A Grief Encounter

Tye Jonas stood beside his cream-colored king-size borrowed pickup on a hot June day, deep in Western Kansas. The sky waved blue, bordered by the endless seas of golden wheat, unattended, guarded only by the sunflower sentinels. He kicked the tires of his dusty truck, looking at the endless ribbon of blacktop road shining like glass in the sun. He was pensive and perturbed. “I don’t know why you came here; this place holds nothing but grief and pain for you,” he said out loud. Looking down the highway toward the little town where he grew up, he muttered, “Go back to New York.” He climbed back in his pickup, resting his head on the steering wheel, pausing and sighing, “Don’t leave without going to the cemetery. That’s it - you are going to the cemetery and then back to New York. Class reunion or no class reunion, you are going back where people care about you.”

Reluctantly yet willingly, he drove towards his past, slowing as he approached the corner where he would turn to go to the festival and class reunion. Glancing down the main street of the place where he grew up, it seemed that nothing had changed - more churches than businesses. It was the enduring death of a small town. “One mile more,” he thought. Turning into the cemetery, he felt a tightening in his chest, anticipation coupled with anxiety. He knew precisely where to find his parents’ graves. He got out of the pickup and walked over to the two small graves, brushing aside the grass that had grown over the names. Ben Jonas: February 4 to July 11, 42 years. Tye calculated quickly in his head; he had been working to support his single mother by cutting wood since he was eight. Maude Jonas: March 12 to January 3, 50 years. He didn’t need any calculations for this—he lost his mother when he was sixteen and finished high school on his own.

Poignantly and painfully, memories he’d pushed aside came rushing back in a parade of depression. He remembered the times when other kids mocked him for his smell, calling him a pig. He remembered the hunger that came with not having enough food to eat. “Enough!” he said out loud. He looked around to see people tending nearby graves, staring at him. No one had visited his parents’ graves in a decade. Tye pulled out his camera, wiped away a tear, and snapped a photo of the graves before jumping back into his pickup and heading east on the highway. In a shaky voice inflamed with emotion, he said, “If you make it to the airport by noon, you’ll be back in New York by eight.” He swiped at more tears that escaped. He remembered the last time he had cried: the day his best friend, Michael, was killed by snipers while they were on patrol.

He was still wiping tears as he glanced at the signs along the side of the narrow two-lane road to check the speed limit. He swerved slightly to the left when he noticed a white car wonkely parked on the shoulder. As he passed the car, he looked in the rearview mirror - a young woman had just gotten out. She looked no more than 30 with Capri jeans that rose to a tiny waist barely visible under her yellow top. He slowed down and considered his options, thinking, “If you spend thirty minutes changing her tire, you'll still make it home by eight. You should pay some penance, and there is no shame in chasing what is hot.” Tye turned around and parked behind the car, analyzing the situation: flat tire, dirty, beat-up white sedan, hot driver. He hopped out of his truck and walked toward the woman.

Evelyn couldn't believe her eyes. Approaching her was a cowboy with blonde hair, a seriously buff physique, the brightest blue eyes, a white t-shirt, low-cut Levis, and boots. She was momentarily speechless, just staring at him, when he said, “Hi, I’m Tye. "Do you have a spare tire?" Evelyn, lost in thought and amazement, paused and replied, "Yes, but it’s in the trunk, and we have all our luggage back there. " Tye glanced into the car and saw two young boys, about the same age, looking at him through the dirty side window. "Are these guys yours?" He asked. "Yes," she answered, cautiously withholding any further details. He walked around to the trunk and said, "I can change this tire if you want me to."

Evelyn bent over to open the trunk. Tye stood back to get a better look at those jeans, noticing that her yellow low-top sneakers matched her top. His thoughts were interrupted by Evelyn apologizing, "Sorry about the mess; we didn’t have time to pack properly." Tye thought to himself, “You are such a horn dog, stopping just so you could get a better look at her.” Prophetically, he thought, “I wonder if she is nice?” He started to unload the trunk: beat-up suitcases and shopping bags. She was standing next to him, and it was hot. The kind of day when the wind on your face felt like a blast furnace. She was about to comment on the heat when he pulled his t-shirt off and tucked it into his back pocket. There, close enough to her to reach out and touch, stood the hunkiest, blond cowboy with perfectly chiseled abs that disappeared into low-cut button-up jeans.

As Tye reached in to retrieve a suitcase, she grabbed a bag, bumping against his bare chest. He noticed the boys were still watching him, their faces pressed up against the side windows and now the dirty back window. Tye paused, sweat dripping down from his chest onto his jeans. "I’m not trying to tell you your business, but it’s a lot safer for the boys to be out of the car while I’m changing the tire. The car should be shut off and the emergency brake on. It’s going to be pretty hot in there. We should all move over to the grass, away from the car, in case someone swerves and hits it." Evelyn didn’t miss a beat. "Someone like you," she quipped. He grimaced, choosing not to acknowledge her comment, and asked, "What do you think?" By now, the boys were clamoring, "Yeah, Mom, can we get out and watch?"

