“Please do,” I said, genuinely interested. Hazel had a knack for talking like a professor despite being 10 years old, and I always looked forward to the next thing that might pop out of her mouth. My eyes found her in the mirror now—you might be worried that I wasn’t paying much attention to the road and could kill my children in a violent wreck at any moment, but I assure you that wasn’t the case—and smiled at her beauty. Dark skin, her head adorned with black, tightly curled hair. Face of an angel, to give you a cliché worth complaining about. (And yes, she’s adopted, to get that out of the way. All of my kids are, after Wesley. There’s one, sitting in the far back, sound asleep, that I haven’t even mentioned yet. His name is Logan, just like the Wolverine.)

  Hazel, after a little bit of pontificating, her index finger actually pressed against her lips for a moment, finally gave us her thoughtful answer.

  “Mason’s burps do stink. I think he has a gastrointestinal problem. We need to have him diagnosed by a proper physician.” Two things that Hazel loved: Use of the word “proper” and calling a doctor a physician. Ten years old, remember.

  “I concur with the well-spoken madam from Atlanta,” Wesley added. “Mason doth stinketh in a most profound way. Perhaps even from both ends if I’m not completely mistaken.” He only spoke like this to mock Hazel, but he did it so lovingly and agreeably that it swelled my heart. “Let us hope the physician chooses not to remove his innards.”

  Understandably, Mason chose to cry at this morbid statement, bursting into a bellow that hurt my ears. He’s seven years old, so we can forgive him. Logan, who we mustn’t forget in the back, is four, still strapped to a car seat though he thinks it ridiculous to imprison such a big boy. As you may have guessed, my wife and I were able to have one child by natural means, Wesley, before going through several years of no luck (despite our very best efforts, I might add). And if there was ever anything my sweet wife and I wanted in life, it was a big family, just like the ones from which we hailed. So we went the adoption route, picking up kids from all over the world—Africa, China, Detroit. In that order.

  My wife wasn’t in the car during all this burping and complaining and pontificating, and I’m sad to say that the reason is a very melancholy one. She died two full years before the road trip of which you read. She’d been on a business trip to far-off Singapore and perished in a very suspicious way, but that’s a tale for another time. I’d tell you more, but it’s the kind of love that sounds way too good to be true. Maybe some day. But I miss her as much, and as painfully, as you can imagine.

  “I tell you guys what,” I said after Hazel’s proposal that we get a medicinal authority involved (with Wesley’s concurrence). Mason had gloriously quieted to a sniffle. “Let’s make a deal. Mason, you can only burp once—when you’re finished with your entire bag of chips. Hazel, I promise I’ll ask the doc—the physician—about Mason’s gastrointestinal issues at his next checkup. Wesley, if you’ll stop touching Mason I’ll let you drive after our next pit stop. Do we have a deal?”

  My eyes met theirs in the mirror, one at a time—again, I assure you my senses perceived the road just fine while doing this necessary exercise—and watched each of them nod. Of the three, Wesley seemed most satisfied.

  Approximately seven seconds later, Logan—don’t forget, four years old, in the back, unwillingly strapped to a car seat—woke up and announced with an extraordinary if inexplicably happy voice that he’d peed his pants.

  I breathed in; I breathed out.

  And watched the road.

  2

  Two gas stations, one change of clothes, a jaunt through the drive-through of a non-brand hamburger dive, at least a dozen pointless if not sometimes entertaining arguments, and one deeply philosophical discussion with Wesley on mixing religion and race in the analysis of bigotry later, we arrived at Grandma’s house. I’m not sure why Grandpa got the shaft so universally, but the home in which I grew up was always referred to as the abode of Grandma’s and Grandma’s alone. I first knew my parents as Daddy and Mama, which slowly transformed into Dad and Mom by the time I was a teenager. So many names for such simple, kind people.

