The Article by Jackie Zufall (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📕

whether he was home or on the road.

So when James was killed, it was a nice gesture I thought when Ron showed up at the funeral, then at the house afterward. About a month later, I ran into Ron at the store, we talked for several minutes and he said he missed seeing us at the diner each week, but he understood that it was hard for me to go there right away. I had only been there once to get James things out of the truck before the company I had leased it to came to pick it up. Ron stopped by several days later to see how we were doing, he had brought Paul a couple candy bars, and we sat on the front porch drinking lemonade and not really talking much. He left when we finished our drinks, he stopped by about once a week over the next several weeks, sometimes just to check on us, sometimes bringing something along, a pizza, a magazine he thought I’d enjoy, and once a ten speed bike he picked up at a garage sale, thinking Paul could use it to get to his weekend job in town a Millers Hardware, as he was outgrowing his old bike. Paul sure loved that bike.

Paul stopped reading momentarily to reflect back on that day.

1972

“Oh wow”, exclaimed Paul, “thanks Mr. Webster, this is really cool”. “Ron”, Ron had said back, “You can call me Ron, Mr. Webster was my father”. Paul jumped on the bike and rode like the wind down the driveway. He felt on top of the world like he thought no one else ever could have. Thinking as he rode along, Mr. Webster is pretty cool after all, Ron I mean, he corrected himself. He supposed that the man was just being nice to him and feeling sorry for him cause his dad had died, but anyway, he sure liked his new bike, though Ron made sure to tell him it was just a used one, it is new to me Paul thought to himself.

Present time

Snapping back to the present, Paul remembered how proud he had been of that bike, used it right up to the day he had left, when looking around the grounds the other day he had noticed the bike was now in the little shed out back, he assumed his mother probably put it there to protect it in the hopes he would return to use it someday.

Looking back down at the book, he resumed reading his mothers journal.

Three months after James funeral, he asked if Paul and I would like to attend the towns ice cream social, not a date mind you, he had said, just a ride along and hang out as he put it.
Things went on like this for another two months, finally he asked me to dinner and a movie over in Sherman, after first asking Paul for permission, I thought that day, what a kind and thoughtful thing to do!

When December came, after all the nice things he had done for us, Paul and I decided as we had no family except each other and Ron had no one, to invite him to spend Christmas Day with us for dinner.

He gave me a lovely scarf and also brought Paul several gifts to go along with the ones I had for him, including a gift James had hidden in his truck for Paul before he died. I found it when I cleaned out the truck. I remember Paul had mixed emotions when I gave it to him, it was the best fishing pole available as he and Paul loved to go fishing. Paul was so happy to have one last present from his father, but he never used it. Kept it safely stored away. It was one of the things Paul took with him when he left.

Things went on with Ron sometimes taking both of us out, sometimes only one or the other of us. He was so good to Paul In the beginning, helping with any thing best suited for a male or fatherly type person to do for Paul.

Then in March of 1973, Ron took Paul and Jay on a weekend camping trip, they had a great time. While there, Ron asked Paul if it would be ok for him to ask me to marry him. I did not know this until later after they returned, Paul went to his room the minute he walked into the house, I followed him and asked if they had a good time, and he had said yes, so I then asked why he was so upset then. He responded, telling me to do what I wanted, and rolled over turning his back to me. I was confused by what Paul had said until later that night when Ron asked me to marry him. He told me to think about it and talk it over with Paul. He had thought that the three of us got along ok until he had asked Paul about marrying me, then Paul had completely shut down, never answered him nor talked for the rest of the trip.

