Edwina's Second Chance

***Well, ... Edwina is lost and wandering through the wilds of her township as she's never seen it before.

What next? Horseless carriages?

You just know someone like her is going to come up against the details of the modern age and I enjoyed writing those.

And just how do they find people who are small enough to fit inside those boxes to speak with the patrons in a fast-food drive-through?

0_o

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2013

He walked north along the township third line almost muttering to himself. He'd given in to the urge several times that day already, not that it had helped even a little. He didn't know just what was wrong with him today, but somehow, ever since he'd woken up a little late that morning, he'd been scatterbrained.

First it was that he'd hit the snooze button on his alarm clock the first time that it had taken it's usual joy in screaming him awake at quarter after four that morning. He usually groaned to himself about how working for a living sure wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but he usually got up then when he was on dayshift.

The first time.

He didn't know what had happened, but he'd wanted just a little more sleep, so with his one lucid thought, he'd hit the snooze button. Then he'd hit it again. And again. Each time, it bought him ten minutes. The next thing that he knew, he had just barely enough time to jump out of bed and hit the ground running. Barely making it into work under the wire, he'd spent the damn day feeling as though he must have left fully half of his brain back at home on the pillow.

He knew that it wasn't what had actually happened, because if it was, then he was in deep trouble, knowing that his dog would just eat the thing without a thought while he was at work.

Things which related to his job function – things that he'd known for years just didn't come to him today. He forgot things left, right and center the whole day long. He hadn't made his lunch and didn't have enough in his pockets to buy more than a cup of coffee.

Thank Christ it was Friday, he thought. Another day like this and he'd be disgusted enough at himself to beat himself to death with a flyswatter. It might take a little while, he thought, but it would feel so good when he got done.

He wondered at times during the day if this might be the onset of Alzheimers.

He reasoned then that it seemed to just be the day, so at worst, it might be Partzheimers.

But this, ... This just had to be the crowning touch to the day.

For the first time in his life, Tommy Bryce Anderson had run out of gas on his way home.

And not just in any place a little handy, like a four minute walk to any of the thirteen fucking gas stations which lined the route of his commute, oh fucking hell no, ... He ran dry AFTER he'd turned onto the backroads to his home, miles up the road, ...

Just not close enough to home to have walked the rest of the way so that he could get the can of gasoline out of his shed.

That would be too easy, right?

He'd mown the 'lawn' the evening before – all three acres of it, noticing that he was using the last of what was in that damned gas can when he'd fuelled up the mower. That's why he'd had to walk back down the road.

Magically, he'd not seen even one other vehicle the whole time.

So here he was, humping along almost in the woods on the hottest afternoon of the year yet this summer with a half-full plastic gas can banging against his lower thigh and calf every other step. He'd walked all the way back to the nearest gas station and he'd had to pay what amounted to the cost of the half-can of fuel PLUS the cost of the container – just in case he didn't come back, the attendant had said. Thank God for debit cards.

He swung at the horsefly which had chosen to torment him for most of the way.

Thirty-two and he was back to walking down a road in the middle of nowhere, he thought. He'd bought the 'century farmhouse' seven years before when he still had a wife. He smirked to himself.

He hadn't been one bit brighter back then either. Right in the middle of the recession, that's when Mandy told him that she didn't want to go on married to him for another minute. Two weeks after that bombshell, he'd lost his high-dollar job when the company that he worked for pulled their operations back to the states.

Since then, he'd found that he suddenly couldn't find a decent job. He was able to move mountains, but his age was seen as a sign that he'd want a ton of money where somebody newer to the workforce and with less in the way of credentials would do for a lot less.

Fuck, he thought; his life sounded like a country song. At least his truck still ran – when he remembered to put gas in it.

Now he was working a shit job in a factory making structural frame assemblies for cars so that he could buy his house again for the second time. But he was almost done with it now and his dog still loved him, so that was something.