  They lived smack dab in the middle of nowhere, along a dusty, narrow lane—literally called Narrow Paved Road—that stretched like the world’s longest and straightest arrow across the farmlands of Lynchburg, South Carolina. Being the middle of summer, the black pavement of the infinite road shimmered with heat, the air above the lane practically boiling as we cut through it. Crops went past in their beautiful rows—the lines of white dirt flashing like an odd sort of strobe light as we sped by. I never tired of looking upon those beautiful crops when we came back home—the broad leaves of tobacco, the billowy white balls of cotton filled with their prickly seeds, the humble, rather ordinary-looking soybean plants. I cracked the window to sniff the welcoming smells of earth and greenery and manure, all mixing together to grace my senses with an assurance that I had returned to the land of my birth.

  Houses were far and few between, but soon the porch and brick chimney and white siding of my parents’ century-old structure slid into view, up on the right, and every one of us quieted for a moment of awe. My kids revered this place—and the people who lived within—as much as I did. We weren’t your normal family, saving up every dollar to go to wild, magical places like Disney World and New York City. When we had time off, when summer hit, when Christmas rolled around, we did what each and every one of us wanted to do—visit Grandma and Grandpa. Visit my gazillion cousins and aunts and uncles. Eat lots of food and tell stories of the old days on the farm.

  This very place, I thought as I pulled onto the gravel driveway that wrapped around the front yard, was the place we all wanted to be. At least this is what I told myself. Maybe my kids wanted to go see Mickey Mouse and only spared my feelings. Or maybe I was at fault for not showing them more of the world. Either way, in my memories a shadow hung over the home that day. A shadow that failed to darken my joy. Even thoughts of Grandpa Fincher’s ghost in the old house’s attic—an apparition I’d heard with my own two ears, I swear beneath God, angels, and witnesses—couldn’t penetrate my elation. The ghost probably—probably—wasn’t real, but we sure loved pretending that it was so.

  I put such things out of mind when my mom and dad appeared on the cement porch, letting the creaky screen door flop shut behind them. My dad, all grey hair and whiskers, waved his bony, wrinkly hand, the skin so weathered by the sun you could’ve made a fine baseball glove out of it. My mom smiled her beaming smile, too busy wiping her hands on an apron to wave,. Stereotype or not, the only thing the woman loved to do more than cooking was cooking for company. And no one has ever tasted anything finer than the morsels blessed enough to come out of her oven or off her stove.

  “Howdy-do, pardner,” my dad said as I opened my door, the same thing that always came out of his mouth at this point. Whether he said it ironically or not, I never quite figured out. “Glad you made it safe and sound, just in the nick of time. Storm a-brewing yonder south, blowing up this way.”

  My dad, a man who’d rather check the weather report than breathe air.

  “Hey, son.” My mom had me in her arms before I could fully stand, pulling me tight, kissing both my cheeks. And then the kids were out of the car and bedlam broke loose.

  “Grandma!”

  “Grandpa!”

  “Mason!”

  “Hazel!”

  “Grandma Grandpa!”

  “Wesley!”

  “Grandpa!”

  “Grandma!”

  “Where’s my little Wolverine?”

  “Someone get me out of this stupid car seat!”

  There were hugs, someone fell down, my dad pulled a muscle in his back, and I think I saw a tear or two wiped away in embarrassment, but I can’t remember who it was amongst the blur of movement. The reunion was all joy and bluster, the excitement of the next several weeks filling the air almost like the snowy thrill of Christmas. We were back at Grandma’s, dammit, and all was right in the world.

  “Let’s get our bags, kids,” I said, shooing with my hands in no particular direction.

  I looked at my dad in that moment, and saw something that made me pause. A wave of sadness, perhaps. It was gone as soon as it came, but I felt a little crack in my tray of welcome. He’d always been a bit mysterious, sometimes gloomy.

  The trunk was opened, bags were lifted, somebody pinched somebody, somebody screamed.

  “How was the drive?” Mom asked.

  “Not too bad,” I said, already forgetting the forgettable parts of our sojourn. “Mason might need some Tums, though.” All four of my kids snickered at that, Mason especially.

  “What’ve you been up to, Wesley?” Mom asked my oldest child. Everyone exaggeratedly grunted with strain as we carried our bags up the porch steps.

