Page 71 of Wayfarers

“It’s been disconnected.”

“Oh. Well, that doesn’t mean she’s dead or something. It probably means she just got sweet-talked into a new iPhone by a charming young phone salesman at the mall who reminded her of Elvis.”

“She does love Elvis,” I say quietly.

“Listen. I want you to ask yourself a very important question, because the answer will determine how much you should worry: Are you a golden retriever named Winslow?”

I laugh because I have to. “Okay, that isn’t helping because she got pretty close.”

“How about this: we won’t waste too much time getting to your grandma’s—should I be calling her mamaw too?”

“You can call her what feels comfortable.”

“Good, because it feels like the word ‘mamaw’ belongs to you. Anyway, yeah. We’ll get down there fast.”

“But not too fast,” I say. “Because I’m having fun with you.”

“Yeah, not too fast.”

A few miles pass.

“You know what you got out of telling me when we saw the billboard?” Sylvie asks.

“What?”

“Your biggest mess-up.”

Knox My Biggest Mess-Up

We were taught not to flagellate ourselves

with the lash of guilt, the way religions made you

do; we were inculcated with this

until you felt guilty

about ever feeling guilty.

We learned the Gospel of No Regrets;

the Holy Sacrament of It’s Cool;

the Sacred Litany of No Worries.

But sometimes you deserve remorse,

like when you started to get

a bad vibe about Pan, the de facto leader

of your group (which called itself

leaderless). And so one night

you furtively rummaged through his things

while he entertained a very young (she claimed