On balance, Tommy had it together. He could have come out a lot worse. Mandy had just wanted out pretty much and he was able to swing something so that he could pay her out fairly so that she'd get what she wanted and he could still keep most of what he had. He knew that he could wallow over trying to find a cause, but what good would that do?

From what she'd told him after it was done, she wanted a fresh start, hopefully with somebody new, that was all. She'd said that she just felt too strangled to go on as she had been with him.

Tommy remembered the conversation and the way that he'd felt too wrung out from having to piece things together so that it wasn't all just a smoking hole where two people had lived once. Afterwards, Mandy had said goodbye and wished him the best.

He'd gone home and slept for fourteen hours straight. It had taken that long to catch up.

But before that, he'd been dog-tired and feeling like too much of a zombie to feel much more than the vacant hole in him. But he hadn't been totally stupid. By happenstance, his truck was in for service and he was driving a loaner. He left by a different door and a minute later, he was pulling around the back of the bank in town.

He'd watched as Mandy met Mr. Right at the Moment and they shared a hug and a kiss.

He'd driven off then. It wasn't his business anymore anyway, but he'd gotten a look and that was enough.

So rather than waste time trying to figure out what he'd done wrong, he'd just hung it up. There was no point in wondering, because he couldn't see what it was that she'd wanted or how he'd failed her. The only reason that he might have wanted to know was so that he'd maybe learn something and try to do better the next time.

Only there wouldn't be a next time.

Tommy had no intentions of ever working that hard to please somebody else ever again. Where was the sense in that? He'd done his very best for his woman for almost ten years and the grand prize was that he'd had to refinance what he'd already worked to pay for. Nobody in his shoes could have seen that coming.

So this time, ....

He still lived on the hobby farm that Mandy had just had to have. The only difference was that he liked it now. The truth be told, other than sleeping with her and the way that he missed that, he liked his solitary life better. He supposed that he'd have to make a few calls to try to find and get to know a few of his younger relations so that he could have his will re-written, wanting to have somebody to leave the trappings of his mortal life to after he passed on.

But he guessed that he had maybe a little time for that. He'd had Mandy written out and that was good enough for the moment.

He was older than he used to be, but he was still in good shape for his age. Actually, he was in fine shape for his age. The kind of work that he did now was very physical and repetitive. The first few months had felt as though they were killing him but it passed as he knew that it would. For a little over the first month, Tommy ate a pair of Advil capsules for lunch to get him through the second half of the shift. Whenever he got out of bed say, on a Saturday morning those first few weeks, he'd groan to himself a little quietly for the way that things hurt then.

But he'd always laugh at himself after a minute. There he was moaning as though he'd been slogging at some impossible task which was killing him. There were a lot of women working at the same place, he told himself, and at similar jobs, after all. They might be a bit younger and they might have been there long enough to get over what bothered him at the time. But if it hadn't killed them, well he'd just better suck it up and forget about it. What he was feeling were the complaints of a body grown long used to sitting in an office or a car.

"Welcome to the working world, asshole," he'd tell himself then with a smile. This was just temporary discomfort as his body toughened up. It was long past now and he actually liked the way that it felt to him now.

There had been a time, long before when he'd worked a summer job when he'd been in high school. A part of that job was that every so often, not every day, but maybe once or twice a week, the garden supply place where he worked would get an ancient gondola style rail car dropped off at a short rail spur out back. He'd always groaned to see one arrive to wait for him. Each one was full of smooth, round river gravel - tons of it, and they waited silently for him.

The place had no facility for the kind of car which could be dumped out through a hopper in its belly. He had to shovel the stone out, using a pitchfork with steel balls welded on over the ends of the tines. Each car would take him two days of back-breaking work to empty. That had been dog-work, not like what he was doing now, which was just a little bit physical.

So he knew the difference.

Thinking of that summer always made him feel better. He'd left school in June a tall and scrawny kid, but he'd come back with the build which had always lain there on him since. Suddenly no one had wanted to mess with him. Suddenly girls noticed him.

