They found his car, parked on the bridge between two towns,…

Friends say he was despondent. His mother had died just a few weeks before, and everyone said his was such a kind, gentle soul. His sisters already knew the worse. They understood Jimmy just as their mother had. 2/

There was no "indian summer" that year. October came in cold, stayed cold, and blew into a cold November. The local police weren't enough, so they called in the Coast Guard to drag the river. 3/

There was only time. Time to wait, but not to worry, only to find out. When they, a sister took to her bed, another retreated to her books, and my mother, the youngest, had to keep it from all falling apart. She was his kid sister, and the adoration was mutual. 4/

She kept the story from her own youngest son, who was only four. When she spoke of him at all, she simply said that he died, honey, and that he was sad. When her son was older, long left, she sent him a photo. 5/

The photo showed two women on either side of a man, perched on the bumper of a big bloated car. They seem dressed for a night on the town, he in a suit, the women cross-legged in dresses and pumps. 6/

But the car is in a clearing, doors opened, and the man leaning crossed-ankle against the hood perches a rifle on his shoulder, some bolt action war issue. There's a handdrawn arrow pointing at one of the women. 7/

This is Jimmy's wife, she said on the note she enclosed. But Jimmy had no wife; it had never been mentioned by anyone else, not by the sister who took to her bed or the one to her books. 8/

Her name was Evelyn, she was a nurse, and nona didn't like her, and that was that. Nothing else to say, she told him when he asked. Where she is today, no one knew, and couldn't bring themselves to find. 9/

So for twenty years, he went to work, and he gave his money to his mother, and he stayed home, with her. Everybody liked him, he had many friends, because he was a kind, gentle soul. But no one saw in. 10/

It was a good thing we were Protestant. There was only the pain of earthly sin left behind, not the shame and judgement of an angry god who could not forgive the hidden pain he must have borne that drove him to the bridge that October day in 1960. 11/

Of all the questions asked, one I did not was whether or not she'd seen him since he'd paced the bridge. That answer I already knew. /