“There’s been an accident.” The voice on the other end of the line belonged to one of Stephen’s coworkers at the mill. Bill, I think his name was. No. Bernard. He’d called before. “Sarah? Are you there?”

I didn’t say anything. I could hear Bernard breathing through the receiver. Labored inhales. Deep, loud exhales.

“Sarah?” He said again.

“Who is this?” I asked, even though I knew.

“It’s Bernard Anders from down at the mill. I’m a friend of Stephen’s.”

“What kind of accident?” I kept my tone even.

“Why don’t you come down here?” Bernard sounded sort of desperate. I looked down at the navy blue couch I was sitting on. I pulled on a loose thread. I didn’t know what to say to Bernard, but I knew I didn’t want to go down to the mill.

“Can’t you just tell me now? I’m busy.” Bernard didn’t say anything and I knew then that it was bad. I did not want to go down to the mill.

“Please, Sarah.”

“Alright.” I kept pulling on the loose thread. “I’ll be down soon.” I hung up the phone without waiting for Bernard’s reply. The loose thread had made a hole in the couch. I stared at the hole and then put my finger through it, feeling for the soft cotton stuffing underneath. I felt like maybe I should cry because something bad had happened to Stephen, but I didn’t cry. Couldn’t. I stood up from the couch, took my purse from its hook next to the front door, got in my car, and drove towards the mill.

I heard the sirens from a quarter mile away. I heard them and everything inside of me froze up; the air in my lungs crystallized and it felt like if I took another breath they would shatter. I turned on the radio and cranked the volume as loud as it could go. Some song about blessing the rains in Africa. I think I’d heard it before. It didn’t matter.

When I pulled in, everything looked as I had expected it to look. Two ambulances. A mob of people crowding around them. Several police officers trying and failing to get everyone to back up. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to talk to Bernard, didn’t want to have to listen to what I knew he was going to tell me. Didn’t want to see a broken man. Didn’t want to see a body bag. Didn’t, didn’t, didn’t. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't.

I parked my car but stayed inside, watching the police officers as they set up orange cones and yellow tape around the perimeter of a building with the letters EA painted on it. They kept telling everyone to “back up, back the hell up!” but no one was listening. I tried taking deep breaths. Rubbed my palms against my thighs to try and steady them. It didn’t do any good. I couldn’t stop them from shaking and I couldn’t stop thinking about Stephen and ambulances and police officers and yellow tape.

Someone knocked on my window. An older, dark-skinned man, maybe mid-60s and wearing dirty blue coveralls, leaned against my car and shielded his eyes, trying to see inside. “Sarah? Is that you?” I didn’t recognize him but the voice sounded like the one on the phone. Bernard backed up to let me open the door.

“Sorry. I was just…” I gestured to the chaotic scene in front of us.

Bernard looked at me. There was pity in his eyes. “Listen, I really appreciate your coming. I didn’t want to have to tell you over the phone.”

I looked at him and said nothing.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident.” He looked over his shoulder at the ambulances. The sirens had been turned off but the red and white lights still flashed against the building. “Stephen was directing a crane that was carrying a sixty-yard long wooden beam. Apparently, the beam hadn’t been properly secured,” he paused and looked at me, gauging my reaction, “and it. It fell on him. He didn’t make it.” His voice was quiet and controlled, like he’d been practicing saying the words out loud before I’d gotten there. My knees buckled. Even though I’d known, even though I’d been anticipating those exact words the entire drive to the mill, my knees buckled.

After that, my memory cut in and out. I vaguely recollect Bernard pulling me into his arms and hugging me. I remember him whispering Sorry, I’m so sorry, Sarah over and over in my ear. Not that the words meant anything. We barely knew each other. His sympathy was useless to me. I remember talking to the EMTs and the police officers. I remember being forced to listen to them describe exactly how my husband had been killed.

Then Bernard drove me home. He refused to let me drive myself. Said there was no way I was in any condition to operate a vehicle. When we got back to the house he made sure I made it inside okay and told me he’d come over in the morning to help me make arrangements. I didn’t want his help. He was a stranger. I think I remember telling him that I needed to call Stephen’s parents, his brother, but Bernard told me he’d take care of it and that I just needed to lie down and rest. Eat something.