But that was another hairball from out of the past so he never went past the railcars and the way that he'd ridden home to collapse onto his bed after dinner every night. The first rail car that he'd had to empty out for three dollars an hour had made him want to cry. But his father had told him that it was good for him.

What a fucking crock of shit that had been to hear at the time.

Now, he was just an older version of the young man that he'd been once. He still had the build and he was healthier for it. Other than being already tired from work, this walk wouldn't kill him any faster than the mood that he was carrying would.

Oh yeah, his waking up stupid had made for a painful day. Now he was walking up the road, sweating and swatting at his new buddy, the horsefly.

He judged that he'd be at this for maybe another half-hour to an hour, tops. He stopped and set the gas can down long enough for him to take off his sweat-soaked T-shirt. With that in his hand, he figured that he stood at least a fighting chance at his personal flying pest.

After a few more minutes of it, he remembered a time long ago when he'd had to hitchhike to the cottage that his parents had, since he'd gotten a ride down to the city the week before and left his motorcycle there. He smiled a little as he remembered. There weren't that many rides for him that day either, only a couple, but they got him most of the way and he arrived in the dark late that night. He'd done all of that for a girl that he'd just met named Mandy. All that he had for wheels then was his motorcycle, but the girl didn't like them much.

In between the rides that he'd gotten he'd hummed and whistled and sung a song, already old then. But he'd always liked it for times like these, so he tried to remember it now and soon, he was walking along feeling a little better as he sang an old Allman Brothers song to himself as he went.

The motorcycle was long gone, and Mandy was too. The song was still there and there was a new motorcycle in the shed now - and there was no girl who was gonna get in the way ever again.

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Edwina felt like an old mop from walking in this heat. She'd been trying to think of what to do, and it had occurred to her to go to town to speak to the constable. She doubted that she'd get very far, but she was determined to swear out whatever she had to against her husband for attempted murder. She knew that the tide was against her no matter what, but she'd see to it that she was heard out just the same, thank you very much.

Women might not have the vote, but it was still illegal to try to beat one to death with an axe handle.

She began to hear someone whistling up the road from behind her. It was still faint, but she could hear it, and it after a moment, she was sure that it was growing louder.

Edwina began to fret for a moment, worried that it might be Bruster out looking for her, but then she realized that he never whistled; he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. The whistling stopped then and she heard a male voice singing. The words were still a bit hard to catch, but she liked what she heard a little, and the melody seemed to help with the way that she felt.

"Don't fly Mr. Bluebird, I'm just walking down the road,"

Edwina didn't know what to do all of a sudden. She looked to her left and she saw the way that the heavy and thick growths of pines there hung over the old cedar fence of the farm which must lie back behind it somewhere. She ran down into the wide ditch and then back up the other side, stepping over the old fence railings where they'd fallen to hide herself in the trees. She suddenly wished that her dress wasn't the bright gingham pattern that she wore. It would have gone better to have worn a dark dress today. Then again, she thought, she was frying her brains as it was and what she wore was what she'd had on last night.

She tried to gather it to her, hoping that it would be enough as she waited and watched.

After a few more minutes of waiting, Edwina saw the head and shoulders of a man coming over the rise. She had to stare a little, because she didn't think that she'd ever seen anyone quite like him.

His very short hair was blonde for the most part, the way that blonde hair eases its way into gray rather reluctantly. If it hadn't been for the angle of the sun, she might have missed that. He wore what she knew as a Van Dyke – a mustache and a little goatee, cropped short with nothing over his cheeks. Above his mouth, she saw the mustache with longish ends that reached the beard, and under his lower lip, she could just make out the little tuft of whiskers which connected the lip to the beard. To her, it gave him a rakish look, and she was a little glad that she'd hidden herself, not certain whether a man like him could be trusted.

Especially given the way that the rest of him was attired.