Paul and I talked later that evening and he loudly voiced his objections, stating that I must not have loved his dad if I could forget him so soon, I explained that I would always love his dad, nothing could ever change that, but that dad was living in a better place now, and someday we would all be together again, but in the meantime, dad would want us to be happy. He finally went along, yet I think he just basically gave up. For the first several months after we married, Paul was what I would describe as angry and rebellious, then eventually he seemed to accept things and tried to get along.
For a couple of years things were really good, then in the beginning of 1975 as it neared the 2nd anniversary of James death, Ron began acting strangely. I don’t know really an exact date and at the time, I had no thoughts on why he was suddenly changing right before my eyes. Weeks later, I was doing laundry and ran out of detergent, I went out to the shed to get more and came across a newspaper clipping of an obituary for a man over in Meadowbrook that I had never heard of, as I thought it rather curious I asked Ron about it later, he claimed not to know how or why the clipping ended up in the shed, but he seemed more agitated than usual. I felt that Ron was hiding something. The next day while in town getting groceries I stopped by the library and decided to look through some microfilm of news clippings for around the same date. The article I came up with was about a man that on first appearances appeared to be a suicide, but looking into it further, police felt it was more likely a murder, the man had died of a gunshot wound. Looking at the date he died, I realized with a sudden chill that it was around the time Ron had begun acting strangely. I then went over to the Loganville Tribune and paid for a subscription in an effort to keep up to date on the investigation.

Over the course of a few weeks, Ron seemed to settle down some, though the drinking continued. Nothing more appeared in the paper for nearly a year then there was a report that police following a lead had discovered some kind of proof that the man had been murdered, but it did not tell what the proof was, except to say there was a potential witness who had come forward with evidence of some sort. Wondering still if Ron had been the one to put the clipping in the shed nearly a year before, I deliberately left the paper on the kitchen table, though folded to look not deliberate, the part facing up was the report. I was preparing dinner when Ron came home from work, he came in, grumbled his usual greeting, grabbed a beer from the fridge, I sensed him still behind me and glancing over my shoulder saw him looking down at the paper, it seemed his face drained of all color, he quietly picked up the paper and left the room.

When dinner was done, I called Paul and Ron to the dinner table.
Ron declined saying he wasn’t hungry and needed to run to town, which was one of the first times that he got drunk on a work night, stayed gone until nearly three in the morning. He missed work the next day, calling in sick, and that was when after nearly a year of excessive drinking, the abuse began.
Inquiring as to what was wrong, Ron grew agitated and said he just had a bug, I asked a couple of times during the course of the day if I could do anything, at one point, he yelled at me to just let him be and shoved me away from him.

The next mornings paper, there on the front page was an artist’s drawing of a man that the police were searching for, with extreme uneasiness, I realized with a start that the man looked very much like Ron, but more as he had looked a couple of years before. Confused and suddenly feeling terrified, I stashed that paper away where neither Ron nor Paul would see it. I very suddenly felt all alone in this world and had no clue what to do.

Later that evening Ron went to town again, I sat at the table thinking about the drawing wondering what I should do. Should I call the sheriff and tell them who I thought the drawing looked like? I was at my wits end. I was still sitting there hours later when Ron came in, he was in an even worse mood than before. With a sudden fear I quickly realized that Ron had probably seen the picture in town. There were paper vending machines all over town and as the drawing was on the front page, it would be visible to anyone walking past.

I warmed up a plate of dinner for him, and we sat at the table, him eating and myself drinking coffee. Finally he asked me where the paper was, relief washed over me, I thought maybe he hadn’t seen it after all. Thinking fast, I told him that I guessed that my subscription had run out as there had not been a paper that day. He asked several times if I was sure I had not seen it, with uneasiness I understood, he was trying to find out if I had seen the paper. I got up from my chair and walked over to the coffee pot in order not to see his face as I lied and told him that I had looked all over the front yard and could not find the paper this morning. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist rather tightly, kissed my ear and said it was ok he guessed he’d get a paper in the morning when he went to town. I felt in my mind, the way he held me and the tone in his voice said he did not believe me and was giving me a warning in his own way. I knew that until I could get to town again and act like I renewed my paper, I would have to Intercept several papers so Ron would not find out that I had lied to him.
I got an idea the next morning as I stashed the days paper in my box of