They followed him around a bend, through tall grass and puddles, until they came to a rusty metal trailer.
It leaned to one side. Cardboard was used to fix the windows. The roof was drooping. The door was almost falling off.
“You… live here?” Mason said in a low voice.
Mr. Turner nodded, feeling bad. “I’m sorry you had to see it like this.”
Ethan whispered softly, “You don’t need to be sorry.”
“I want to pay back—” He opened his wallet but stopped in shame. There was nothing in it. Not even one dollar note. Instead, he took one apple off the broken table inside the trailer and held it out with shaking hands. “That’s all I have.”
Mason shook his head. “We didn’t help you for that.”
Ethan put the fruit back on the counter. “Keep it.” It might be useful to you.
The old man’s eyes were still moist when they departed.
They didn’t know that this simple act of compassion would have an effect on them for years to come, and they could never have imagined how it would come back to them.
The Visits
The
Do you think what I’m thinking? “Why?” Ethan asked.
“Yeah,” Mason answered. “Come on.”
They had enough money to buy food and other necessities thanks to their saved lunch money, odd jobs, and a few dollars their moms had told them to store for emergencies. Some rice. Vegetables in a can. A little bit of bread. And old fabric to fix windows. Mason took tools from his neighbor’s shed.
That afternoon, they knocked on Mr. Turner’s door.
The old man carefully opened it. He halted when he saw the two lads with groceries in their hands and raindrops dripping off of them.
“What’s all that?””
“Just a few things,” Ethan said in an embarrassed way.
Mason added, “For your trailer.” “And for you.”
The bags were full. They were so loaded that the handles were breaking.
“I… boys, I can’t accept—”
Mason smiled and answered, “Yes, you can.” “We brought too much food.” We will get in trouble if we bring it home.
It was a horrible falsehood. But they did a good job of telling it.
Mr. Turner’s eyes filled with tears. “Why would you… do this?”“
Ethan murmured softly, “Our grandma always said, ‘Love isn’t love unless you give it away.'”
The old man squeezed his lips together to calm himself down. “Can I… can I hug you boys?””
The hug was soft, shaky, and full of thanks.
That was the first of many times they came.
The boys came by two or more times a week. They helped fix the trailer. The roof is fixed. Ethan took real glass from a junkyard and used it instead of cardboard. Mason built a shallow canal to drain the water away from the house.
They sometimes made food together. Occasionally they just talked.
Mr. Turner liked to tell stories. Not about money, even though he didn’t have any today, but about life, mistakes, regrets, and the people he had lost a long time ago.
He observed one night, “You know, a great man does the right thing when no one is watching.”
Mason smiled. “That sounds like a quote you took.”
Turner laughed and said, “No.” “That’s mine.”
Ethan inquired, “Did you teach?””
Mr. Turner said “No” gently, almost as if he was ashamed. “But I wish I had been.”
They laughed, they listened, and they learned.
Mr. Turner was no longer merely an old man who lived alone.
He was family.
The Vanishing
The ground thawed, and the trees began to bloom in the spring. Ethan and Mason walked up to the trailer with their customary cheer and a basket of fresh fruit from the market.
“Mr. Turner?” Ethan called. “We got strawberries today!””
No answer.
Mason knocked again. “Mr. T? Are you in there?”
No sound.
Ethan pushed the door open, and it creaked. There was nothing inside. No blankets. No clothing. No food. It felt cold outside.
“Where… where did he go?” Mason whispered.
They talked to their neighbors. They looked in the woods. They headed to the ER. Went to the cops. Nobody knew anything.
One cop stated coldly, “He’s old.” “People sometimes go off on their own.”
“But he wouldn’t leave without telling us!” Ethan roared, his rage building in his throat.
Days went into weeks.
Hope was lost.
The boys went to the empty trailer even after everyone else had given up. In silence occasionally. Occasionally she would leave food on the step and hope he would come back.
He never did.
The Call
Two years went by.