After he left, I climbed into bed. A queen-sized bed. Meant for two people. But now it was a one person bed and it was too large and all that empty space made my skin crawl. I got up and stripped off the sheets and the comforter and the pillow cases. I rolled them into a ball and shoved them under the bed. Then I made my way towards the hall closet. The door squeaked as I pulled it open. Just the other day, Stephen had told me he was going to oil it because he knew how much it drove me crazy. Now I’d have to oil the godforsaken closet door myself. I pulled out a wool blanket and an old white sheet. They smelled stale, like mothballs and dusty plaster. Like the inside of the closet. I put them both in the washing machine and poured in much more detergent than was necessary for such a small load but I had to get the smell out or I’d never be able to sleep. I set the washing machine on its extra long cycle and slammed the door shut. I stared at it as it started up. Then, satisfied that it would get the smell out, I left the laundry room.

The house seemed empty. Even the backyard, which was of no grandiose proportions, looked big and desolate. Usually at this time of year there were bunnies hopping around in the grass in the afternoon. But there were no bunnies out today. Everything was still, not even a summer breeze blowing the leaves on the trees. The earth is in mourning.

Stephen and I had met on a city bus when I was 17 and he was 21. I’d been on my way to the grocery store and Stephen had sat down beside me on the bus without even asking if the seat was already occupied. He’d grinned at me and two large dimples carved themselves into each side of his mouth. I’m Stephen, he’d said. He didn’t offer me his hand or anything, just told me his name. Sarah, I replied. He kept smiling. Nice to meet you, Sarah. Then he turned to face forward in his seat and didn’t say another word the rest of the trip. Only when the bus stopped at the supermarket and I made to get off did he ask if he could see me again. I told him he could. I told him where he could reach me. He said, I’ll see you, then. I said, Yes, I suppose you will.

I’d known right then that it was gonna be something special.

Later, I tried to eat something. There was a browning banana in the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter that I figured I should eat before it went bad.I picked it up and peeled it but I couldn’t eat it. The thought of food was repugnant. I threw the banana and the peel in the trash. Instead, I finished my laundry. When the wool blanket and sheet were dry, I took them over to the couch. They were still warm. I hugged them to my chest and stayed that way for awhile. The soft fabric felt wonderful. It smelled wonderful, too, now that the mothball smell had come out. After the warmth had faded from the material, I laid the sheet on top of the couch, tucking it into the cushions so it would stay in place. I pulled the curtains in the living room shut, lay down on the couch, covered myself with the wool blanket, and fell asleep.

When I woke up the light had shifted. I guessed it was about five o’clock. My stomach growled even though I still didn’t feel like eating, but I went to the refrigerator anyway, pulled out a plate of leftovers, and put it in the microwave. Stephen’s voice rang through my head. Three meals a day, Sar, breakfast, lunch, and supper. He never let me skip meals even though I wasn’t a big eater. But I’d already skipped two, so I forced myself to eat. I held my plate and leaned against the counter and looked at my empty house.

After we got married, his parents gave us this house. They had bought it ten years earlier with the intention of using it as a summer home. Not that it was anything fantastic. One story, two bedrooms, a bathroom. It was on a big piece of land, though, far away from town. I guess that’s why they liked it. There were a few cows that lived on the land, left there by some previous owner, and every so often one of them would wander up to the house. Stephen loved them. He named them, fed them carrots and lettuce. I always thought it was a bit ridiculous. Cows weren’t pets. The cows didn’t even belong to us. But they were good cows, I suppose. Big and gentle and quiet. I didn’t mind them one bit. Maybe I just learned to love them because Stephen loved them. He was always good at that, at making people care about things. He cared about everything, even silly, unimportant things like cows. Things nobody else ever bothered to notice.

When I finished eating, I put my plate in the sink. I didn’t know what to do. I washed the plate and dried it and set it on a stack of identical plates in the cabinet. Then I went to my room and started looking through Stephen’s things. I dug through his dresser drawers, pausing when I got to an old sweatshirt he’d loved to wear during the winter. It was dark green and pilling and I couldn’t for the life of me ever figure out why he was so attached to it. I stared at the sweatshirt. I said, “What am I supposed to do?”

The next morning I was awoken by a gentle knock on the door. Bernard, coming to help me make arrangements, just like he’d told me he would.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he said after I let him in. I pointed him in the direction of the kitchen and then put on a pot of coffee.

“You did.” Three big scoops of coffee grounds into the filter. Warm water into its reservoir.

“I’m real sorry about that. I just figured, you know. Best sooner rather than later. There’s a lot to be done.” Bernard watched me as I made the coffee. His body looked big inside my little house. Thick arms, thick neck. He must have towered over Stephen. He wore a pair of denim overalls and brown work boots crusted over with dirt and his thick hands were folded and resting on the table in front of him.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said with my back to him.

“Okay.”

“Why do you care so much? I don’t know you. I didn’t ask you to help me.” I still couldn’t face him. I stared at the kitchen cabinets in front of me.

