Page 27 of The Party Line

“You sound just like her.” Mama stood up and headed back to the kitchen. “Have you eaten lunch?”

My bones creaked when I got up and followed her. “I had a leftover muffin and then started sorting through the mail. I could make sandwiches and open up a can of soup.”

“Let’s go to Annie’s. Her Saturday special is pinto beans and corn bread.”

“And greens with hot sauce?” I asked.

“Yep, and fried potatoes on the side.” Half a smile broke through the sad expression on Mama’s face.

“That was Aunt Gracie’s favorite meal. Seems only fitting, after this morning,” I said. “I’ll get my purse and meet you out front.”

“Let’s take Aunt Gracie’s car today,” Mama said. “It hasn’t been driven since the week before she passed away.”

“I’m not sure I can drive it without crying.”

“Yes, you can, and you will,” Mama declared. “She intended for you to have it, along with everything else. It needs to be driven often so that it doesn’t just sit in the garage and rust. I’ll be waiting on the front porch.”

I went through the foyer, picked my purse up off a ladder-back chair, and walked out the front door. The garage had been added onto the house long after it was built and was set just a little ways off to the right. Aunt Gracie had an automatic door installed after I was away to college, and as luck would have it, I forgot to get the thing out of the bowl on the credenza.

“Got to go back inside and get the opener thing,” I told Mama.

“You should keep it in your purse,” she suggested.

“You are right,” I agreed.

I stepped over the mess of junk mail I’d left on the floor, got the opener, and hurried back outside. An old song popped into my head that said something about always being seventeen in your hometown. I was realizing that it was the absolute truth. I had been out on my own for more than a decade, and here I was, obeying Jasper and my mother even better than when I was living at home. Maybe it was because I had just had a meltdown over dozens of sympathy cards.

The garage door felt like curtains opening before the first act of a play—slowly, as if it was teasing me and Mama. The garage used to be so clean that a person could have eaten off the floor. The tools were still put away neatly, and the 1957 Ford Fairlane—red, with a swoosh above the front doors—sat in the middle of the floor like a king on a throne. But there was a layer of dust everywhere.

“Those last months of Gracie’s life must have been tougher than I realized. The yard needs desperate help, and there’s dust on everything in the house. Look at her precious Ford, Mama. It used to shine,” I said as I slid behind the wheel.

Mama got into the car. “I used to say that Grace Evans never met a speck of dust she couldn’t conquer. She never let on that she didn’t feel good, so I didn’t know.”

Brave and selfless,I thought as I started the engine and backed out of the garage.

“She told me that she bought this to celebrate her thirtieth birthday,” Mama said.

“Jasper said that her mother drove a Caddy.”

“That’s right. Her father got a brand-new Chevy truck every year,” Mama said. “When I asked her why she bought a Ford, she said that Davis always liked Ford vehicles. He must’ve been a very good friend for her to keep him in her heart so long.”

I thought of the red bedspread and red underwear, and of that entry in her diary about what her mother told her. The red car was probably part of that same rebellion, but I wasn’t ready to share what I’d read—not even with my mama.

I put the car in Drive and slowly made my way down the lane. “I feel like I’m driving a boat instead of a car.”

“But aren’t these wide seats nice?” Mama said. “Your father had an older car with wide seats ...” She blushed scarlet.

“Was I conceived in a big back seat?” I asked.

Her cheeks turned a deeper shade of scarlet. “Most likely you were. God, but I loved that boy, and God only knows why, because I knew in my heart he wouldn’t settle down. Still, I couldn’t refuse him anything he wanted. I knew my folks would disown me if they found out about him, but at the time, I didn’t care. I just wanted to be with him.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “You have loved him forever, and he loved you for a season.”

Mama nodded. “Well put. And together we made you, and that way I got to keep a little piece of him forever.”

“Weren’t you mad at him for leaving you when you told him you were pregnant?” I asked.

“I should have been, but a part of me knew that he didn’t love me like I did him,” Mama answered. “I was angrier at him for not ever getting in touch with me in the next years. He should have cared about his child. The only one that showed me any love was Aunt Gracie. Mama and Daddy had different rules for me and my brothers. They kept a tight leash on me, but the boys could get away with anything. Thank goodness for Aunt Gracie.” She dabbed at her eyes with another tissue that she’d pulled out of her purse. “You’d think I would be done grieving by now.”

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