A man lived alone in a house full of stacked newspapers. One night the man had a heart attack. He lay fifteen hours before a neighbor found him. When he got out of the hospital his daughter, who lived far away, arranged for an aide to come by and check on him twice a day. At first the old man was angry. Why not let him die in peace?
The aide was a cheerful man. Probably gay, the old man thought. Soon he found himself looking forward to the daily visits. He didn't change his harsh expression, except occasionally when a smile broke out despite his best efforts to repress it. The truth was that the kindness of the aide affected the old man. He thought of his own grim life, of his wife who had gone slowly mad among the stacked newspapers. He thought of his daughter who got on a bus for the other side of the country on the day she graduated from high school.
Above all he thought about the boy. The boy was sent out by an orphanage back east. Back when he was starting out. They'd put him to work on the farm, but the boy didn't want to work. He wouldn't work. He was twelve years old. He wanted to go to school. That wasn't the plan, they told him. Then that one day when the boy had climbed on the hog pen wall and was jeering, jeering at him ``Just try and make me work!'' he'd said.
Just a push. All it took. Not a trace left after a couple of days.
``He ran away I guess,'' he told his neighbors.
Now in his old age he remembered the boy who wanted to go to school, he imagined himself a different person - how things could have been.
One day the aide brought a tape recorder with him.
``You must have some great stories,'' he said.
The old man shook his head. ``There's secrets that will die with me,'' he said, ``and a damn good thing too.''