Tucker's Story

Marriage is a beautifully complex arrangement, for it forces you to become vulnerable. My husband and I were married for about 20 years before he tragically passed away from a heart attack. Throughout our marriage, I knew him and his story like the back of my hand. However, death never fails to reveal secrets that perhaps the dead person didn’t even know. My husband’s name was Tucker. He never knew when his birthday was, considering he was an orphan. This is his story, in all of its mysterious glory.

For as far back as he could remember, Tucker had always lived at the orphanage with his older sister, Becky. She was significantly older than him, perhaps by about 13 or 14 years. As you can assume, Becky left the orphanage when she reached adult age, leaving Tucker there alone and taking what sense of identity he had with her. At the time, Tucker had no idea why she left him there alone. As a child, he liked to believe that she had some interesting quest to fulfill. It wasn’t until he got older that he realized that perhaps she just couldn’t handle him, or didn’t want him dragging her down. 

Tucker didn’t let that ruin his childhood though. He was a hopeful, happy child. The stories that his sister told him while he was younger stayed with him as he grew up. According to her, their parents were lovely people. Though she never once mentioned their names, Becky told him that their mother was a journalist and their father was a car salesman. She told Tucker all sorts of nice stories about them, such as the time they allowed Becky to get a puppy. One thing Becky never revealed to Tucker though was what happened to their parents. Perhaps it was because she didn’t want to burden his little mind with such grown-up information. Therefore, most of Tucker’s identity was blurry. However, he allowed the thoughts of his lovely absent parents and his special sister, Becky, to fill those voids in him, with the hopes of one day leaving the orphanage and discovering who he was. 

That day came sooner than Tucker had originally anticipated. After arguing with one of the caregivers, 16-year-old Tucker gathered up what little belongings he had and ditched the orphanage out of anger. If that were to happen nowadays, surely some sort of missing person report would have been made. However, the orphanage was so overcrowded that Tucker’s absence was probably considered a gift since it meant that there was one less mouth to feed. So nothing was done to stop him or get him back. 

From the orphanage, Tucker hitchhiked throughout the state, exploring aimlessly. He began his journey searching for his sister. However, it didn’t take long for him to give up, considering she could have been anywhere. Instead, he began searching for some sort of belonging.

The place he was most fond of during this journey was the beach. The southeastern region of the United States has its many charms, which he discovered throughout this period of his life, but the most beautiful of these was the beach. When he saw the ocean for the first time, his soul was immediately overtaken by its beauty. So much so that one of the first things he did was jump off the pier fully clothed. He didn’t even give fear a moment to appear. That’s one of my favorite things about him. He was never afraid of anything. Not even death. 

After that moment on the beach, he knew where he belonged: by the sea. However, as a poor orphan boy, he knew that his best bet at making any money was going to be through farming. So after spending a while on the beach, he hitchhiked some more. He decided to settle in a rural community about thirty minutes away from the coast. It was a little town named Alberta. 

In this little town, Tucker took on as many odd jobs as he could. He would wash windows, do yard work, and even walk wealthy people’s dogs. He was homeless for a little while until one of his wealthy clients noticed his battered appearance and offered him a place to stay. He accepted their offer and stayed in their nice house until he got a steady, stable job working for the town mechanic. Once his money started coming in better, he rented a small house in town.

On Saturday nights, most of the young folks around would go to dances at the community center in town. That’s where we met for the first time. I’ll never forget it. I was sitting at a table with a few of my girlfriends when I saw a dashing boy walk in. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes. He wasn’t dressed as fancy as all the other boys there, but I didn’t care. As soon as our eyes met, I felt a flutter in my stomach. It was like my spirit was alerting me of his importance. After we got married, he told me he felt that same flutter. He said it was the same flutter he felt when he saw the ocean for the first time. He told me that he knew we were meant to be together. 

Anyway as I was saying, this scrappily dressed yet still dashing young boy walked over to my table. At first, my heart sank a little. I was afraid he was going to ask my friend to dance. She was far prettier than me, and always turned the heads of my previous love interests. Yet, he didn’t. He walked over to our table, looking at only me, and asked me to dance.

