Page 178 of Wayfarers

Nothing.

I wait. I open the screen door and knock on the door, in case the doorbell doesn’t work anymore, which is entirely possible from the look of things. My heart thuds in my ears. I look back at Sylvie just to make sure she’s still there, at least.

Maybe Mamaw’s not dead. Maybe she’s just at the grocery store or a late church service. I can’t tell if there’s a car in the narrow garage.

I’m about to turn and walk back to the van when I hear slow shuffling; pained, laborious steps. The door opens. A hunched old woman comes into view as she struggles with the weight of her front door while gripping the rails of her walker.

It makes me not recognize her immediately because she never used one before. My throat constricts. “Mamaw?” I venture quietly.

She meets my gaze and stares through the screen door, mouth agape, as though questioning what failing eyes are telling her.

I swallow hard. “It’s Knox. Your grandson.”

She fumbles again with the screen door and I help her open it from my end. She’s trying to speak but nothing is coming out but whimpers of excitement that sound like distant seagulls.

We embrace. She holds on to me for support instead of her walker. She smells like peppermint muscle balm and the faint mustiness of wrinkled skin.

“Knox,” she says, weeping now. “Knox, sugar. Oh sweetheart. I thought I’d never see you again.” Her voice is higher and thinner than I remember. She grips my neck as tightly as her arms will allow. She feels fragile, brittle in a way she never used to. Her body trembles. She cries in the unrestrained, unashamed way that old people do—like young children. The way you do when you’re either too young to care what people think of you or too old. She wipes her eyes under her glasses and grips her walker again. “Come in, come in.” She turns slowly and leads me inside.

I enter and a rush of nostalgia floods me. Her house feels creakier, more rundown than in my memory. It’s stuffy like it’s no longer worth the effort of wrenching open windows and smells like mold and thick carpet that doesn’t often get vacuumed. The thrift-store oil painting of a moonlit old-timey sailing ship still hangs on her wall, though. I always loved that painting.

She sets her walker beside her orange velvet sofa, the same one I remember, and lowers herself painstakingly to a seat.

I sit beside her. For a long while we don’t say anything but just embrace and cry.

“This is a miracle. Thank you, Jesus,” Mamaw says finally. She touches my cast. “What happened to your arm, sweetie?”

“I broke it helping a girl find her dog. She took care of me.”

“Are you hurting? I have my arthritis medicine.”

“I’m okay.”

“Your mama isn’t here too, is she?”

“Just me,” I say.

“You know I looked for you at your daddy’s funeral. Not seeing you broke my heart all over again. I thought that might be my last chance ever to hug you.”

My eyes well. I try to speak but nothing comes out for a while. “I miss him real bad, Mamaw. I never stopped. I would have come if I could. Mom said we’d get arrested if we came.” Tears escape and slide down my cheeks.

“No, you wouldn’t have at all. Your daddy never got the police involved. He loved your mama so much. Even after she took off with you. He didn’t want her going to jail. He hired a private detective to try to find you but no luck. His drinking got worse and worse and—” She pauses to muster herself. She dabs at her eyes with a tissue from a box on the end table.

I ask the question I’ve been carrying for eleven years like a sliver embedded too deep to remove. The answer to which could heal me or break part of me forever. “Did he know it wasn’t my choice to leave him?”

Mamaw covers her mouth and nods and fresh tears cascade down both of our cheeks. We hug for a long time.

After we’ve cried ourselves out for a couple of minutes, she says, “You remember those cookies you used to love? The oatmeal creme ones?”

I smile and wipe my eyes with the back of my good hand. “I used to sneak them like you’d be mad if you caught me. Getting caught with my hand in the cookie jar.”

She chuckles. “You could have gobbled down every single one if you’d have wanted. I wouldn’t have minded a bit. They were all for you.” She pauses and grips her tissue in a ball. “I wisht I had some to offer you now. I stopped buying them after—” Emotion overwhelms her and she can’t speak. She presses the tissue to each eye.

“It’s okay. Seeing you was always my favorite part, and you’re giving me that now.”

“I don’t get out and about to the grocery as often as I used to. I sometimes get Meals on Wheels delivered here. I don’t get round to much of anywhere anymore. Not even church but every now and again. I’ve not been doing so well healthwise lately.”

There is such a palpable and suffocating air of loneliness and decline here.