way, took the chains and cables off their hooks and laid them aside. He took a rag from the bucket and wiped some of the dust off the big box. It still shined the deep yellow of old pine, and Tucker decided it was too valuable to leave out in the shed. He had almost lost it in the fire.

He left the shed and went back into the house through the kitchen door.

Kate was baking. “What have you been up to?” she asked.

Tucker evaded the question by kissing her on the back of the head and reaching around and sticking a finger in the batter.

Kate tapped his fingers gently with the wooden spoon.

“Why don’t you and Don open a bakery?” asked Tucker.

“Should we open it in Covington or out in California where Don moved?”

Tucker didn’t answer, but walked back out into the living room and turned on the stereo. He put on a lively reggae tape and sat for a few minutes to see if Kate would check up on him. When she didn’t, he went out the side door by the back stairs.

Tucker took an old rusty hand truck from the side of the shed and wheeled it inside, kicking old corks and debris out of its path. He draped a burlap bag over the rusty metal and slipped the hand truck under the coffin.

“Kiss me once, and kiss me twice and kiss me once again, it’s been a long, long time,” he sang. He pulled it over and easily moved it through the shed door and to the back door of the house. At the back steps he realized he was going to have difficulty and went back to the shed to get ropes. He tied the coffin onto the hand truck and made a long loop of another piece and tied it to the handles. Then, by going slowly and concentrating, he lifted the coffin up the steps, through the back door and over to the old cabin stairs. He backed up the stairs, carefully, one step at a time, pulling the coffin behind him. When he reached the landing, he sat down and leaned his head against the wall and fell into a half-sleep. Tucker’s dreams and memories were often mixed, one seeming like the other.

Spring filled the kitchen with warmth. The new picture window Jake had built on the south side of the new addition gave Millie a view of the grove and the field between their place and the Trouts’ farm. She stood at the wood stove and stirred a pot of soup and wondered where Tucker was. She found him on the landing of the stairs where he often went to think. He had pulled his knees up and buried his head in them.

“What’s the matter, Son?”

“Birdie’s mad at me.”

“What did you do?”

“I was just kidding around with Jim and she said we were being rude.”

“Were you?”

“We weren’t even talking to her.”

“And?”

“And she was in the room.”

“So?”

“She said we were disgusting.” Tucker looked over at the wall. “We were talking about farting.”

Millie laughed. “Well, why don’t you go over and say you’re sorry?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“It’ll come to you. Just march over there and knock on the door and ask for Birdie.”

“What if they ask me what I want?”

“They’ll know what you want,” she said and her eyes gleamed.

“Maybe I should bring her a present.”

“That would be nice. How about flowers? They’re all around the house.”

Tucker went out and picked a bouquet of the flowers from the beds his mother had planted beneath the windows and brought them into the kitchen.

“Do these look good?”

“Those look fine. Now go.”

Jake came inside and stood beside Millie at the kitchen window. They watched silently together as Tucker crossed the field. He never looked back; his eyes were fixed on the back door of the Trouts’ house.

Jake’s arm went around his wife’s shoulder. Millie was dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron.

At first when Tucker woke up he couldn’t remember what he had been doing but then he saw the coffin and it came back to him. He looked through the balustrade to see if Kate had spotted him yet, and then continued on up to the second floor, down the hall and into his bedroom. He pushed on the coffin and eased the hand truck out from under it, then laid the coffin down between his bed and the wall and threw the comforter over it.

Back on the stairway he sang, “Down, down, down, down, down, down-ba-doobie,” bouncing the hand truck down the stairs. Then he remembered he was being quiet and tiptoed the rest of the way, lifting the device off the stairs and carrying it. He returned the hand truck to the side of the shed, closed the shed door and went back into the house through the kitchen. The music had stopped and he looked at Kate, wondering if he had been caught in the act.

“Did you ever hear tell of sweet Betsy from Pike?” Tucker sang.

“Crossed the wide prairie?” asked Kate.

“With her husband Ike.” Kate didn’t know if her dad was just singing old songs like he always did or hinting that she should have gone with Don to California and not gotten the divorce.

“I’m going to lie down,” said Tucker and went up to his room. He lay down on the bed and pulled the comforter over him.

