Edwina's Second Chance

***I was trying to imagine what a cautious and slightly traumatized woman might do if she found herself with an attractive man who showed her a lot of care and concern. The thoughts led me to a few places.

Then I wondered what might happen if she found herself lacking in what she thought that a lot of women might have and not even think of too much.

After that, I wondered what might happen if she had the thought that she was now a widow, ...

Ok, then I remembered that I had been writing this to put on Lit and things went to Hell pretty much right after that. 0_o

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"Are those tobacco barns?" she asked as their journey took them past many old and tired-looking structures.

They weren't much larger than perhaps twelve by twenty feet and he nodded, "This area used to grow quite a bit of tobacco. Nobody grows it here anymore at all.

I found what I thought was one out back a ways one day and I cleaned the crap and junk out of it. I didn't do much with it for a while, but last year, I got to thinking a little. I still had to pay taxes on it as an outbuilding, so I fixed it up some. I guess I could always use it for storage or something. There was an old propane furnace there and I even found enough parts to fix it and get it to go. Maybe it might make a half-assed stable if I ever get a horse.

I've seen a lot of them that are just falling down. I don't think anybody's grown tobacco around here in about eighty years now."

"We grew some," she said, "Not much to sell at first, but my father grew it and Reginald as well. I never smoked very much of it, but I have always liked it once in a long while."

Tommy looked over at her and opened the center console to remove a pack of cigarettes. He took one out and handed it to her, "I guess that back then, they used pipes."

She nodded as she regarded the little cylinder, as though wondering what one did with it.

He reached for it and she placed it in his hand. He pressed the cigar lighter on the lower dash, "Used to be that every car had a lighter and an ashtray. Now, they're only an option."

The lighter popped back and he pulled it out to light the cigarette before handing it over to her, "I don't smoke very much anymore, but I still do, whenever I forget myself or if I'm in the middle of divorce proceedings. These are old and stale, but ..."

She inhaled a little and smiled at him, "Not the same as Father's or Reggie's pipe, and not ladylike, I suppose, but I don't mind this for the moment. Thank you, Tommy."

He nodded as he drove, deciding not to tell her that at one time, the industry had done its best to make the habit as socially appealing and 'ladylike' as shaving legs.

"What was that song that you sang as you were walking?" she asked him, "I thought it was very nice. You sing very well."

He smirked a little, "It's just an old song that I've always liked. There have been times before when I've found myself having to walk a good distance and that song is just a really good walking song – if it isn't pitch dark and in winter. It's a good song for a nice day. It's not about much more than walking in the sunshine and feeling alright. I didn't start out feeling that way when I found that I was looking at a long walk, but I always feel better if I hum or sing that song."

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The house amazed Edwina. It looked so different to the way that it had seemed to her only the day before from her point of view. Still, she felt some reluctance to step inside of it.

There was a lot of noise coming through the door at them. Whoever this Bruster was, Edwina decided, he must be some largish beast, though he seemed happy to know that his master had returned.

Bruster turned out to be a huge mutt of some sort, and after a short period where he looked at Edwina and sank to a growling cringe, he came to decide that he liked her after all and was fawning to her as Tommy led her into the place.

Nothing looked the way that it had to her before as she stared after Tommy excused himself to open every window that he could on the ground floor, telling her, "I'm hoping that the breeze from being at the top of this hill doesn't fail me now."

"We gutted it and renovated," Tommy said, seeing the look on her face," That sunroom is not the one that was here before. It was in bad shape when we moved in. I did find something when I tore it down, though."

He led her into the kitchen, which was very bright and modern in its appearance, though to her, it looked nothing like a kitchen anymore, since she didn't know what any of the appliances were or what they were to be used for.

"Where is the stove?" she asked, "There was a large wood-burning stove right there."

He pointed to a smaller one about eight feet away. "I took it out, since I could see through the sides in a couple of places. That one there is about six years old and it's airtight for safety. I just use that to heat most of the place by airflow in the winter."

She stood in the living room looking at his TV. She turned to him and pointed, "What, ...?"