He wore boots of some sort under rather longish dungarees of what looked to be denim, so he certainly wasn't a member of the wealthy classes. Indeed, he looked like more of a working man to her. He wore no shirt at present, though he carried what might be one in his hand. In his other hand, he carried a bright red container, obviously laden with some form of liquid from the way that he seemed to be a little burdened by it and by the wet sounds from within.

Her gaze fell on his shoulders and his chest then. She saw that he was no stranger to work and his build reflected that, being very muscular indeed. She wondered what he labored at to have that sort of body. She'd heard tell of some logging going on to the north of her, but she'd never been there. Overall, she quite liked what she was looking at, but at the moment, she was little inclined to have any dealings of any kind with any sort of man.

As he came a little closer, still singing up a storm, she saw the markings on him and it gave her even more cause to fear a little. From what she knew, sailors had these things done to them, these pictures marked into their very skin.

She planned to just hold herself still and wait. He'd pass her by soon enough and then she'd wait a little longer to give herself a good distance to him when she stepped back out onto the road.

But she so liked his little song and his voice as well, listening as she was to him while he walked abreast of her the thirty or more feet away.

"You're my blue sky, you're my sunny day –"

He stopped singing abruptly just as he came to a halt opposite her there.

After a moment, he turned his head to regard her a little oddly. He was looking at a lovely woman in a blue patterned gingham dress. She had long, honey-colored hair and slightly piercing bright blue eyes. As beautiful as she was to him, she looked far out of place to him standing there that way – about a hundred years out of date, to be specific. He thought that she must be dying in that much cloth. He knew that he would have been.

"Um, excuse me, Ma'am, are you alright" he asked.

She didn't reply for a moment and then she nodded, "Yes sir, I am alright, I believe. Why do you ask?"

He looked down a little and she watched a small smile flicker across his features for a moment as though he was thinking of his reply to her. He looked up then, "Well, I come by here twice a day, five days out of seven most weeks. I'm usually driving then and it's dark for one of those trips every day. Even so, I try to be observant, since there are deer around here.

This is the first time that I've uh, ... been forced to walk this road, but I can say that I've never seen a woman in a dress like that out on a hot day and trying to hide by standing in a bunch of trees. That's not exactly the sort of thing that most people do out on a day like today. Are you sure that you're alright?"

Edwina wanted to ask him what 'sort of thing' that most people were supposed to wear on a day like today, but she was much too nervous for that. As well, she'd been walking for a good long while now and she was feeling the heat of the day to a great degree.

She was also rather thirsty, her feet hurt, and she didn't know how far it was to the town. It affected her to a degree – that, and the fact that when this furnace of a day cooled down later, it would be night and she still didn't know quite where she was.

"Sir, I wonder if I might ask for a bit of help. I wish to go to see the constable in Rosemount, but I do not know how much farther it might be. Could you tell me if you know?"

She watched his eyebrows rise a little then, "Rosemount?

Ma'am, if that's where you want to go, you're walking the wrong way. It's that way," he pointed, "a good five or six miles. And by 'constable', I assume that you want to speak to the police? There's no detachment there at all. The nearest one that I know of from here is in Briarvale, and that's got to be maybe ten miles. You won't get to either place before dark and there are no street lights out here. I don't think it would be a good idea to be out here walking at night all alone. I know I sure wouldn't want to."

He watched her face fall a little.

"If it's not too impolite to ask you, why do you need the police? If it's an emergency –"

Edwina didn't know what to say then. To hear that she'd been going in the wrong direction all of this time, ...

"You would have to think that I'm a mad fool," she said, "but I swear that last night, my husband tried to kill me with an axe handle. He did hit the back of my head, but today, it doesn't feel injured to me at all.

Last night, I ran out into the woods in the rain, but I must have fallen. When I woke up a while ago, it was early afternoon and it's bright and sunny and hot. I have no recollection of how long I lay there."

Tommy thought that it sounded serious enough either way. She was either telling the truth as she saw it and her husband had tried to hit her, or, ... she was still telling the truth as she saw it in her mind, being deranged or something.