Grandboy Age 12, or In the Time of Peonies

 

He was calling on his mother’s phone. He wanted to come over.

“You know it’s just me,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“I’ll have to get you in the truck,” I said. My husband had taken the car to Pennsylvania.

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

He didn’t say what he planned to do. Just play, I guess. Maybe eat my food. Plus he always likes to talk.

So down the lane I chugged to fetch him, Buster along, even though it’s shedding season and his fur has been coming off in clumps. We used to worry about him throwing up if we drove him places, but now my husband hauls him along when he goes over to hoe in Boy’s garden. Buster just runs around on the seat and pants like mad and goes on high alert whenever he sees cows.

I kept the windows rolled pretty high. I didn’t want him bailing.

Now, I hate the truck. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I can hardly get in and out, for one thing. The floorboard is so distant from the ground, I always have to strain for the high-up grab bar, pull myself upward, and topple into the seat. Then when I go to jump out, I must dangle my foot as far down as possible, scarily out of my sight, in hopes I can break my fall when I hit the earth, just not my foot. Also the truck seems to not have any shocks—springs—whatever you call them, so I should say I lurched down the lane. To prevent gullies from forming during rainstorms, my husband digs ditches across the gravel, horrible to negotiate, and they made the whole truck rock violently. It kept jolting the dog and me sideways.

At least we had a vehicle, Boy and I. We had the wheels.

Coming back home, I had a thought. I checked with Boy. He’d already driven the thing, right? His grown-up girl cousin had let him haul firewood from our woods up a path to our house. She’d coached.

So, going up the lane, after we rounded the first bend, Boy and I switched places.

We pushed his seat nearer to the steering wheel. “That’s better,” he said.

He put his left foot, socked and sandaled, on the brake and I let out a screech. “Nuh-uh!” But he already knew better. He slid the other foot over. And then instead of nudging the gear stick skittishly, like I do, from park to reverse to neutral to drive, he rammed it straight into drive.

And then I remembered I had my phone.

And then up we sailed.