  “Not much, Grandma.” He shrugged, a move perfected by prehistoric teenagers, an art never lost since. “I kinda miss my friends since school got out, just been looking forward to coming back here, I guess. Can’t wait to hang out with the cousins. And for you to stuff me with food until I explode.” He always spoke with an… adultness that never failed to amaze me.

  I could see the same feeling in my mom’s eyes as she responded. “Just wait until you try my new casserole. It’s got something in it that’ll make your toes curl up.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Wesley asked. “I kinda like my toes straight.”

  Grandma laughed hard at that one, a little in disproportion to the quality of the joke.

  And so, we had arrived.

  With a sigh that spoke a million words, I followed everyone else into the house.

  3

  Dinner was everything that my mom had promised. I didn’t know if anyone’s toes had curled inside their shoes—mine, in fact, had not—but it was one of the finest meals I’d ever been blessed to partake. I’m not sure if Grandma liked having leftovers in the fridge or if she thought we’d all turned into elephants, but heaps of food still remained on the table long after we sat back, hands on stomachs, with slightly distressed looks on our faces. I’d thought myself full at least 20 minutes before I’d stopped eating.

  But before that, at some point during all that exercise of transporting meats and vegetables and baked goods from dishes and trays to plates and utensils to our mouths and finally down our throats, Hazel paused with a loaded fork frozen in midair and spoke in a clear, loud voice.

  “Would you mind telling us a story about the old days, Grandpa?” she said, her words and tone as likely to have come from any woman I’ve ever known as from a 10-year-old child. “A proper story, please.”

  “Yeah,” Wesley pitched in. “Tell us about the dead pig in the bathtub.”

  I smiled through a mouthful of food, knowing exactly what he was referring to. It’s not nearly so morbid as it sounds.

  “You mean the fall barbecue?” Dad asked, always willing to spin a tale for his grandkids. He put down his own fork and leaned back, a wistful look peeking through his whiskers and wrinkled brow. The shadowed countenance from earlier seemed to have disappeared. “Good times, those were. We had more people packed in this yard and house than ants in an anthill. We’d go out to the pig sty and grab the biggest fella we could find, string the poor thing up, pull out a honking big serrated knife—”

  My mom leaned over at this point and tapped my dad on the arm. “Maybe leave out the most gruesome details, sweetie.”

  “NO!”

  I’d never heard my kids speak so clearly and in such perfect unison before.

  “Definitely tell us the gruesome parts,” Wesley said, throwing an I’m-sorry glance at his grandma. “Blood, guts, intestines, everything.”

  “Yeah!” Mason echoed.

  “Bloody guts!” Logan yelled.

  Dad looked pleased as punch, a phrase he taught me. “Well, let’s just say we took care of business—and I was always quick about it. I loved those swine, and never woulda harmed a one if we didn’t need to feed our children. And that day we were feeding a god—uh, er, a galdern army of relations. But yes, anywho, there was a mess of blood and guts, and not one inch of my body clean by the time we had that poor beast ready to cook.”

  “What does a bathtub have to do with this?” Hazel asked, her face as innocent as the day we picked her up.

  “It was an old iron washtub used by your grandma’s papa,” Dad said. He meant Grandpa Fincher, whose ghost had taken up residence in the attic—no one really disputed this. “Kept it in the shed out back by the safe. That thing was perfect for cutting up a pig—even comes with its own drain. We did all of this on the porch, mind you.” He shifted in his seat, pointed at the back door which led to the killing ground of which he spoke. “Yes, sir. Right out there. Oh my babies, I hope you never have to hear the squeal of a slaughtered hog.”

  “All right, then,” Mom announced. “I think that’s quite enough of the washtub story. More pork casserole anyone?”

  Several dazed faces shook their heads in unison, along with a few silent-but-mouthed No, thank you’s. I shrugged my shoulders and obligingly accepted another shovel-full. Eventually, everyone gave in and loaded up, but soon enough we came to that moment mentioned previously, sitting back in our chairs, hands on stomachs, in disbelief that we’d ever felt hungry, even once, in our entire lives.

  “Grandma,” Wesley said, “you need your own TV show. That shit was good.”

