“Never fill the gas tank above three quarters full, or the cap will leak.”
“Okay, Grandpa.”
“And don’t let it fall below a half tank, or you’ll work the fuel pump too hard.”
I rolled my eyes. “So, I have a quarter tank to use?”
His steely eyes glinted, but he never backed down.
I turned onto the weeping willow-lined street, suppressing laughter at the sight of his white-knuckle grip on the armrest. “I’m going five miles per hour. You won’t fly out the door.”
He waved off my know-it-all look. “That was a stop sign.”
“I stopped.”
“Some stop,” he murmured, rubbing the already worn knee of his blue jeans.
“What will we harvest today?” I knew he’d started. The smell of tomato plants clung to him like vines to the cage.
He nodded, absently staring out the window. “It’s hell to get old, Ked. I’m slow. Everyone’s lives rush right past me while I’m walking down the driveway to get the paper. By the time I get back into the house, two great grandkids have been born, someone’s gone to college, or one of my buddies died.”
“Well, it is a long driveway.”
He almost smiled. “I hurt all over, all the time. And you took my car.”
“I didn’t take…” I inhaled a slow breath, trying to decipher whether I felt sympathy, sadness, or anger. “You gave the car to me, remember? You don’t have a license anymore.” I regretted the words when a distinct sadness tinted his eyes.
“When you were a tiny wart, I’d ask, ‘What’s your name, little girl?’ and you’d say, ‘I Keddey’. And now you’re my chauffeur… my little Ked.”
I pulled into his driveway, imagining him shoveling the snow next winter. The concrete might as well stretch on for miles. Then I saw him mowing the lawn that spread like a city park, and pulling weeds that could bully full-grown trees. It was too much for him, but he never backed down.
“You’d rather have a new car.”
I shook my head, pulling my mind out of future responsibilities. “No. Thank you. This is perfect, squealing brakes and all.”
He frowned, “They don’t squeal.”
“You just can’t hear it. It’s really high pitched.”
“Oh, hell. I’d hear it if they squealed. What you hear is dirt, that’s all.”
“Dirt?” I was pretty sure dirt only screamed silence. Silence when you are under six feet of it. Silence when you’re standing on six feet of it, dabbing your cheek with a soaked tissue.
I watched him, silent as dirt, as he labored to get out of the car. Hunched over, he shuffled his feet to the shadows of the garage. He pushed his straw hat onto his head, and cocked it to the side. I knew what was next. So, I did what I’ve wanted to do every day since he died. I followed him thru the garage, and met him in the garden, where we worked, side by side, in the dirt.