Goodness, he was such a good dancer. I grew up in a fairly wealthy family, so I was used to attending parties where dancing was involved. Yet, never in my life had I encountered someone who could dance as strong and gracefully as he could. Gosh, I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. 

Amid our dancing, we spoke softly, asking each other for our names, ages, and well, all sorts of things. We danced almost all evening. When the place was shutting down, the owners nearly had to kick us out. It was around 11 p.m. when we left. I was expecting him to get in a car and drive off, but it was then when I discovered that he didn’t have one. Which was okay with me. He walked me home instead. 

At this time, I lived in a nice house on the edge of the town. Though Tucker had acquainted himself with a lot of the people in the area, I suppose he didn’t make it that far into town because I had never seen him before. My parents said the same thing after I told them about him that night. 

Shortly after that Saturday night, Tucker came to my side of town quite frequently. We dated just long enough for Tucker to save up enough money to buy me an engagement ring. When he asked my dad for his blessing, though Tucker was poor, my dad said yes. Partly because we had a big family, so getting rid of me would mean more space for others, and partly because my father was secretly a hopeless romantic. He knew how much Tucker and I loved one another.

Tucker and I began our marriage living in his little rental house in the heart of town. After a few years, we had enough money saved up, combined with some money my parents had given us, to buy a little farm outside of town. 

It wasn’t long after we moved over there that I found out I was pregnant. In all, we had a total of three boys. Let me tell you, they came in handy on the farm. We were one of the most successful farm families in the area for a while. At least, until Tucker fell ill. Back then, there wasn’t much that doctors could do for people. Therefore, my beloved Tucker died suddenly at age 40. The doctors claimed that it was likely a heart attack that took his life.

The days after his passing were strange. Back then, the funeral home set your loved one up in their casket in your home. Therefore, I had a bunch of people in and out all of the time, most of which were people he encountered back in Alberta. However, the most peculiar of them all was a woman that visited claiming to be his sister Becky. 

Early in the morning on the day that Tucker was supposed to be buried, I was woken up by a knock at my door. Frightened, I woke up all three of my sons, just in case it was someone looking to cause trouble. Upon opening the door though, a professionally dressed woman was on the other side. 

“Hello,” I groggily greeted her. “How can I help you this morning?” I felt silly answering the door in my nightclothes, but it was what I had to do.

“I’m here to see Tucker,” the woman smiled and said, “I’m his sister, Becky. I work as a journalist in a town far away from here. I heard about his passing through a friend of a friend.” She spoke quickly as if she was nervous.

“Oh yes,” I said, a bit taken aback. She was the last person I expected to meet during all of this. “Come right on in. I’m his wife, Wanda.” I shook her hand before allowing her in the house. 

She didn’t mess with anything. As you can assume, she went straight over to look at Tucker and began to sob quietly. I knew that she must have been suffering from a lot of guilt and regret, so I gave her some privacy by sending my boys outside to play while I went to my bedroom to fix myself up a little. 

She cried for a good while and I didn’t dare bother her. It startled me whenever she began to speak to him though. Mostly because I didn’t think she was going to say anything, considering how hard she had been crying. So I went to the doorway of my bedroom to be able to hear her better and make sure she was okay. 

“Oh Tucker,” she managed to murmur between sobs. “You’ll never know the truth.” At that, I saw her reach over and touch his hand in the casket. “You’ll never know that I was more than just your sister.” She sobbed harder. “You’ll never know that I was really your mama.” 

She sobbed a little while longer before bursting out of the house. She didn’t even say try to come to find me and say goodbye. However, I didn’t make an effort to go find her either. I was in so much shock that I was afraid to move. 

To this day, I have no idea what she meant by that. One can assume that she was confessing to Tucker his true origin. Perhaps after figuring out she was pregnant, she ran away from home to avoid bringing embarrassment to her family, considering she was only a teenager and unmarried. Or maybe her parents kicked her out. Or maybe she truly was an orphan all along. 

The next time I went to Alberta, I asked around about Becky, hoping someone would know her whereabouts. I was going to try my best to get to the bottom of things. However, no one knew a thing, leaving our family with an abundance of unanswered questions.