“I don’t know how much Stephen told you about me, or if he even said anything at all, but me and him were real good buddies. Brothers, of sorts. The negro and the cracker, everyone at the mill called us,” he chuckled. “We worked together for 12 years. That’s a long time. Plenty of time to get to know someone and plenty of time to get to caring about ‘em. He helped me out a lot and he saved my life at that hellhole probably more times than I could count. It’s a dangerous job, y’know. And the one time he needed saving, I couldn’t be there for him. I owe him this, Sarah. Please, just let me help.” By the time Bernard finished, his voice was trembling.

I turned around and looked at him sitting there at my table with this thick hands folded in front of him. He hadn’t moved an inch. “He never told me any of that.” The coffee had finished brewing but I didn’t make a move towards it. “He never told me.”

Bernard nodded, his eyes cast downward. “Figured as much. Kid wasn’t much of a talker, was he?”

“I suppose he wasn’t.” Suddenly I felt further from Stephen than I ever had before. There was an entire part of his life that I knew nothing about. He rarely talked about his work and I’d only heard him mention Bernard a few times during our whole marriage. I had no idea of the extents of their relationship.

“It’s okay, Sarah. I’m here now. I’m going to help you because I never got the chance to help your husband. Do you understand? Is that okay? You have to let me help you.” There was that same desperate hitch in his voice that he’d had when he first called me about the accident. I could tell he was serious about this.

“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say and I knew even if I tried to say something I would start crying and I did not want to cry in front of Bernard. I poured the coffee into two mugs and added cream and sugar to both and then handed one to Bernard. I joined him at the table. We sat there sipping the coffee and gazing out the window overlooking the backyard. Neither of us spoke. Fog hung low over the grass, making everything look faded and gray and completely void of its usual luminescence.

Bernard stayed most of the rest of the day. We talked about Stephen and made calls to the funeral home and the hospital and all of his family members. It was nice with him there. He was kind and gentle and I could tell he was being real careful what he said around me. He didn’t leave until it had grown dark and the crickets had taken up their evening song and the air hung heavy and sweet around the house. “My wife’ll be expecting me home soon,” he’d said. I told him he had done more than enough. I told him that he should go home and be with his wife. He promised to come back the next day. After he left, I made more coffee and went through boxes of old pictures of Stephen and me until late into the night.

“Let’s go for a walk, okay?” Bernard said the next morning when I answered the door.

I nodded. “Yeah, okay.” I found a sweater hanging in the closet by the front door and put it on. Mornings were still chilly even though it was late June.

Bernard handed me a thermos. “I brought the coffee this time.”

We started down the path that led from the front door all the way out to the field in front of the house. “You got a real nice property.” He put one of his hands in the pocket of his jeans. The other held a thermos identical to mine. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the early morning sun.

“It belonged to Stephen’s parents. They gave it to us when we got married.” We continued down the path. Bernard didn’t say anything. It seemed he was waiting for me to continue. “We used to take walks like this almost every day. There’s a little creek in the woods down there,” I pointed a ways off to a large grouping of trees. “Stephen used to fish in it sometimes. I always told him there wasn’t a single living soul in that water. He always told me I just needed to have a little faith. ‘Faith and patience.’ That’s what he’d say. Then he’d just keep on fishing.”

Bernard stopped walking and looked at me. “And did he? Ever catch anything?”

I laughed. Then suddenly there were tears in my eyes. I turned away and bit the inside of my cheek. Bernard put his hand on my arm. After a minute, I said, “Yes. Would you believe it? He caught a fish in that ridiculous creek ten minutes later. Can you believe that?” I said again.

“I can believe it.” Bernard had a big smile on his face. Like a secret. “Faith and patience,” he said. “How ‘bout that? He was somethin’, wasn’t he?”

I nodded. We kept walking. I sipped my coffee and tried not to cry. Bernard hummed, a smile in resting position on his lips. Finally, after a long silence, I said, “Who let it happen?” They were dangerous words because I didn’t want to know their answer. Dangerous because I had to know.

He stopped humming but didn’t say anything. “Bernard,” I said again, emphatically this time. “Who let it happen?”

“Listen, Sarah. We can’t place blame on anybody. There are a million tiny things that could have caused the slip-up. Faulty equipment, you know. These kinds of things happen sometimes. It’s the nature of the beast.”

“But there had to have been someone, someone who didn’t check everything they were supposed to check before, before—“ My voice was frantic and I couldn’t finish the sentence because my throat was closing.

“Hey, it’s okay. Look at me, Sarah.” I shook my head. Looking at him would break me. Bernard sighed. “I know that right now you think it would feel good to find somebody to blame, that it would somehow make this whole situation easier if you could point fingers, find a single source at which to direct your anger. But it was no one’s fault. You have to believe me. It was no one’s fault.”

