Page 166 of Wayfarers

“I think,” I say, sipping my iced coffee, “that ship has sailed.”

“Okay.”

“You’re sure this is going to be okay? Not that your grandma wouldn’t want to see you. But, like, what if she moved?” I have never once in my life dropped in on someone without texting them twice to confirm.

“Then I’ll figure something out,” he says. “But I don’t think she moved. My mom would’ve said. Probably.”

“When’s the last time you saw her? Your grandma? Remind me—is she your dad’s mom or mom’s mom?”

“Dad’s mom. That’s why she and my mom aren’t close.” He shakes the empty ice cubes in his glass, thinking. “I don’t know the exact year I last saw her. I was little. I remember listening to the radio with her. She liked Loretta Lynn and sometimes she’d put on one of her CDs, or Rosanne Cash, and sing. In her bathroom, she had one of those plush pink cushions on the toilet seat. And a dish of Irish Spring soap. It smelled amazing.”

“What’s she like? I’m picturing like a cowgirl from that music.”

“Not a cowgirl. She—I don’t know. She listens when people talk to her. And she thinks hard about what she says before she says it. Her house is quiet. I remember that. And there’s woods nearby. A lake. People take their kids there. It always felt like someplace I could be happy.”

“It sounds nice.”

“Yeah.”

I’m still making up my mind about something. I don’t want to tell him about it. I don’t think that’s the same thing as lying.

Knox Eclipse

By noon, we found our way

to a city park, not to escape

the crowds. There was no avoiding

the masses of those who would witness

this matinee of the cosmos,

and I calculated that my former

family would not try

to brave the traffic

to move their caravan somewhere else—

but mostly we both thought it felt more right

to stand among green things that worship

the sun as it performs its great disappearing act

than to stand on oil-black asphalt

before a temple built to worship

an entirely different sort of green thing.

We pass the time by talking about

small stuff, which is not the same

as small talk. Things like how we