all ways 11 o'clock

She went back to the old house again today. I see her drive by my own run down place like clock work every Sunday at six am. Lora Leigh is seventy now, the house nearly a hundred. Her father and my father built that house and I remember as a kid those men hauling large spruce from the woods two years before construction, using everything from those trees. They even used those mammoth stumps for knee-wall supports on the second floor. Working through a whole winter hand cutting and air drying boards stacked in make-shift shelters those men worked, just the two of them.

Our families were close, woke together, worked the fields together, and shared in Saturday evening card games. That’s what you do out here with miles between neighbors, where a visit from someone can last a few days. And all us kids grew up together, going to school, fishing down at the river during long summer days, setting rabbit snares in the winter. I liked Lora Leigh, always have and always will I guess. She ended up marrying my best friend Dan Angus White. A real good man, Dan Angus and a fine carpenter too, just like his father was. They loved each other very much and over the years my love for Lora Leigh turned to a lonely happiness for I knew they were happy.

I remember just a few years ago I was in town buying some supplies at the Co-op and there they were. She had taken ill for a spell, very sick and she couldn’t walk so good. Here Dan Angus was taking her arm and helping her with the stairs. I saw this from behind and I was moved to tears. Here she was so slight and frail and in pain going with her man for the month's shopping, and him a bear of a man so soft and patient gentle, her arm through his. They was real good people.

I stayed a bachelor for not finding anyone I felt half as with Lora Leigh. One day a year ago last spring she pulled up to my house throwing dust and rock everywhere. I went to the front door to see her running toward the house. She was screaming and crying . I couldn’t make a word out of her. What happened was Dan Angus was building a new house down in Middle River for a young couple who just moved there. He took a fall from the roof that took his life.

I went to their house every day after the funeral for some time. I did work around the barn and helped with the chores. We spoke at the kitchen table until it was time for me to go. She would always give me a hug when she saw me to the door. She has moved to town now finding the house too big and empty without Dan Angus. She still keeps the old house though, can't seem to give it up.

We are good friends. She will stop in here after she pulls some weeds or sits in the chair by the window of their old home looking toward the barn where her husband would spend his Sunday morning's grooming the horses.