I felt inside the pocket of my sweater for a pack of cigarettes I’d left inside from when I used to smoke. I pulled one out and lit it and brought it to my lips.

“He told me you’d quit,” Bernard said softly.

“He told you that, did he? What else did he tell you? Huh?” I was mad now. “Did he tell you that I used to smoke two packs a day? Did he tell you how crazy it drove him, how he thought I was letting cigarettes control my life? Did he tell you what a bad person he thought I was?”

“Sarah—“

“Because he did, you know. I could sense it every time he looked at me. Those big, pitiful eyes. I hated those eyes. Hated that he looked at me like he felt bad for me. As if I was some little kid he needed to take care of. Yeah, I quit! I quit because I wanted him to stop looking at me like that. But now he’s dead, so what the hell does it matter if I smoke a cigarette? What does any of it matter?” I stared at the ground, eyes wide and chest heaving. Daring him to say something.

“He told me he was proud of you.” It was practically a whisper.

“What?”

“That’s what he said, the day you quit. He came in to work and he almost couldn’t contain himself. Sarah, he was so proud of you. You were all he ever talked about. How much he loved you, how you made him a better person. It’s why I felt so connected to you before we even met, because I got to know you through him. And he loved you so much. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

I stared at the cigarette in my hand. Turned it over and over in my fingers. And then I let it fall, my body crumbling with it. I sobbed, ugly and loud until my face burned and I couldn’t breathe. Bernard sat down beside me and rubbed my back.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I must’ve said it a million times.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.” He said it a million times back.

After the funeral, our walks became a routine. Just like they had been with Stephen. Bernard would come over a couple times a week right after the sun had risen over the hills, always with coffee in hand, and we’d walk down to the creek to see if we could find any fish swimming in it. We never could. Or else we’d walk to the cemetery, bringing flowers to Stephen’s grave. He told me stories about his wife. I told him stories about Stephen. He told me stories about Stephen. Those were always my favorite. They healed me. Slowly, but they healed me. It was something real special, learning about my husband through the eyes of another person who loved him. I never could figure out why Stephen hadn’t told me about such an important person in his life, but I didn’t hold it against him. There were some things that had to stay secret or else they’d lose their magic. For Stephen, knowing Bernard was one of those things.

It was chilly the day of our last walk. The sky was full of dark clouds and an angry wind whipped at the trees. Bernard suggested we stay inside, but I had a good feeling about the walk. So we went, taking our time wandering down to the creek. I held my thermos in one hand and an umbrella in the other.

“Bernard?”

“Hm.”

“Thank you.” I stared straight ahead as I said the words.

“What for?”

The wind was picking up. I raised my voice a little. “For everything.” He didn’t say anything, so I continued. “I didn’t, um. I didn’t know I needed you. I mean, when Stephen died I didn’t think I even wanted to know you. You were a stranger. I didn’t understand why you thought you needed to help me. But now I do.”

“And what did you discover?”

“You healed me.”

He was quiet for a while. We kept walking. He sipped his coffee. I looked at him, waiting for an answer. “Darlin’, I didn’t heal you,” he finally said. We had reached the creek and the water was still despite the wind. “It’s gonna rain soon. We’d better head back.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. We turned around and headed back towards the house. Thunder rumbled. A few raindrops fell and landed on my arm. Bernard had a strange look on his face. Then, almost too quiet for me to hear above the wind, he said, “We healed each other.”

I looked at Bernard. “We healed each other,” I repeated. Then I lunged forward. I threw my arms around him. He faltered a bit but after a second he wrapped me up and we stayed like that for a good long while.

When he pulled back he said, “Don’t be a stranger, ya hear?” kissed my cheek, and then turned and walked down the path back to my house.

I stayed exactly where I was until long after Bernard had disappeared from sight. I looked out into the expanse of tall, pale green grass and watched as it danced along with the rhythm of the wind. Shhh, it seemed to whisper. Then I noticed something in the distance. A big mass. Probably a rock. I kept looking, squinting my eyes, trying to see it more clearly. No, not a rock. A cow.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I threw my head back and let the wind brush over my face and the stray raindrops dot my skin and I let myself feel all of it. Then I was running towards the cow. I didn’t stop. I kept running. The grass was thick and hard to get through and after each step I nearly fell to the ground. I kept running. Tears streamed down my face and I didn’t know if it was because of the wind or because of the cow but I didn’t wipe them away, just let them drip off my cheeks and onto the collar of my shirt until it was soggy and damp. I kept running. And I kept running.