When Alice’s body finally died, long after her spirit had taken leave, the girls spread out into separate rooms. Alice’s room was redecorated with posters of boy bands, and soon the whole house became a flurry of clothes, curlers, and the intense noise of young teenaged girls.  Henry Junior didn’t much like the noise and the mess, but he kept it to himself until it got to be too much. Then he’d grumble, bark some orders, and the girls knew just how much to clean up or tone down to appease him.

The first time his older daughter asked if she could walk out to the tracks with him, he didn’t hesitate. “Of course. Come on.” They stood together, holding hands in silence. It became an occasional ritual for each of the girls to join him. They knew not to ask too often. It was clearly a solitary time for Henry Junior. But they also knew it was important enough that they wanted to be a part of it when they could. They were the only two people on earth who ever joined him in his silent watch.

Henry Junior knew that one day soon he would miss all of it, that the girls would go their own ways, taking their noise and mess with them.  And sure enough, one at a time, each left. One went to college, the other to a job in Chicago. He and Marjan were left with an attic full of girl stuff and a house full of memories, dated furniture, and quiet.

Through it all Henry Junior maintained the tire business. He never learned to like it, but he learned to manage it. He enjoyed talking with the customers, most of whom he’d known all his life. He kept a coffee pot and comfortable chairs in the waiting area, and they talked about the weather, the crops, and Bears. When the topic turned to tires, he lost all but the barest of interest needed to fill out the paperwork and complete the sale. Bowman was too small even for a Wal-Mart, and while most farmers would drive to the next town for a good deal on most things, they preferred to do business with someone they knew for something as important as their tires. They needed plenty of dependable tread on the shiny Buicks their wives drove to the store and to church, but mostly they needed tires for their pickups; tires they could trust to get them through the muddy farm roads in spring, over the ice and snow of winter, and across the steaming August asphalt. He managed to keep enough business to stay afloat, to pay Lena and the men in the shop, and to provide for his girls.

But now the girls are gone, visiting only on a weekend every few months. And here he stands, feet apart, hands in pockets, motionless under a full moon, casting a faint shadow on the snow. Those on the train who catch a fleeting glimpse of him are passing too fast to notice the silver streaks in the heavy, wavy hair. It would be hard for them to tell how much of the rounding shape of his silhouette is the heavy jacket and how much is his battle with middle-aged weight gain. The only thing clear to the passengers is that he is standing stone still.  Solid, but not stiff, shoulders slumped slightly from gravity’s slow, relentless pull.

He’d be hard pressed to tell you if what he feels is contentment or resignation. It doesn’t really matter to him. It is enough that he is standing his post as if the train’s passage depends on him. The mantra of the wheels soothes him. The wind empties him.

When the sights and sounds are far enough in the distance, the people on-board will not see Henry Junior turn and walk to the house and into the back door where Marjan sits, her elbows resting on the kitchen table, her hands folded under her chin.

The End.

I hope you have enjoyed Henry Junior. It has been a challenge and a delight to make sure something was ready for each day. Henry Junior is a real and a fictional person. One evening, aboard Amtrak, going through Illinois on my way to see my kids, I happened to glance out the window just in time to see a man standing by the tracks, just as I described Henry Junior. It was just a glimpse and he was gone from view, but not from my mind. From that glimpse came a name, and then a story. This five-part story has allowed me to expand the story and tell it to an unseen audience. Thanks for reading.