Grandma’s father was a lover of leaving. Even when the rain came down, making rivers of red dirt roads, his unslakable thirst drove him away. All grandma ever knew was how to stay. She stayed put like he stayed gone. Even on the day he died, stood stock still, stared her sister in the eyes and cried, “Like hell I’m going to that man’s funeral. I’ll show up for him just like he showed up for me.”
Grandma made herself the steady of her family. Even as they moved from shore to shore, overseas, war-torn, grandpa tending aircraft fleets of unthinkable cargo: the United States military’s deceased. Staying meant love for grandma and she dealt it in spades. On the mornings when, gasping for air from my sleep-shaking sprint, I watched the tail end of bus fourteen pass the stop sign at the end of Willow Ridge and round the bend without me on it, I knew she’d be waiting on the other end of the dial. Hers is the only number I still know by heart. I’d wrap the length of my index finger in the spiral cord of the telephone - clear plastic containing a neon maze of multicolored wires - and listen for her to pick up. “D’you miss the bus again, Annie Jo?” I’d hang up, unwrap my finger, swollen purple, and head to the big picture window inlaid into terracotta brick to watch for her. She’d pull up in minutes in her black Pontiac with a smirk that said she was happy to see me. We’d drive to school slower than molasses and I’d carry the scent of a burning Winston in my dishwater blonde hair for the rest of the day. I figured grandma was making up for lost time. And that was alright with me.