He turned it on and explained as best he could. To his slight surprise she wasn't bitten even slightly with the fascination that he'd expected.

"A lot of people see it as a window on the world," he said, "Just don't ever put one in your bedroom."

She caught something in his tone and waited, not looking or going anywhere else.

He shrugged, "Mandy insisted, so I put one on our bedroom. It instantly became a dining room/entertainment center. Romance? Forget it. I only use mine to watch movies with. Down here."

"A thing to waste lives with," she decided and while he chewed on that, she was back in the kitchen, wondering how people cooked.

He stepped over to the wall there and he took an ancient-looking firearm down, "The original sunroom didn't really have a proper foundation. The floor joists were just laid out on the flattened and leveled ground. Between a pair of them, this old thing was lying on the ground. It took me a little while to clean the crud off of it. The hammer action is locked-up solid with rust, but I got it looking alright enough to hang on the wall."

He held it up and Edwina's eyes widened, "This belonged to Bruster," she said, "Everyone around had at least one. You could purchase one at the store for about four dollars. Reggie was a fair shot in his day and we always had some deer meat in the fall, but Bruster was no hunter. He only stumbled and crashed around in the woods when he tried to hunt."

She chuckled a little, "Well, he was always at least a little drunk and he had no patience to be still, and you need to be able to do that if you hunt for deer – even I know that. Bruster would just use it as an excuse to walk around for a day with a bottle or two in his pockets. He'd come home and complain to me, as though it was all the fault of the deer somehow for not walking out of hiding to step up to him asking nicely to be shot.

We would buy the meat in town, sooner or later. I never rubbed his nose in it for fear that he'd want to shoot me. He threatened to do it often enough."

She looked down then, "I never had much choice in men, but I made perhaps the worst choice in even speaking to him after I sold half of the farm's land to him. I should never have done that, I know it now."

Tommy filled the kettle and turned it on, indicating a seat for her in an old-fashioned spindle-backed chair, "I think this place must have been fairly remote back then, Edwina. Either that or the men surely must have been blind. I guess that you couldn't have gone to town much. If I'd lived back then, I know I'd have been interested."

She looked at him and he smiled in a friendly way that Edwina found herself liking about him very much.

"Thank you, Tommy. I must say that it's the first compliment that I've gotten in many, ... well, it's been some time. Thank you very much.

No," she said, "If there was a reason for it, other than my poor looks, I'd say –"

He was shaking his head, "You're not going to argue away what I can see for myself. I don't want to sound forward – especially with you feeling what must be a great deal of apprehension and confusion at the day and night that you seem to have had, so rather than leave me feeling frustrated that I can't give you a list of what I like about you, let's just leave it alone and you tell me what the other reason for it might have been. I sure don't see a thing wrong here."

The remark would normally have caused Edwina a fair bit of shy discomfort, but for some reason, she felt a little pleased to hear him speak this way and she smiled at him.

"I have always been a bit timid," she said, "and after, ... well, you see, I had no long line of suitors coming up the drive to court me the way that some girls did. After Mother and Father passed on, well, ... there were rumors in the town. People always seem to have to need someone to spread things about, and it was widely known that Reggie was a bachelor and I was his spinster sister, and, ... "

She looked down and sniffled, "There was talk that we, ... I mean, ... that he and I, ..."

She turned away then, walking to a window. She said nothing more for a minute; she just stood there blinking hard to try to drive the tears away. "After that bit of gossip made the rounds, nobody would even speak to Reggie much anymore and the very few men interested in me just disappeared altogether."

She held her hands to her face and began to cry again.

Tommy was a lot quicker with the tissues this time. "Come sit at the table with me, Edwina," he said, "Forget about all of that and I'll make you a coffee myself and we can struggle over our choices for dinner."

She wiped at her tears and she even blew her nose then. He praised her for finding the courage to do that and she laughed wetly a little bit as she sat down.

Tommy set a steaming mug in front of her and sat down, "I can't say, never having been in the situation, but I'd have to think that for someone with a dirty little mind and a naughty thought toward their own sibling or siblings, something like that wouldn't have been a very long leap to make."

