Copyright 2008-09 by Madengineer3
All rights are reserved. Copies of this story can be downloaded for personal use only.
Notice: When the word God is used as an expression in this text it is not meant to be blasphemous. It is an exclamation to God, not just a saying.
My name is Jim. For many years now I have lived like a hermit. Within the last two months things have changed almost completely. I liked solitude, and that is why I built my hunting cabin in the Adirondack mountains. It is not easy to find my place, since not even most of the good GPS units have detailed enough maps to cover the hinterland. That was just fine with me.
Then; things went in a very strange direction. It started out innocently enough. I had taken an early retirement from my business, selling it for a nice sum; after making a small fortune with a series of inventions that had radically changed the face of medical computing. Well, small was a very relative term. I had about three hundred fifty million in bonds, stocks, and the like. I wasn't anywhere the richest person around, but I wasn't poor either.
My retirement wasn't planned. Mary, my wife of thirty years had died suddenly in an automobile accident caused by a driver who was drunk and on drugs. My wife had been driving our daughter (Laura), her best friend Jane, and Jane's mother to the mall for some fun shopping. (I have never understood shopping to be fun. To me it is a task to do and get out of the way.) My wife wasn't the only one who died. Our daughter and Jane's mother also died.
My will to push ahead, since it was mainly for her that I had strived to build up our "nest egg:" simply had vanished. Most of my time now was spent on various hobbies. My most compelling hobby was that of collecting pictures of beautiful nudes. In essence I had settled into a semi-comfortable rut.
It was a call from my daughter's best friend Jane, who was in grad school, that changed everything.. Jane could have been a very pretty girl. However, she had been riding in the back seat of my wife's car when it was hit. The plastic surgeons had done excellent work, but the scars on her face, arms, and hands were still very obvious. While she didn't look like Frankenstein's monster, she had obviously been patched together. Jane had another drawback. In the six years since the accident she had become a very private, withdrawn, and obviously sad person. I hadn't actually seen Jane for about three years. We kept in contact by occasional emails..
Jane and I were friends, but neither of us really knew much about the other on a personal level.. After all she was about twenty-five years younger that I was. Jane was doing master's level work in engineering physics and had been having a rough time in one of her courses. She had seen the need to learn tensor analysis. The tensor analysis was causing her headaches. I, on the other hand, had enjoyed tensor analysis and soaked it up like a sponge. ( That may indicate why some people have considered me a bit odd. ) Jane telephoned me one day and asked if I knew anyone who was good at tensor analysis.. With no ulterior motive in mind I said yes, and told her that it had been one of my favorite courses. She asked if I could tutor her in it over winter break, and I said yes. Since Jane's school was 240 miles away, in Ithaca, New York, I had suggested that she join me at the cabin and use the guest room. Jane immediately thought that was a good idea, and agreed. . I had no idea where that simple decision would take me.
Now, in far Northern New York State winters can be very nice or very bad. The time frame separating good from bad can be measured in minutes and hours, not days.
Jane arrived late-afternoon on a Saturday. I helped her in with her luggage. I grinned and suggested that I'd put her bags into the guest room and then show her around the cabin. She agreed.
Ten minutes later, after showing her where her room, the bathroom, and stove room were located I led her back into the great room (my combination living room, dining room, and kitchen). I like things to be simple. A guy living alone doesn't need to have a fancy dining room and other such snob symbols.
"Have you had dinner yet?"
"No, I don't like to drive on a full stomach. A good meal tends to make me drowsy."
"Me too. What would you like for supper?"
"I don't have any preferences. I need to ask a stupid question, am I supposed to call you Uncle Jim like I did when I was little, or is there something you prefer?"
"I'm not fussy. You can call me anything, except late for dinner."
At that she grinned and said, "I just call you Jim then. Thanks! What would you have had for supper if I hadn't arrived?"
"I guess I would have heated up the pot of stew I made yesterday. I also baked fresh dark bread to go with it. We have lots of other things to eat, what would you like?"
