He came to the park at least three times a week. I used to walk the neighbor’s dog every morning at 11 a.m. and he would arrive sometime after me and sit facing the pond. His watch established upon a peeling, faded blue bench with graffiti scrawled liberally over the seat and back.

The first time I saw him I got this strange sort of clench in my chest. The feeling you have while watching a thriller on TV or passing by a cemetery late on a windy night. Sharp and tingly, holding your innards in a cold nauseous ball as you force yourself to breath slow and evenly through a mouthful of cotton.

Johnny Smith.

Cleaves Mills is a small town in every way except geography. The summers are short and the winters are hard. The people are quiet, steady, and taciturn to outsiders. In the diners and bars they talk amongst themselves and secretly resent the attention John has brought into their compact, simple world. Not a day passes that the local celebrity does not arise in conversation. Words tainted with rancor and often subtly underlain with confusion. He is an enigma, different and spawning a banal fear by his very existence.

That first day, I tugged on Sharp’s leash and hauled the big German shepherd across the grass and through a thicket. The nettles blistered my bare legs and a limb scratched my face. The pain was worth the peace of mind. John was sitting there watching the pond through half lidded eyes. The air around him seemed darker, weighed down by secrets and souls. To fear him felt wrong, yet inexplicably natural.

I did not return to the park for a week.

The second time was different and I could never explain that even to myself.

Sharp was tailing a butterfly. His old, gray head cocking from side to side as he lunged to the end of the retractable leash and then slunk slowly back. I had to smile at his antics. At 12 he was approaching ancient for a large breed. He fancied himself a puppy on that bright, chilly day and I laughed aloud when he leaped and snapped at the monarch. Off to the left, I heard a soft, hesitant chuckle. The sound made me jump and spin around, mouth agape.

“Sorry,” John murmured, the light of humor leaving his pale, blue eyes as he looked away.

“It’s okay.” There was something in that voice. A sadness so deep that it hurt to hear it. “He thinks he’s a pup today,” I added as I reeled Sharp in.

“How old is he?”

“12.” I patted the big, bristly head and was rewarded with a sloppy kiss on my palm.

John quirked a lip at the dog, “That’s old.”

“He doesn’t think so.”

“Apparently.”

He looked at the ground and then up into the clear, azure sky. Long, dusky lashes fanned pale cheeks as he sighed and closed his eyes.

I left then. I felt like I was intruding on something that could not be named or really explained. This man came to the park for a purpose and in true human fashion I fought the insatiable urge to find out why. Like the rest of Cleaves Mills, I lost that battle. Some did not care and others deliberately crossed the street when he walked by—much as I had done at first sighting.

The passage of time seemed to lessen the boundaries of civility in either direction. It was none of my business why John came to the park but I had the dog as an excuse. This awkward, fuzzy lump that barked at the wind and sneezed into the dandelions became my reason for returning to that park every day in search of the quiet, unobtrusive figure seated by the pond. At least it felt like a reasonable excuse. Better than admitting the curiosity that I abhorred in others and regretted in myself.

There were spans of time when John disappeared. A week, sometimes two and once it was a month. I missed him then, though we had not spoken since the day of the butterfly. His presence was unsettling and reassuring all at once. The very air was stirred by the incongruity. The wind always blew when John was in the park. No matter if it were deathly calm the length of the preceding streets.

Autumn brought change to the earth and sky. I dressed heavier and Sharp walked slower as the cold crept through his aged bones. Ice fringed the pond and snowy frosting hung from the pine needles and blanketed the rattling Ash and Birch. Sharp needed a walk every day, despite his increasing reticence. I fetched him at 11 and walked the quarter mile to the park, staying home only if it were raining. November rain is needle sharp and mercilessly cold in Maine. Not even cloying curiosity could coax me out in it.

Snow was a different matter. It breathed crisp, brilliant life into the bare branches and bowing needles. An early blizzard the first week of December covered the land in heaps of white powder. Sharp bulled and leaped through and over the fresh drifts. His salted coat shone in the cold sunlight and his breath steamed in steady puffs. Bright eyed, he chased a mole and treed it, barking inconsolably when it disappeared into a knothole.

“He looks good.”

I nodded and crossed my arms, pleased and unwilling to show it. I had seen John sitting on his bench when I entered the park. He had been missing for a while and he seemed unusually withdrawn this day. Staring out towards the horizon but clearly oblivious to the gathering storm. “The cold bothers him,” I answered casually.

“You wouldn’t know it to watch him.” John gestured at the dog gyrating wildly at the base of the dying Oak. The hint of a smile rested on his lips but did not touch the cerulean eyes. “Not a care in the world.”

The statement resonated far deeper than simple observation. I nodded, at a loss. His mantle lay between and over us, warming the snowy earth. For the first time I felt the loneliness that must characterize John’s existence. Soul deep and beyond empathy in spite of good intentions. I turned slightly, my lips parted for speech.

He was gone.

For the rest of the day I could not shake the impression that I had missed an opportunity. Not the foolish fantasy all small town women harbor to touch and somehow heal a troubled world. Not the magical, Cinderella desire to aid the brooding stranger and ride away cloaked in his glories without care or purpose. No, this was different. I had missed my chance to bring a smile, a tinge of light to an existence clearly darkening.

Winter roared up and over the land. I tried to visit the park on a regular basis and I was successful until Sharp suddenly died. I cried like a baby that day. My friends had long moved from Cleaves Mills and my aging mother was more work than companion. Sharp had been a dear friend and losing him left a void no one could really understand or assuage. My neighbor said he would get another dog in the spring. I nodded and smiled at the news but inside I had made the decision already. He would have to find another dog walker.