Edwina looked up, thinking of the ones who might have originated the story. She smiled a little then. She could even see it easily.

Tommy seemed to have a way about him that could make her feel a little better somehow quite often.

"Besides," he said as he sipped his coffee, "If there was nobody way the hell out here then, and there was nobody who expressed an interest, well I can't think that something like that was all that rare a thing out here, likely the same as anywhere which is a little remote. Human beings all have the same needs, and to some of them, I'd guess that something is better than nothing."

She was a little shocked at what he'd said, but she didn't show it. She just smiled at him, "Well, you live alone 'way the hell out here', Mister Anderson. You are a rather strikingly handsome man to my eyes. What is your solution to those needs, if I may be so bold?"

The truth of it was that Edwina was now about being about as bold as she'd ever been in her life just to say this, but she found that she was enjoying it a little.

He looked a little distracted for a moment and then he said, "Well, I have no outlets in that regard at present, but I am not completely helpless. I have the Palmer twins to help me," he grinned.

Edwina didn't get it, so he held up his hands and wiggled his fingers at her, "These dedicated friends have never let me down. I'm a little partial to the affections of one more than the other, but there's no jealousy between them. Besides, in the dark, it's pretty normal for one hand not to know what the other one's doing."

The light came on then and Edwina shrieked quietly with suppressed laughter from behind her hand.

"I think it must be a very prolific family, "she grinned, "I have a pair of friends just like them."

A silence fell over the two of them for a few moments and in that time, they both felt that a lot of the awkwardness between a pair of people in a strange situation fell away somehow. To Tommy, Edwina was a very lovely and interesting person in a hugely strange predicament in some ways, but he found himself liking her as a person.

Edwina saw Tommy as someone that she now needed as a friend, since in their time together thus far, it had become clear to her that she couldn't begin to know how to navigate the complexities of daily life here. She knew no one and it was readily apparent that she knew nothing, or next to it.

Aside from that, and under, over, and in just about any way at all, Edwina found herself liking Tommy very much. Though she'd been nervous about him at the outset, she guessed that things were now a lot different between women and men these days, and he seemed to have a way to set her at ease, having some thought in him for the way that the strangeness of everything must seem to her.

Besides that, he was so much more of a man in some ways to her than any man that she'd ever met, if she was honest with herself and she found that she really liked that. These days, it seemed to her, men and women seemed to have found ways to be together or at least nearer to each other than porcupines might be able to get.

It came to her as a sudden shock to realize that if Bruster was dead and she quite obviously wasn't, then her vows to the boar were as good as dust. It was quite a thought to have and it preoccupied her thoughts a little as she carried on their conversation.

"Well, it was all a load of hogwash, that talk in the town – just a pack of lies spread by - "

"Front-row churchgoers, I'd bet any money," Tommy remarked, "fine upstanding pillars of the community with too much time on their hands and not enough problems to make then want to keep their mouths shut under their snooty noses." He smirked at her, holding it just for a moment, "I doubt that's changed since the eighteen fifties."

Edwina stared for a second and then she laughed, "I believe that you are a very astute judge of character, Tommy."

He shrugged, "It's nothing new to read about somebody – even people in the public eye, getting caught with their hands down somebody's pants where they shouldn't be. A lot of them would surprise you, righteous evangelists carrying on their staff, elected officials of all stripes. Hell, at one point, even a past president of the United States had to admit to some hanky panky, though to his dubious credit as a fast-talking politician, he maintained that he never had sex – but you just had to have your doubts, no matter what he said to the contrary."

Edwina was shocked, "Really?" She chuckled for a moment, "Well, they say that where there's smoke, ..."

He nodded, "Things like they said about you and your brother don't even raise my eyebrows. I've got my hands full living my own life. I don't have time to get all giggly over who might be doing what to whom. It's none of my business, and anyway, I think that it only has some impact if there are children from it. That complicates things and affects lives then.

