MAINE

I can see in my mind’s eye the little boy, with his silky black hair and dark eyes already a looker at age 8, but with a child’s innocence of how good looks can play out in a person’s life. They walk silently the mother and the son, an understanding between them thick as cream. At one point, just past the edge of town he picked up a stick and hurled it with all his might across the wide expanse of snow. “Jimmy,” she said. A stranger would not have remarked on the one word spoken in a low voice, but he heard the thread of warning in it. He did not pick up another stick even when a fat one beckoned. They heard the bellow of the mill’s horn signaling the end of the midnight-to-eight shift. The snow crunched under their worn leather boots – hers black and cracked with age, his brown and hand-me-downs from his older brother – which kept their feet dry but did little to keep the frigid temperature at bay. Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch he thought to himself. Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch to stop himself from thinking about how cold his hands were even inside the thick mittens his mother had knitted for him. His mother handed him the paper bag of molasses cookies fresh from her oven that morning. He knew not to eat one yet, even though his mouth was watering. He hoped Aunt Betty, his mother's sister who lived on the farm they were headed toward miles outside of town, would give him a glass of milk that hadn't been watered down. If the cows were producing well he'd know it as soon as they saw Uncle’s face: muscles tight or a tiny upturned twitch at the corner of the mouth. “Uncle Irving,” – his big sister had whispered to him one shadowy night when Mumma was working late again - “is our father’s brother!” His mouth had opened in surprise. No one in their home ever spoke about the father he had never met.