James Taylor had Carolina on his mind. I had upstate New York. While I was working at Thompson, I got a call from a New York state trooper who said he was phoning from my grandmother’s house in Newburgh. I immediately thought, Oh, Jesus, Nan passed.
The trooper asked if I was James Patterson. When I said yes, he explained that my grandmother had reported a missing person. My grandfather. Pop was MIA.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I told the trooper. I rented a car and sped up the thruway to my old hometown, a trip that always gave me the willies.
I arrived at Nan’s house and it was like old times. She made hot tea with milk, cut me a piece of homemade babka, and we talked things out. Finally, I said, “Let’s go for a ride.” Nan was always game for a car ride. She and Pop had gone on car rides every Sunday since I’d been little.
I drove Nan to Calvary Cemetery in Newburgh. We got out of the car and took a walk. I showed her Pop’s grave.
All Nan said was “Oh, yeah.”
She was a funny lady. She started laughing when she realized that she’d forgotten that Pop had been dead for ten years. We held hands and said a little prayer for him. I said a prayer for Pop’s neighbor and for my first-kiss girl, Veronica Tabasco. Then we went home.
Nan wasn’t just funny, though; she was a pretty cool lady in all ways. She was a really good storyteller with a quick wit and fire in her eyes. In my head, right now, my grandmother is one hundred fourteen. The way I like to look at it, she’s still alive as long as I’m around to tell her stories.