The lads become adults. They finished high school with honors, but they didn’t have enough money to go to college. Ethan worked at the grocery store, and Mason coached Little League on the weekends. They still walked by the old trailer from time to time. It stayed vacant, quiet, and sinking into the ground.
Then, one morning, Ethan’s phone called.
“Hello?””
“Is this Ethan Wells?””
“Yes.”
“Jonathan Reed is my name. I am the lawyer for Mr. William Turner.
Ethan’s breath seized in his throat. “Mr. Turner? You found him?”
“I’m afraid…” The lawyer took a moment to think. “Mr. Turner is dead. Please come to my office with Mason.
It seemed like the world stopped moving.
He told Mason.
Both guys sat in shock, their anguish swelling like a steady tide.
Later that day, they went into a little legal office. A man in a suit said hello to them.
“Ethan. Mason. Thanks for coming. “Please sit.”
Jonathan Reed put a sealed envelope on the table.
“I’m sad to tell you that Mr. Turner passed away two weeks ago. He had been ill for a long time.
Ethan gulped. “He never said anything.”
“He didn’t want to make you worry.”
The lawyer pushed the envelope forward. “He left you this letter.”
Ethan’s hands shook as he opened it. Mason got really near.
There was a note inside that was written in unsteady handwriting.
“Dear Ethan and Mason,
I’m gone if you’re reading this.
Please forgive me for going away. I didn’t want you to see me in pain.
For most of my life, I had money but not love. Once, I ran a business that was worth millions. But my family only cared about my money, not about me. After years of betrayal, I decided to leave everything behind. I chose to live simply in that trailer.
But I was never alone.
Until you showed up.
You guys provided me food, laughter, kindness, and respect. You made an aging man feel like a person again. You become the grandkids I always wanted but never had.
So I give you what I can.
Please consider using it to get the life you want.
With all my love,
“William Turner”
Ethan cleaned his eyes.
Mason said in a low voice, “We didn’t help him for money.”
“I know,” Jonathan answered. “That’s why he believed in you.”
He opened a file.
“Mr. Turner has left each of you $150,000 in his will.”
Ethan gasped. Mason’s mouth fell open.
Mason answered, “That’s not possible.” “He didn’t have much money.”
The lawyer said, “Not completely.”” He gave up his money, but not all of it. He put some of it in trust. Enough for both of you to go to college. He wants you to be the instructors you always wanted to be.
There was a lot of silence.
Ethan then spoke in a low voice. “We’ll make him proud.”
Three Years later,
Families and students filled Brookdale Community College’s largest auditorium to the brim. There were black graduation caps all throughout the room.
There were Ethan and Mason, now twenty-one, stronger, calmer, and with the same soft spark in their eyes.
They felt something warm in the air as they walked across the stage to get their teaching licenses.
Something I know.
Like a blessing.
They drove to the old forest road after the ceremony. The trailer was still there, slowly giving in to time.
Ethan put his hand on the rusty door. “We did it, Mr. Turner.”
Mason grinned even though he was crying. “Hope you’re watching.”
They put a bunch of wildflowers on the step.
They walked away gently and peacefully.
Five years later, Mr. Turner’s name came back, but this time it was a joyful one.
The lads, who are now well-known teachers at Brookdale High, set up The Turner Scholarship Fund to help students who don’t have a lot of money.
The scholarship assisted someone who needed hope every year.
Someone who made them think of themselves.
Someone who could use some kindness.
One night, while Ethan was locking up his classroom, a terrified freshman came up to him.
“Mr. What about wells? Did you actually start a scholarship for folks like us?”
“Yes,” Ethan answered softly. “Because someone believed in me when he didn’t have to.”
The student asked, “What motivated him to do that?”
Ethan grinned. “Because a good man does the right thing even when no one is looking.”
Mr. Turner said those words.
Now passed on over and again.
These words have been repeated numerous times over the years.
In many lives.
Until compassion was a part of Brookdale’s very core.
And it all started because two lads stopped in the rain…
to help a stranger who would eventually become a member of their family.
THE END