When Kate came to wake him for lunch, she saw the coffin. “Where did that come from?” she asked. She had never noticed it in the back of the shed.

“It was your mom’s. Couldn’t throw it away.”

“How did you get it up here?” Kate put a hand on her hip. “Is that why you were playing that loud music instead of the oldies?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of levitation?” asked Tucker, his eyes twinkling. He pulled the comforter up to his chin and grinned like a little boy.

Kate spent the rest of the day with Tucker doing puzzles and puttering in the kitchen making soup. They played a duet of chopsticks on the piano and read National Geographic together, mostly just flipping through the pictures. When Kate would want to stop and read something, Tucker would close his eyes and doze.

After dinner they both watched a television movie and went to bed early. Tucker slept through the night but Julia was up three or four times checking on him. She put her ear close to his mouth to make sure he was breathing and then pulled the comforter up over his shoulder.

In the morning they were both asleep when Mark and Julia drove up. Julia found Kate in an upstairs bedroom and shook her gently awake.

“Is everything all right?”

“What time is it?” Kate asked. She pulled the covers aside, put her feet on the floor and rubbed her eyes.

“It’s eight o’clock and you’re both still asleep. What did you do? Sedate him?”

Kate smiled, scratched her head and yawned. They had laughed at the idea before.

“We stayed pretty busy singing and reading and cooking. He didn’t nap much yesterday. And I think he wore himself out moving Mom’s casket.”

“That old pine coffin in the shed?”

“Yeah. He moved it into his bedroom.”

“How in the world did he do that?”

“With that old rusty hand truck, I guess. He’s still pretty strong.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Julia left Kate to get dressed and went downstairs to start the coffee. By the time Kate was ready to go downstairs, Tucker was awake and in his robe, waiting for her on the landing. The four of them sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee.

“This is fun,” said Tucker. “Let’s all do something together. Four’s enough for bridge.”

“I have to work,” said Mark, and lifted his laptop by the handle to show to the old man by way of explanation.

“Good,” said Tucker. “Who needs you anyway? Let’s play hearts.” He smiled at his two girls. Mark got up from the table, took his coffee and his computer and went into the den.

“Kate has to go,” said Julia.

“Fine,” said Tucker. “Gin rummy.”

“I don’t have to go,” said Kate. “I’m going to stick around. You two can take the day off if you want to.”

“Mark has important work he has to finish and I’d rather be here than walking around Lewisburg.”

Tucker kept looking from one girl to the other, trying to follow the conversation, wondering what game they were going to play.

“Charades,” he said.

Julia put her hand on her father’s wrist. “I’ll play cards with you, Dad, but not until after breakfast.”

“Good,” said Tucker, and went to look for playing cards.

Mark set up his computer in the den and came back into the kitchen.

“What if we just get him to go look at the rest home? Maybe he’ll see all those old ladies playing cards and love it.”

“He doesn’t even like to leave the house,” said Kate.

“What if I can get him to?” said Mark.

“You can give it a try,” said Kate, “but I doubt you’ll get anywhere.”

Mark went back to the den and logged on to the Internet. Kate went looking for her father and Julia cooked bacon, eggs, and toast. After they had all eaten, Kate stayed and cleaned the dishes while Julia and her father went into the living room and played cards. Mark went back to work in the den.

After they had played a few games of Gin Rummy and Tucker’s favorite, Slapjack, Julia begged off and went into the kitchen to work on lunch. Kate went up to her room to nap and Mark went into the living room with Tucker.

“Mr. Thompson, why don’t you just ride over to that place with us and take a look? You might like it. There are a lot of nice folks there.”

Tucker had trouble hearing Mark because Mark had a big thick moustache and Tucker couldn’t see his lips when he talked. And then, because the tip of Mark’s nose wiggled when he pronounced certain words, Tucker would get distracted and lose the train of thought. “Talk loud,” he said and looked away.

“Ride over to the rest home with us. Take a look. You might like it.” Mark shouted. Tucker smiled at his discomfort.

“You mean that place in Virginia? Sure, sounds like a great idea. The proof is in the pudding.” Tucker stood up. “Well, what are we waiting for?” He clasped Mark’s shoulder with a firm grip.

Mark didn’t know what to say.

