Proof of Life

Mr. McKay's house was the third one after our's. It sat well back from the street on a tastefully manicured expanse of green lawn and was shaded with mammoth weeping willows and oaks. The circular driveway - the only one we knew of in our section of town - curved gracefully and was lined with great earthenware pots overflowing with flowers and ivy. Matched rattan rocking chairs sat on one end of the wide front porch, a cedar picnic table and benches on the other and the front door was a massive work of wooden scrollwork with a gold lion's head door knocker and latch. The inside of the house was a mystery to us and we did not dare approach it. A shiny black Mercedes was often parked in the back but we hardly ever saw Mr. McKay, his comings and goings were unknown and much speculated upon. We knew only that he walked with a cane, wore a fedora and gray gloves, and was unimaginably old and a widower.

It was a two storied house with a cobblestone path leading from the winding drive to the front steps and heavy, dark curtains across all the windows. Smoke drifted from the double chimneys in the winter - we took it as proof of life - but the curtains were never open and no light ever shone through. Spotlights had been placed along the edges of the lawn and after dark they illuminated the house from every angle. as if to warn off intruders and curious children. No dog ever barked from within, no squirrel or bird approached the empty feeders, no mail was ever left unattended and no packages were left uncollected. Occasionally and always during daylight hours, one of us would find the courage to creep upon the sweet smelling grass and take a tentative step toward the house. This trespassing was met with a sharp, startling rapping at the window but no voice ever called out and no curtain ever moved. We began to think that perhaps Mr. McKay was possessed of a sixth sense that alerted him to unwelcome company and without planning it, we often crossed the street to avoid the house and it's temptations. It wasn't fear, exactly, we called it caution and common sense and deciding to play it safe.

Doctors still made house calls at the time and every now and then an elegantly dressed man carrying a black bag would be admitted for a brief time. Sometimes a nurse in a crisp white uniform, white hose, noiseless white shoes and a starched white cap pinned in her hair with a dark cape over her shoulders was let in. The mailman came and went regularly as did the milkman but otherwise Mr. McKay received no visitors. Once an ambulance arrived, lights flashing and sirens wailing, and we watched breathlessly as the white coated attendants jumped out of the back double doors and ran up the cobblestone walk. Moments later they emerged, carefully but efficiently carrying a stretcher covered with a white sheet, eased it into the back and raced off. Was he dead? we wondered and ran like the wind to spread the news. The ambulance returned several days later, without the lights or sirens, and the stretcher was carried back inside the house with the all-in-white nurse caped nurse accompanying it. This time she carried a suitcase as well as a medical bag.

We never saw Mr. McKay after that and one late autumn day there was a "For Sale" sign among the piles of newspapers and unraked leaves on the front lawn. He had lived a long and useful life, my daddy told us, and had died quietly in his own bed, on his own terms, at the age of 88. When his will was read, he had left all his wealth to The New England Home for Little Wanderers, an orphanage where we delivered Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets every year. Never judge a man's actions until you know his motives, my daddy said with a curious smile and gave me a hug.