Short Stories by Phoenix Hocking

On the day in question, the day I last saw Helen, she was out earlier than usual to clean the graves in the Morgan family plot. She was older, of course, than I remembered from when I knew her as a boy, but I’m not sure she has ever been young. She was still heavyset, with short “Dutch boy” hair flecked with gray. Her glasses remained tinted and thick, and she had the beginnings of the older woman’s hunch in her back.

I had not been in town for many years, and was only there to attend to some family business. My uncle had passed away, and as the only living relative within range, I had been elected to deal with his final affairs.

I would like to be able to write that the graves are located in some quaint churchyard, or on a high hill overlooking the sea, or even on some moor in faraway England. But they are not. The graves are only on a tiny plot of land accompanying the house, or what is left of the house.

As with many small family plots in this portion of New England, the graves are not uniform in shape nor space. Some of the monuments that once stood tall and proud have fallen into ruin, and even the concrete flat stones are pitted and distressed. The salt air and caustic spray from the sea have weathered the crosses and statuary. The stone wall around the Morgan family graveyard is more rubble than wall, and gulls have left their opinion of mankind on the stones.

Across the gravel path from the graveyard stands the lighthouse. Yes, of course it is still there; still blaring its warning out to sea, still lighting up the night, still waiting for the sea monster of fiction to come and make love to it. It was all very much as I remembered it, only older, more decayed, sadder.

When I was a boy, before I left town, Helen began to clean the graves every day. Not once a month, or even once a week, thank you. She cleaned them every day. At first light, if one was up and about early enough, you could see Helen, hunched over her broom, flowered nightgown on or heavy robe, depending on the season, sweeping the flat stones with her broom, or wiping the dirt from the monuments and statuary with her hands. Her mouth muttered every line of every headstone, although by this time she knew them all by heart.






At the end of every reading of every headstone, she would bow her head and mutter, “Rest in peace,” and then go on to the next to read the stone, and sweep it clean. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year.

The previous night had been terribly windy, and the graves were littered with leaves, branches and other debris. From the looks of her, I suspected that Helen had hardly slept that night, probably worrying about the final resting place of her loved ones, concerned about damage to the stones, wondering what she would find in the morning.

I decided to visit Helen while I was in town, and strode down the lane early in the morning. When I found her, she was sitting on the stone wall, looking out towards the sea, with the broom lying at her feet. Her flowered nightgown was hiked up past her knees to reveal pudgy, unshaven legs and dirty slippers. Her tinted glasses had slipped down her nose and her hair looked wild and untamed by comb or brush.

“Helen?”

She looked up at me, eyes frightened and confused.

“Helen?” I asked again. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone,” she said blankly.

“Who’s gone?”

“Timmy.”

“Timmy?” I asked. “Timmy who?”

“Timmy,” Helen said, “my Timmy.”

Timmy Morgan was Helen’s grandson, and had been 12-years-old when he passed away. He was a bright boy, soft of curl and benevolent of disposition, and courageous to the point of foolhardiness. It was his compassion that had brought about his unfortunate demise, attempting to rescue a kitten who had climbed the tall oak and seemingly could not figure out how to climb back down.

Timmy crawled out on a limb that could not bear his weight and fell to his death. The kitten not only survived, but walked away unscathed. It did not seem fair, somehow, especially when the kitten went on to become an obnoxious tomcat who antagonized the neighbors with a nightly yowl that sent shivers up the spine like nails on a blackboard.

Timmy’s body had lain in its grave for over fifty years. How could he possibly be gone?



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Timmy was my best friend when I was a boy. I was perhaps eight or nine years old when Timmy came to live with Helen. Always he was “my Timmy” to her, his parentage, or lack thereof, remained a mystery.

Timmy was an adventurous lad, a bit of a prankster, but had a kind and generous heart. No stray dog or cat ever went hungry when Timmy was around. He collected critters like most people might collect stamps or toy cars. His house, which was Helen’s house before it fell into ruin after his death, teemed with pets of all types. Dogs, cats, birds, mice, snakes; all of God’s creatures, great and small, found a place in Timmy’s heart and home. It was nice to go there, after the barrenness of my own home, to a place teeming with life.

I was an only child, and both my parents worked in a time when that was not the usual case. Unlike today, when children are raised by babysitters and nannies, my generation was raised by our mothers, mostly. But my own parents were both professional people, my father a doctor and my mother a nurse, so I was often left to my own devices. I came home from school,let myself in, did my homework, and then scampered out to find what trouble I might get in to that my parents wouldn’t find out about.

