Arthur never said much. He'd sit in that same porch chair and watch, and when Jonah finished, he'd sometimes give a small nod, and every once in a while, maybe four or five times across four years, he'd say something short — nice work, or looks better already, or, the one time it actually made Jonah come inside grinning, your father ever teach you to do that, and Jonah telling him no, and Arthur saying, well, somebody did something right around here.
I asked Jonah once, maybe a year into it, why he kept going back.
"He doesn't have anybody else coming," Jonah said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Somebody should."
PART 2
Two weeks ago, Arthur Whitfield passed away in his sleep. Eighty-one years old, no long illness, just an ordinary Tuesday that turned into the day his mail carrier noticed the porch chair sitting empty for the first time in longer than anyone could remember and called it in.