The park, like the dog, had become a necessary part of my day. After the storms subsided and the steady drip of melting water replaced the sting of snow, I resumed my walks. Working second shift at the local supermarket allowed me to sleep through the early rush of the day and 11 a.m. remained an open time slot. Emptier now, without Sharp to pull me through the muck and mire of emerging spring.

Kate Moore’s accident shocked everyone in town. My mother knew hers on a social basis. The trauma pushed her deeper into senility and my walks became erratic. It was a full two weeks before I could finally slip away to the park early one evening.

I expected to be alone, my usual routine torn asunder by the disconcerting role reversal of child to parent. John was sitting on the bench when I arrived however. His features were stone beneath the tousled shock of his normally neat, blond hair. He stared fixedly at the rippled pond, his eyes tracking the pair of ducks trawling the far side with an almost feverish gleam.

I turned to leave. This was not what I expected or wanted. The park was a reprieve from Mom’s harsh, pitiful existence. I needed that escape and the turmoil surrounding John’s hunched shoulders was anything but peaceful.

The moment in the fall rose unbidden, warm and tingling with missed opportunities. I took one step and then another. Slowly approaching in plain sight, thereby giving him the option to turn away. John remained immobile, focused on the pond with palpable desperation in each shallow breath.

“Can I sit here?”

The cool, blue eyes blinked and he bowed his head into his chest. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” I sat and looked at the pond, acutely aware of his shifting weight on the bench. “Sharp died,” I told him eventually.

“The dog?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded and glanced at him. Sadness glistened his eyes and darkened the shadows on his cheeks. I was positive he would cry and instantly regretted speaking. “I didn’t mean to….well…to…”

John shook his head and drew a shaky breath. “You didn’t.”

“Really?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Oh.” We both knew what it was. After all, this was John Smith. I could feel something deep within him clawing to get out, writhing like a live thing through the gathering gloom of evening. “Are you okay?”

He laughed suddenly. A short, almost maniacal giggle that shot shivers the length of my spine. “No,” he murmured into his cupped palm. “Not really.”

“Would you like to…talk?”

“Why?”

I snapped my gaping lips closed and considered the question spoken almost as a challenge by this normally reserved, reticent man. Why? Because we’re human beings and you look like you need to say something, anything, before you explode… Such words were reserved for a relationship far more personal than ours however. I settled for mirroring his question with what I hoped was an inviting tone and manner. “Why not?”

The laugh came a second time, this time harsh and rasping. “You come here all the time, don’t you?”

“So do you.”

“Are you looking for something?”

The disdain caught me unawares. I had never thought about the impression I might be leaving. It was wrong to stare, rude to judge, yet I had done both with what I assumed was adequate camouflage. John’s question proved otherwise. “No,” I answered softly.

“I know why you walked that dog here all the time.” He rubbed a pale hand over his face and stared upward. “I can’t help you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“They always ask.”

It was truth. Not arrogance, anger or resentment. A statement of fact blanketed in sadness so thick I had to blink away the burn of tears. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have any reason to be.”

With anyone else I would have offered my hand or perhaps touched his arm. A year of sharing the same air, walking the same streets, allowed a certain level of intimacy: especially here. This was not an ordinary situation however and I refused to belay good intentions with stupidity. The circumstances surrounding his absence were well documented in the paper and around the counter of the local diner. Details coalesced and quite suddenly I knew why John was in such a state. “Kate Moore,” I blurted.

Shadows chased across John’s pallid face. He looked down at his large hands lying loosely in his lap and did not reply. I regretted my bluntness instantly and stood up. “It’s none of my business…”

“It’s all right,” he said quietly.

No, it is not all right. Nothing about this situation is all right... Looking back I was not sure what my intentions had been upon sitting down. I only knew I had mucked things up and now John Smith was staring at me.

“Really,” he assured.

“But…”

“Just…don’t, okay?”

“Okay.” I stood there twisting my fingers, held fast by those uncanny eyes. Pale and slightly bulging with lashes so long they seemed almost unnatural.

He blinked abruptly and looked away, a flush spreading up from his collar. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He deserved as much leeway as I. He also deserved the truth. “You were right, sort of.”

“I know.”

Startled, I sucked in a deep breath and perched on the edge of the bench. “How?”

“Human nature.”

“Oh.”

“You were expecting something else?”

I could not blame him for the touch of hostility and the immediate, painful silence that followed. “Probably,” I admitted.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Don’t be.”

He sighed and shifted, wincing slightly as his leg rode up over the lip of the bench. “You know who I am, it’s only fair I know who you are don’t you think?”

I shrugged, blushing at the omission. “Melissa.”

“Nice to meet you, Melissa.” He brushed some dirt from his knee and looked at me from beneath those long lashes. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For sitting here and not asking.” A faint smile brightened the sallow features as John sat back and reached for his cane. “See you around.”

I watched him walk across the damp spring grass. Limping slightly, his head held high. As he turned I glimpsed the smile, broader now, crinkling the corner of his eye. There was no guarantee we would cross paths again. The urge to see, to hear, was gone now. Even in a small town people will go weeks, months, years without speaking. The perception that everything is connected in places like Cleaves Mills is a common fallacy. In desires, in hopes, in aspirations I suppose we are all similar. People like John will always be different though. Not due to some inexplicable gift or curse but rather in spirit and heart. Those who give without expectations and suffer the price of generosity without complaint.