Look, I rent out most of the acreage here to a beef farmer. He gets extra feed lot acreage, and I get some cash and a couple of sides of good beef a year out of the arrangement. If I were to suddenly hear that he's fooling around with his sister in the dark of night, I doubt very much that I'd care. As long as I'm getting good beef now and then and he pays as we contracted the arrangement, it's none of my business."

He sipped his coffee then and said, "I probably would look twice the next time that I saw the sister, but after that, I doubt that I'd give a flying fig about it all."

"What if it were true?" she asked, "What if you were to stumble across them as they did it?"

Tommy leaned forward, "None of my business. Though something like that would sure be an awkward moment for somebody. Probably me, most of all," he smirked as he raised his mug, "But as long as he didn't want to change our agreement – which is my business, I could care less."

"And we weren't doing that," Edwina said, "we didn't begin until long after the damage caused by those rumors. There was nothing for us, otherwise, so we gave up. We never did much of anything or, ... often."

Tommy didn't show any sign that he'd heard her, she thought, or he was just maintaining his 'none of my business' front.

"In light of our meeting this afternoon, and the troubles that you face – and I will want to help just as I said, would you consider me a friend in some way?" He asked.

"Yes," Edwina said, nodding, "I do not know a soul here but you. Your generosity and charity astounds me, Tommy. I feel very thankful to have met you."

"That's the way that I'd have seen it if our positions were reversed," he said, "so as your friend and guide through the canyons of modern rural life, I want to tell you that what you've just told me stays hidden. Don't you ever mention it to anyone when we go to figure out your options, Edwina. It's nobody's business, not even mine, so nothing said about that, ok?"

She reached across the table to touch his arm, "Understood, Tommy, but will you make no comment on it? I had to reach down very deep to make an admission such as that."

He looked over at her, "I don't know the year, but sometime before the turn of the last century, there was a lost group of settlers trying to go west in America. Winter landed on them with both feet and they had little shelter. Some of them died and there was no food for the rest. Rather than die, they ate the flesh of the dead ones. It might mark a sad tale, and we all exchange horrified looks if such a thing comes up in conversation, Edwina.

We all shake our heads and make the right sounds over it in company. But I believe that I know a bit about the human animal and I believe further that any human faced with death would do the same fucking thing. What you and uh, Reginald did is nowhere near as severe since no lives hung in the balance, but it shows that humans have needs, whether to stay alive or find a little comfort in the dark.

I can't say that I'd have ever wanted to do it with my sister, but then, we weren't in that situation. I guess I'm saying that I refuse to judge you for it."

Well, Edwina told herself, she'd wanted to test Tommy and he'd shown her the sort of man that he really was.

Tommy looked away across the room, "Besides, my sister is as ugly as sin."

Edwina burst out laughing at his remark. If they weren't here with a table in the way, she'd have hugged him for it.

They decided, after a bit of discussion, to have hamburgers and fries. He had to explain just what these things were to her, but she liked the sound of it. Edwina was keen to see just how these things were prepared, but first, ...

"Where is the privy, Tommy? It used to be there," she said as she pointed out through the window. "or it was yesterday, a hundred and fifty years ago, as you say. Was it moved, or, ...?"

He shook his head. "Long gone, Edwina. I have all the latest conveniences, which is to say indoor plumbing. There's a washroom right over there. I guess that you might not be familiar with flush toilets, though."

He led her and then explained very quickly, pointing to the handle as well as the roll of toilet paper. "You can use it to blow your nose if you need to, but this variety of tissue paper is for the other end," he smiled and he closed the door after him to go on puzzling over things in the kitchen. There was really nothing to puzzle over at all, but he knew that Edwina wanted to watch the cooking.

But he caught a bit of the scent of his own sweat then and decided to ask her about what he had come into his head as a thought then. He'd been walking out in the sunshine of a hot afternoon. So had Edwina – but he'd been able to at least take his shirt off where she'd been pretty much trapped in a superheated oven of fabric. He tried to imagine it and it didn't sound like anything that he thought that he could stand for very long.