The Long Drive to Velma’s Driveway

I bought a one-way ticket from Phoenix to Des Moines for Tuesday morning, $189, and Mike said he would drive the three hours down to the airport and get me.

My car stayed in Velma’s carport for Mike and me to fly down and drive home together in March. It was Grandma’s idea. “You’re not driving back alone through all that,” she said. “Not in January. Not with what you’ve already done.”

On my last night, she sat with me on her new patio after supper. It was sixty-four degrees in the middle of January, and she kept saying she couldn’t get over it.

“Callie,” she said, “I want you to know something, and then we won’t talk about it again.”

“All right.”

“When I was sitting on that bench, after Russ walked out, I wasn’t scared of the snow. I wasn’t scared of the bus. I was scared that I had gotten old in a way where I didn’t count anymore. Where somebody could set me down like a suitcase and drive away.”

I didn’t say anything. I just took her hand.

“And then I called you,” she said. “And you came. And I knew I still counted. That’s all. That’s what I wanted to say.” She squeezed my hand. “Now go to bed. You’ve got a plane to catch, and you know what I think of planes.”

When I landed in Des Moines, Mike met me at baggage claim with both kids. Ella ran at me so hard she nearly knocked me down, and Sam wanted to know if Great-Grandma had put his drawing on the refrigerator.

I showed him the picture. He looked at it for a long time and then nodded, very serious, like a man who has done his job.

I unpacked my carry-on that night. In the front zipper pocket, folded in thirds, I found thirty-four dollars. A twenty, a ten and four ones.

Grandma had slipped it in there sometime in Mesa when I wasn’t looking. There was a note with it, on a sheet torn off Velma’s legal pad, in her careful round handwriting.

It said: “For gas. Don’t argue with me. Love, Grandma.”

I didn’t spend it. It’s in a mason jar on the windowsill over my kitchen sink, and I see it every morning when I make the coffee.

Russ called me on the Wednesday after I got home. I was in the car in the dental office parking lot, eating a sandwich, and I almost didn’t pick up. Then I thought about Grandma at that little kitchen table saying “write it down biggest,” and I answered.

He didn’t make a speech. That’s not who Russ is. He said, “Callie, it’s your Uncle Russ,” like I might not know, and then he was quiet for so long I thought the call had dropped.

“I left her there,” he said finally. “I told myself Velma would meet the bus, and the money would go back to her in pieces, and nobody would get hurt. I told myself a lot of things. And I drove off and I didn’t turn around. I don’t know what kind of man does that to his mother.”

“A scared one,” I said. It surprised me, coming out. But it was true, and Grandma had wanted me to be angry at the right thing.

“That’s no excuse.”

“Grandma says there’s a difference between an excuse and a reason. She told me so in Amarillo over pie.”

He laughed then, a short, cracked laugh. “That sounds like her.” He cleared his throat. “Thank you for going to get her. I mean that. Thank you for doing what I should have done.”