“It wouldn’t be the same without you, Son. Let me get dressed. I’ll only be a moment.” Tucker turned toward the back stairs.

Mark walked into the kitchen and refilled his coffee. When he returned he found Tucker sitting in the den at his computer.

“What are you doing?” Mark shouted.

“Can you get a picture of a steel mill on this thing?”

“I thought you were getting dressed.”

“Why?”

“To go look at the rest home.”

“Why?”

“Because of the fire. It was too close,”

“Are you serious? It can’t happen again. Everything is already burnt.”

Mark looked confused. He walked to the door of the den and opened it and closed it again. But then he turned and walked over to the window.

“How about going out for ice cream?” he said.

Tucker clapped his hands. “Good idea,” he said and stood up.

Mark looked relieved. He went over quickly and closed the lid to his laptop. “You need to get dressed,” he said.

Tucker was still in his robe. He went to the back stairs and began to climb them.

Mark went in to the kitchen. “I really want him to just go over to the rest home and take a look,” he said to Julia. “Is that all right? They said we could come anytime. There are rooms available.”

“Sure, if he’s willing.”

“Could we get him to stay overnight and give it a try?”

“I doubt it, but you can ask him.”

“Can we get some ice cream, too? The only way I could get him out of the house is to say we were going for ice cream.”

“Whatever you want to do, honey.” Julia put a hand on Mark’s arm.

Mark left the kitchen and went up to Tucker’s bedroom. “Why don’t you pack an extra shirt and your toothbrush,” he said.

“Why? I thought we were going for ice cream.”

“In case you spill or it sticks to your teeth.”

Tucker got a small bag from the closet shelf and put an extra shirt in it.

Mark, who had followed him, pulled a shirt from the closet. “I like this one.”

“I do, too,” said Tucker.

“Let’s take it, too.”

“Okay.” Tucker laid it carefully in the bag.

“What if you spill on your pants?”

They both went to the dresser and Tucker pulled some folded shorts from the drawer.

Mark grabbed a couple pair of jockey’s and stuffed them in the bag.

“I hear it might rain. You’d better bring your jacket.”

Tucker swiveled toward the closet, grabbed his favorite corduroy jacket and looked at the small bag wondering where to put it.

“I’ll carry it,” said Mark.

Tucker handed him the jacket and looked him in the eye and recognized his cleverness. He remembered the movie he and Kate had watched the night before. It was about the treachery of war. This looked and felt the same. He began unpacking while Mark was in the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” mark asked when he returned.

Tucker was silent. Mark noticed the pine coffin on the other side of Tucker’s bed, next to the wall. “What’s that?” he asked.

“It’s my coffin. I bought it on an Internet auction. Used. Guy was cremated, they told me. But he might still be in there. You think fire scares me?”

“Dad, it’s just...”

“Just what? Can’t a guy die in his own home? Don’t you have something better to do?” Tucker put the empty bag back into the closet.

“Run along, Son. Go play in the street.”

Mark was dumbfounded.

“Find another sucker, pal. Take a long walk on a short pier. Count your chickens.”

“Count my chickens?”

“Yeah, count your chickens before they hatch.”

Mark returned to the kitchen. “He outsmarted me again.”.

They both smiled at him.

The smiles were warm but Mark didn’t smile back. “I feel like I’m in a Thompson conspiratorial plot. I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Why do you think you have to do anything?”

“We have to do something.”

“Why?”

“Because of the fire.”

“Why?” asked Julia. “So we have some burned trees and some damage on the shed. The grass will grow back. Other than that nothing is any different. Dad hardly noticed.”

Mark changed the subject. “Did you see the coffin he has up there? He said he bought it on the Internet. You don’t even have a computer in the house.”

Kate laughed. “That was Mom’s. Somehow Dad got it out of the shed and up the back stairs when I was baking. He was devious about it; put loud music on so I couldn’t hear him.”

“It’s crazy, having a coffin in your bedroom,” said Mark.

“It’s Dad,” said Kate.

Julia and Kate both looked at Mark. “I just want my normal routine back. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed with my wife next to me.”

Kate looked sympathetic.

Mark got up and went out the kitchen door. “I need to take a walk.”

Mark went down the driveway to the road and walked along the fence in front of the Trouts’ farm. When he came to the mailbox, Jim was there.