Sensing her unease, he tried to reassure her, “I promise it will be safer and I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.” She paused and said, “I guess it will be all right.” By the time the words had escaped her mouth, the boys piled out of the car excitedly. “I’m Tye,” he introduced himself, and one of the boys shouted, “I’m Andrew, and this is Benjamin!” pointing at his brother. The two boys looked about the same age. Benjamin, slightly smaller with blonde hair and blue eyes like his mother, dressed in blue shorts and a white top with dirty white sneakers. Tye paused as he shook Andrew’s hand, a boy slightly sturdier than his brother with a yellow shirt and green shorts, wearing the same-looking sneakers. He had seen those green eyes before, always a light of joy in his best friend from childhood.

Evelyn felt a twinge of annoyance as she stood in the tall greenish grass with her hands on her hips, thinking, “You’re making another mistake, aren’t you?” Glancing back at the boys, she saw that Tye had knelt in the grass to the boys’ height, saying, “Do you boys want to learn how to change a tire?” Evelyn objected, saying, “I don’t know,” but her words were drowned out by both boys yelling loudly and excitedly, “Yeah,” in unison.

Knowing that she was concerned, Tye paused, considering what to say: “The most important part of changing a tire is safety.” Evelyn noticed that the boys were watching him earnestly. He went to his truck and returned with two flares. “Do you boys know what flares are?” he asked. Her objection could barely be heard over the boys saying, “No.” “I don’t want the boys messing with fire; it’s dangerous,” she said. He walked over to Evelyn, who still had her hands on her hips. His blue eyes seemed even bluer standing there as she looked up against the blue sky. His tone was confident and captivating. “The boys aren’t doing any of the work or touching any of the tools. I just want to explain as I go, if that is all right.”

Evelyn Mahoney had been a single mother for five years, balancing a teaching job with raising two boys. She was never distracted. She couldn’t be, but today she was. “Sure,” she said. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she thought to herself, “What is wrong with me?” She was about to caution him, but just as her thoughts turned into speech, she heard Tye tell the boys, “We’ll place the flares behind the car fifty yards and in front of the car 50 yards.” He smacked the flares together, and they lit up, as the boys yelled, “Yeah.” He told the boys, “You have to do everything I tell you.” The boys answered, “Yes, sir.” Evelyn heard the boys say “yes, sir” with such respect and enthusiasm. She couldn’t remember them ever saying “yes, sir” before. Looking back, they were gone. Tye stepped off the fifty yards on each side of the cars with the boys mimicking his steps, one on each side, struggling to make their legs go as wide as his. She was thinking about the boys. She had tried to find good male role models for them. But being both father and mother was never enough. And then it was over. The beat-up luggage and shopping bags were in the trunk, and the flares were put out. Evelyn looked around, surveying the situation. There in front of her on the grass were her twin sons, both hugging Tye as he knelt. His shirt was back on. The boys were back in the car when Tye walked around and opened the door for Evelyn. She paused and said, “Thank you.” He handed her a slip of paper with a phone number written on it. “If you have any more trouble, call me. I will be in this area for a while.” He turned around and walked back to his truck, noticing in the reflection of his bumper that she was still standing by the car, watching him as he got in.

She had driven the twenty or so miles so the boys could see their grandparents. As she approached the little town, trepidation and fear overcame her as she thought, “I can’t do it. I simply can’t do it. I am in no shape to see their gazes when the boys act up, and there is no father to discipline them. I know they are going to ask me about work and my car. Their conversation will only be a distraction. What they really want to know is: why can’t she find a guy? When are those boys going to have a father? What is wrong with her?

She had married a soldier, knowing the deadly risks and the enduring separation. She had been with a friend when the news came that her friend’s husband had died. Feeling her grief, knowing the pain she would endure, she was never ready, surviving only on prayer and hope. And then hope ran out. Michael Devon Mahoney was killed in action, leaving her a single mother. Gallantly in his confident style, he had promised her he would return. She was five months pregnant when the news came. It was an overcast day, an ugly day, a day of sadness.

As she drove towards the little town, her depressive, negative thoughts marched through her mind. Marching and marching, day and night, “You are never going to find another man. The boys will grow up without a father.” Knowing what she was about to do was wrong, Evelyn had pulled the car over to the side and feigned reading a text on her phone. “Oh, no.” “Your grandmother is ill, and we will have to come back another weekend.” “Mom, you promised,” Benjamin cried, tears running down his face. Andrew, the quieter of the two boys, was not talking, just crying and sobbing, curled up in a ball on the floorboard of the back seat. A normal mother would have been moved by her sons’ emotional pleas and the broken hearts shattered by her lies, but all the empathy, all the compromise, all the giving disappeared years ago on some lonely night as she sobbed, holding Michael’s pillow to her face. She had never washed it. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she could still smell him when she held it up to her face. The nightly tears had not washed it clean over the years. “You are the worst mother in the world.,” Evelyn thought.

Two o’clock had become three thirty as the spare tire was changed and the cowboy disappeared. Evelyn was faced with returning home and explaining to her parents why she came back and didn’t visit the boys’ grandparents. It was decision time. Her choice? Undo a lie with another lie. “Guess what,” she told the boys. “Your grandmother is feeling better, and we are going after all.” The boys were excited. There would be a carnival with rides, and the boys were arguing over who would ride the most rides. “I am riding four rides,” Andrew said. “I am riding ten rides,” Benjamin said. “Mom, how many rides will there be?” Andrew asked. “Oh, I don’t know.” “Probably eight or nine,” she said. “That’s it,” Benjamin said. “I am riding them all.”

Evelyn thought, “Was it grief or loneliness or just the stress of being a single mother that caused her to lie?”