"I've always loved good stew. Is there enough for both of us to have some?"
"You bet! Hot stew, fresh bread, and good butter coming up. What do you like to drink with your meals. We have water, milk, coffee, tea, and other assorted beverages."
"What would you drink if I weren't here?"
"I'm partial to good heavy beer! The brand I like is Yuingling. It is brewed in the oldest continuously operating brewery in the United States. It is better than any other beer I have ever tasted."
"The beer sounds good! I'll go get into fresh clothes. The ones I have on are uncomfortable after several hours of driving."
Twenty minutes later the food was at serving temperature and Jane had rejoined me in the great room. I pulled out her chair for her to sit down.
"You know, Jim, that is the first time in several years a man has held my chair for me. It is a nice change."
"I was brought up to try to be a gentleman. It is not proper for a lady guest to seat herself at a table, especially in my home."
"Thank you."
For a moment I thought she was going to cry.
I served the food and then gently asked her; "why did my holding your chair seem to upset you?"
"It's a long story, Jim. Maybe sometime I will tell you, but right now I don't want to get depressed."
We enjoyed a wonderful meal. By the time I had finished the dishes and gotten the fire set for the night Jane was almost asleep sitting in one of the old wing chairs that I have in front of the fireplace.
"Jane, you don't know it, but you have done me a real favor. It has been years since I have shared dinner with any woman. It has been longer since I have had the chance to simply sit and have a conversation with a pretty woman who is also very intelligent."
"Am I to understand that you have no regular female friends?"
"No, since my wife died I've never met anyone who I could really enjoy talking with. I would do the memory of my wife harm by just having a woman visit just to have a woman here. I can't do that." I needed to change the subject before I got myself into very hot water. "You have had a long day! Why don't you take a nice hot bath or shower and go to sleep for the night. We will have plenty of time to tackle the math over the next few days."
At that she smiled, got up and went to her room. I spent another hour in front of the fire and then went to bed.
The next morning I was awakened by a wonderful smell. I smelled good coffee, corn pancakes, and bacon. The aroma was wonderful. At first I thought I was dreaming, but the longer I pondered it the more real the smell's became. I got up, dressed, and went into the kitchen area of the great room.
"Good morning Jim, how did you sleep? You don't mind me cooking do you?"
"No, but how did you guess what I liked?"
She smiled, "I looked for where you kept your markers in the cookbook. There were more grease stains around the corn pancake recipe than the other breakfast things. Since I love corn pancakes I thought I'd whip up a little surprise. You're not mad at me for doing that, are you."
It was my turn to smile, "No, I am actually rather flattered that you would take the time to do this. It is very kind of you."
The food was delicious. We mostly talked about the area that my cabin was in and the fact that I had purchased a very large plot of land so that I had no neighbors any closer than two miles in any direction.
After I cleaned up the dishes I suggested that we start in on the math. I got out a pile of scrap paper and several pencils. We sat down at the kitchen table and got started.
"First of all, I want to go back over vector cross products with you. You have no problems with them do you?
"No; cross products are simple. I see exactly what they are doing. Why do you want to start out on something so elementary?"
"Because a vector cross product is a zero order tensor! When we start with a vector cross product we can then move up logically to the higher order tensors in a rational way. To just jump into tensor analysis is a bad way to try to learn the subject.. If we start this way you'll get a feel for tensors, and that will make learning the math much easier."
"Wow, nobody ever told me that before! I think that this is going to be very helpful."
Except for a couple of bathroom breaks we worked until we couldn't concentrate any more. When we finally looked up at the clock it was already after three in the afternoon.
"I think we should call it a day on the math. We can pick things up tomorrow with fresh minds. What would you like for supper?"
"Surprise me! You seem to have some of the same tastes in food that I do. I think I will take a short nap."
She headed to her room while I took two T-bone steaks out of the freezer. An hour later I had just finished removing my rice pilaf from the stove, and the steaks from the grill when I heard her come into the room.
"Wow, that smells wonderful. I didn't know you liked pilaf. Where did you learn to cook?"