  His sentence had fully come out before he realized quite what he’d done. He looked at me, and I looked back at him. He looked at Grandma, then Grandpa, and they looked back. Hazel had a mouth so open it looked downright unnatural, like the mouth of a bear’s cave. A spoonful of gravy-soaked mashed potatoes was halfway to Mason’s own mouth, but it splashed back onto his plate. Logan was oblivious, either taking something out or putting something into his nose.

  Mom laughed a short bark of a thing she tried to cover up. Dad tried not to grin as he shook his head. Wesley blushed.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “I was gonna say crap but that just didn’t seem to give your food justice.”

  We all sat a moment, pondering this profoundly confusing statement.

  Dad shook his head again, grunted a sound that was somehow amiable, and stood up to clear the dishes. We all knew he had no intention of doing it alone so we immediately began to help. A flurry of clinks and clanks filled the warm room.

  I leaned into Wesley as we carried some plates to the kitchen. “In front of my parents? Really?” I thought it the only rebuke I could give without seeming like a grumpy old curmudgeon.

  “Come on, Dad,” he responded. “Grandpa’s a farmer—you really think he’s never used that word before? When the… whatever, cows bit him?”

  “Cows? When they bit him?”

  “I don’t know. Or when the tractor ran over a chicken or something?”

  I let out a very exaggerated sigh. “Fail.”

  Wesley gave our plates a good scrape over the sink then slid them into the dishwasher. “Guess I should’ve played that farm game on my phone more often.”

  “Double fail,” I replied.

  “Maybe I should quit school and become a farmer.”

  “Okay, stop talking.”

  Just then the doorbell rang. Everyone looked up at once, as if we were expecting God himself to have dropped by for a visit.

  “That must be Aunt Evelyn,” my mom pronounced.

  Because we loved my sister almost as much as we loved Mom’s cooking, at least one chair toppled over as we raced for the front door.

  4

  It wasn’t Aunt Evelyn.

  The spring door creaked its crooked squeal as my dad pushed it open. I was standing right behind his shoulder, looking through the glass and mesh at a man I’d never seen before. He stepped aside to reveal himself better as the door clicked into its propped position. He was a nervous stretch of a thing, all sinew and darkly tanned skin, his eyes cast down to the ground as if he’d come to confess his awful sins.

  “Can I help ya?” Dad asked.

  The stranger fidgeted, playing the tips of his fingers like a musical instrument. Still he did not raise his eyes. I guessed he was in his mid-30s, maybe pushing 40. Hard to tell with the bushy beard that marooned itself on his face and neck. His dirty-blond hair had been severely combed to the side, greased with something of industrial caliber. His entire head shone like polished bronze.

  “Sir?” Dad intoned firmly, making it clear that this man’s presence better be explained quickly or there was going to be trouble.

  With that, the stranger finally looked up. He had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, the surrounding whites moistened with recent tears, his skin puffy from crying.

  “I’m—I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t mean nobody no harm. No, sir.”

  “Then what in God’s name are you doing here on my front porch?” Dad asked, his voice matching the unease that hung in the air like mildewed drapes. “Do I need to call the authorities?” He nudged me with his hand, as if he wanted me to do that exact thing, or at least pull out my phone to make a show of it. I did, held it up for display.

  “No, sir, please!” the stranger pleaded. “I ain’t here to harm nobody—I the one been harmed!” He spoke with such earnestness that the tendons of his neck bulged and jiggled under his beard. “Please, I just need… to take care of somethin’. I ain’t got no gun or nothin’—you can check.”

  At this point my dad turned to me, a look on his face that I would better understand a few days hence. It was a look of compassion, almost pleading, but it also rang heavily with falseness, as if he he’d been hired to do a commercial, a piss-poor actor to boot.

  “Now look, Dad,” I started to say, but something he did—a slight tremble of his lips, a furrowing of his brow, his eyes seeming to think on their own, lost in words too profound to speak aloud—stopped me. Confused me, really. With a hearty sigh, I turned my attention to our visitor. “What’s wrong, man? Do we need to call an ambulance? The police? Are you in some kind of trouble?”