More often than not, Timmy was the instigator of such trouble. None of it was malicious or mean. Most of it was not even dangerous. We were just children, after all, in a time when being a child meant playing at the seashore in the summer and flying down a hill on a tobaggon when the first snow fell.

Until the day I die, I will never forget the day Timmy died, because I was there. We were on our way home from school. Timmy had his satchel slung over his shoulder and he was sucking on a piece of sour grass.

“You know why they call this sour grass?” Timmy asked.

“No, why?”

“Because animals pee on it, that’s why.”

“You’re making that up!” I protested.

“I am not!” Timmy shot me a grin. “Just ask anybody; they’ll tell you.”

Just about then, we both heard the plaintive meow from somewhere above our heads. We looked up and saw the kitten, high in the branches.

“Oh, look,” Timmy said. “Look at the poor thing. I’ll bet he got up there and can’t get down.”

Timmy sluffed his satchel onto the ground, spat his piece of sour grass out, and began to climb.

“Timmy, no!” I cried. “It’s too high. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He just grinned at me and said, “No, I won’t. Besides, I’ve climbed this tree lots of times.”

And indeed, he shinnied up the tree as if he had climbed it a million times before. Up and up he went, until he was quite high. The kitten continued to meow and cry, which only spurred Timmy on even farther. He never could stand to see or hear anything cry, not people, not animals.

He reached the limb the kitten was perched on and gradually inched his way out, reaching, reaching. I heard the branch give way and then Timmy was falling, falling, falling, slow motion, arms and legs over and over themselves. And then Timmy was on the ground, still. Timmy lingered for a while, hovered over by the doctors, the neighbors, and of course, by Helen herself, but in the end the damage was too great. Timmy passed quietly away one night, only Helen at his bedside. There was some speculation that Helen had helped his passing, as a way of easing his suffering, but that was sheer foolishness and everybody knew it. Timmy was Helen’s whole life, and when he passed away, part of her passed with him.

After Timmy’s death Helen, who had always been a little reclusive, simply shut down. She had never been much of a gadfly, but now she became practically a hermit. Her home and garden fell into ruin, bit by bit and year by year. Helen took to drinking heavily and grew fat with the heaviness of too much beer. She started smoking, which scandalized the neighbors, and took to wearing her flowered nightgown or bathrobe almost everywhere.

And Helen started tending to the graves. Not just Timmy’s grave, but all the graves in the Morgan family plot received special attention. She swept them clean every morning, read every word on every tombstone, and said a prayer over each one. But at Timmy’s grave, she paused for the longest time. She swept, she read, she prayed, and then she sat on the stone wall and cried.

Timmy was gone. Oh dear God, Timmy was gone.

When Timmy died, I had nightmares every night. Every night I saw him fall, over and over again. Every night I ran to him, but could never quite reach him. Every night, every night, every night. Finally, my parents decided that I might get over Timmy’s death if we simply moved away.

In retrospect, I suppose it was a good decision. In time, the nightmares lessened and finally went away. I grew up, married, had children of my own. Occasionally I remembered my boyhood friend with fondness and sadness, and then went on with my life.

So, on the morning when I last saw Helen, I was not surprised at her appearance. The flowered nightgown was just the same as I remembered, the unkempt hair, the tinted glasses. Someone told me years ago that Helen had lost her mind, but I had forgotten that. So when I saw her, sitting on the stone wall of the graveyard, crying that Timmy was gone, for one single moment I thought perhaps someone had stolen his body, or that the tombstone she had lovingly cared for all these years had been damaged. But no, it was just old Helen, who mourned the loss of her Timmy, just as she had every day for all those fifty odd years.



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Later, having a drink in the local bar, I asked about Helen.

“Helen?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Helen Morgan, out by the lighthouse.”

“You mean that old ruined place? The one with the falling down graveyard?”

“That’s the one.”

Scooter Miles, a old chum I had recognized from all those years ago, piped up. “They ought to tear that old place down and dig up them bones and bury them proper somewhere.”

“Well, they can’t to that,” I said. “Where would Helen go?”

Scooter looked at me like I was crazy. “What do you mean where would Helen go? That crazy old coot’s been dead for forty years or more. Nobody out there but ghosts, man.” He took a swig of his beer. “Nobody out there but ghosts.”

Just old Helen, mourning the loss of her Timmy, just as she had every day for over fifty years.



END