“What were you thinking?” he asked Jim.

“About what?”

“Oh, never mind.” Mark looked at the old man who was looking at his shoes. “Were you insured?”

“Yeah.”

“Dad wasn’t.” Mark turned and walked away.

“I’ll be glad to help clean up the grove.” Mr. Trout’s words came after him.

When Mark returned, Julia and Kate were in the living room. He dropped into Tucker’s comfortable chair and sighed. Soft music came from the stereo and nobody spoke for a few minutes.

“Maybe we could hire someone to help out here at the house. Someone who knows your dad. Just for a rest.” Mark suggested.

“Like who?” said Julia, the strain on their relationship showing. “I could see me asking Jim to come and baby-sit. ‘I’ll give you ten bucks.’”

“There are a lot of people in town who know Tucker,” said Mark. “Why not ask around?”

“Dad wouldn’t be comfortable with someone he didn’t know very well. And he’s been cooped up in this house for years. He’s lost touch with the town folk.”

Kate hoped to slow the conflict with a positive note. “I’ll bet if we asked Birdie’s sister, she’d drive in from Bluefield now and then.”

Mark turned his challenge to Kate. “Why haven’t you two asked the Trouts? Jim is Tucker’s oldest friend. I’ll bet they’d come over on a regular basis if you just asked them.”

Kate didn’t want to fight. “I guess we’ve just been too stubborn and independent for our own good. We figured it was our responsibility to take care of Dad and that we could handle it.”

Julia wanted to defend Kate. “The Trouts would volunteer if they wanted to. They know we’re here all the time.”

“But they don’t know your needs if you don’t communicate with them. They just figure everything’s fine.” The music had stopped and Mark went to the stereo and flipped through the CD’s. He chose a lively Bluegrass group. They listened for a while and the mood seemed to change with the upbeat rhythms.

“I’m okay,” said Kate. “You guys need the rest. I enjoy the time I spend with Dad, and I can keep coming regularly. Maybe we can get the neighbors involved.”

“Jim said he’d help me clean up the grove,” said Mark, “and maybe we can get your dad outside and raking or something. It would be good for him.”

“We can hire a carpenter to put siding on the shed,” said Julia. “It needs it anyway.”

Tucker Thompson sat on his bed listening to Mark and Julia and Kate talking downstairs. The words danced around him with no structure and made him alternately smile and laugh and feel amazement and then sorrow and once he wept. He knew they were talking about him. He heard the word dad over and over, but he wasn’t sure why they were so concerned about him. He’d be fine. He had been born in this old house and had spent ninety-two years here and, Good Lord willing, he’d spend another few years before he joined up with Birdie. He’d sooner die than go to a rest home. He thought about dying. The idea intrigued him.

He got up from his chair and went downstairs. He farted and smiled and put his hand over his mouth. He winked and waved at the trio in the living room as he passed, walked into the kitchen and took a slot-head screwdriver from a drawer and put it into his trouser pocket. He went up the back stairs to his bedroom and walked around the bed and sat on it and took out the large wood screws that held the lid on the casket. He looked inside and studied it for a while, then lifted the lid and leaned it against the wall.

Taking the comforter off the bed, he folded it and laid it in the coffin and then climbed in. He was so tall his head touched the top and his feet the bottom when he stretched out.

“Gads, I’m as big as one of them Zamzummins in the Bible,” he said. He shifted around and pulled a wrinkle out of the blanket and got comfortable.

“Not too shabby,” he said. “Downright cozy.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes and dozed. When he awoke, he was sure he could hear his mother sitting on the landing, playing her banjo and singing the lyrics of the ballad she had written for him when he was a child:

Oh, where are you going, young Tucker, young Tucker?

Up the stairs without your mother;

And, where are you going, young Tucker, young Tucker?

Across the field without your supper;

And, where are you going, young Tucker, young Tucker?

Around the world with nobody other.

Oh, where are you going, young Tucker, young Tucker?

Tucker Thompson, son of a pioneer, son of an Englishman, thought about his mother and about Birdie and cried softly to himself. Then he thought about the children downstairs and felt big, felt like a big burden. Then he thought about the world he had never seen. Somehow the idea of leaving home didn’t seem so unnerving now. Maybe it was time to go.