Sometimes you have the strength to face them; sometimes you don’t.

—Grace

A kinky-head boy runs up beside me while I’m in the store searching for snacks. He asks if I can buy him a pack of Capri Suns. His dimple is in the same cheek as Champ’s. There’s only one other person in the aisle, a pitiful-looking something, somebody’s baby herself, her arms tattooed to murals, who I suppose is the boy’s mama, but hope she isn’t, since she hasn’t noticed how far the boy has roamed. I take a knee and explain I’d love to, but we’d have to ask his mother. He leads me to her, and as soon as he’s within reach, she slaps him as though he’s grown. What I tell your mannish ass bout runnin off?

This is the time to turn and scoot off before I say something I shouldn’t. Rather, something I should.

The checkout line could trick you. Ahead of me kids fidget with handfuls of bagged candy and ahead of them a frosty-haired woman a few weeks by the looks—God knows I don’t say it to be facetious—from needing a wheelchair or walker. The woman slumps over the counter and so slow, so so slow, trawls her purse for change with a stack of coupons slabbed on the counter for signing checks. There’s a thin girl right beside her—an aide or something, I guess, since they don’t resemble—bagging the lady’s trickle of buys. The woman finds a second, thicker stack of coupons and starts to sort. Patience, patience, I say to myself. Though I can say for true: It won’t be me worrying a cashier or a manager over the small print of the weekend special. Will never be me but how could I ever know?

The woman moves snoozy against the life of the store. Carts squeak, tills open, a glass jar breaks in an aisle close by; a man calls a special that’s off special by the end of the day. I sift through my snacks, picking a choice for my one night off this week. The boy, my friend, wanders up, with his pitiful mama groping after him.

You buy Capri Sun? he says.

It hurts too much anymore—which is I why I can’t, won’t let Kenny win—to be a boy’s disappointment, overmuch. I ask his mama if she minds and she curses him and twists his arm and tells him to say sorry for asking. He apologizes. His face a face that makes me wish he was mine. I tell her it’s no trouble. That I’d love to do it, that I’ve got boys, and know how it is. Then, shit, I guess, she says, which is all the consent I need.

It’s misty when I leave the store, but we can’t let that stop us. I toss my bag in the backseat and climb in. The car clicks cold the first turn of the key—I’ve got to get this checked—but catches the next try. I drive blocks down to a roadside flower stand owned by a man who used to work at one of my old jobs. He crushed on me for years, used to offer lunches and buy flowers for no reason at all. Then one late night he saw me at the end of a binge. Since then, the few times we’ve seen one another, he talks to me soft and makes it a point to ask how I’ve been. Sometimes you have the strength to face them; sometimes you don’t. I get out and pick a bouquet. He gives it to me for discount and says he hopes I’m doing well, that it looks to him as if I am.

The ride to the cemetery takes you by the zoo. The zoo should be the next outing for the boys and I.

It’s been too long, much too long, since my last time here. There’s a new sign at the entrance, or else an old sign I’m first seeing. The first time I came, I came alone and got lost, and all these years since it’s easy to get turned around, to lose the route that leads easiest to his marker. The surest, fastest way is to find it on foot. I hike past the mausoleum—muddied patches suck at my heels—push over slopes, wend through cypress trees and mini-gardens of blooming yellow tulips. I tread the maze of markers, stepping around and between but never over a stone. The grounds crew has set up a tent, dug a new plot, laid straps across it. The man stacking chairs under the tent calls a twangish Howdy, and waves for me to stop. He wipes his hands on overalls stamped with islands of dirt, tips a checkerboard conductor’s cap, and dabs his face with a stained cloth. He asks if I need help finding a stone and I tell him I’m fine, that who I came to see should be just over the next hill.

All righty, he says, and goes back to his business. I feel his eyes at my back as I leave.

By the time I reach my godson’s marker the bouquet has leaked a rose-sized stain on my blouse. I take a knee—feeling the wet grass soak through my pants—and clear loose grass and dirt from his birth and death dates. I take out the flowers one by one and lay them around the border and when I’m done I bow and pray. Not sure how long this lasts but when I look up the overalled man is standing nearby.

Oh, I say. Didn’t hear you walk up.

It’s an ancient Shaolin secret, he says. Or is it Alabama? He simpers. It’s the smile of an honest man. Not a church man, but an honest man—the toughest to find. He asks if Dawn’s boy is my boy.

He’s my godson, I say.

He snaps the straps of his overalls. Excuse the manners, he says. My name’s Henry. I’m the head groundskeeper here.

Grace, I say. Good to meet you.

Grace, he says. I got a cousin named Grace. And she’s a beauty just like you.

Thank you, I say.

No thanks due, he says. I’m just a bystander is all. Miss Grace, let me guess, you’re from someplace else original?

What makes you say that? I say.

Where I come from we honor the dead. But not much here, from what I can tell. Got me to thinking that it’s the place, that it’s the way folks are reared up north. But here you are visiting alone, paying respect, restoring my faith.

He helps me to my feet. He refits his hat on snug, checks his watch. Welp, I better get a move on, he says. My shift’s about done. He asks if I can find my way out, says it’s hecka easy to get turned around.

Thanks for the offer, I say. But I can find the way myself.

Hurrah for independence. Have a good day, he says, and moseys off. For as far as I can see, the man rambles between and around markers, but never over a single stone.