chuckled in agreement and then he finally heard what Tass had said. “Wait. Not the bus? So what, the train?”
Tass shook her head no again.
“So how you expect to get there?”
“In the car.”
Sonny eyed her. “Aw, c’mon, Mama,” he whined. “That’s a long-ass drive. I ain’t got any more time to—”
Tass raised her hand. “I’m not asking you to drive me anywhere, Sonny.”
“Well, who then?”
Tass’s response was calm and confident: “I’m going to drive myself.”
Sonny stared at her for a moment and then started to laugh. “You’re joking, right?”
Again Tass shook her head.
“You’ve only ever driven the same twenty or thirty blocks, and to get to Mississippi you have to get on the highway—a number of highways—and you have never driven on one.”
“Gotta learn sometime.”
Quiet amazement spread across Sonny’s face. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
The second reel of laughter doubled him over. When he was finally able to compose himself, he said, “Well, it’s not going to happen. I can’t let you do it. I’ve already lost one parent and I’m not ready to bury another.”
Tass smirked. “I ain’t never known my daddy and your daddy is dead. So the only person who is the boss of me is me.”
What was he to do? Yell, scream, bound and gag her until she came to her senses? In the end, he stormed out of the attic, down the stairs, and into the dining room where his sisters were setting the table for dinner.
“Y’all better go up there and talk some sense into your mother!”
“Why, what happened?”
“She talking about driving herself down to Money, Mississippi!”
Up in the attic Tass continued going through the steamer trunk. Taking a break, she walked over to the window and looked out over the backyard. The grass was turning brown from the strangling heat and even though it was only August, fallen leaves were scattered everywhere.
A sparrow landed on the windowsill and gazed curiously at her.
“What you looking at?” Tass quipped.
The bird fluttered off.
After months of melancholy, Tass finally felt some sense of joy begin to thread through her.
Maybe it was the thought of going home, or just the effect of summer’s last stand—whatever it was, Tass was grateful.
Peak conditions. That’s what the weatherman said. Peak conditions and no rain for at least seven days.
Tass took that uninterrupted perfection as confirmation that it was time to go.
The children pouted.
Of course it was going to be difficult for them—her leaving so soon after Fish had died.
“We’re going to feel like orphans,” Sonny half-joked.
Tass patted his hand. “You’ll be okay. You will all be okay.”
She pulled out at sunrise. All twelve children came to see her off. They hugged and kissed her and reminded her not to talk on her cell phone while she was driving.
Sonny typed in the destination on the GPS. The digital numbers stated that she would travel 2,345 miles from point A to point B. When Tass looked at that long number, it took her breath away.
Seat belt in place, she threw the almost-new Toyota into drive and forced a confident smile as she pulled away from the curb.
After twenty miles or so, Tass thought she would turn the car around and head back home. What was she thinking? Who was she fooling? She was a sixty-six-year-old woman who had never spent a night alone in her entire life. This adventure was for a woman half her age, not someone collecting a Social Security check.
Tass began to shake.
Who had put such a silly thought in her mind?
Her eyes filled with tears.
That’s it, she belittled herself, I’ve lost my mind and not one of my children noticed.
She frantically searched the overhead signs for the next highway exit. Too nervous and distraught to take her hand off of the steering wheel to turn on the radio, Tass forced herself to think warm and happy thoughts.
She started with the day in the attic, worked her way backward to family barbecues, the birth of her first grandchild, her fortieth anniversary party, the day she and Fish made the final payment on the mortgage, the hour when she first realized she was pregnant, her wedding, summer days at the river, her first kiss …
Time slipped by, and before Tass realized it she had traveled fifty miles.
There was still time to turn back, but she no longer felt the urgent need to. Easing her hand from the steering wheel, she fiddled with the buttons until the radio came on. Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” washed over her.
Tass began to sing along.
It was August 22, 2005.
It took her four days to travel the 2,345 miles. She kept to the speed limit, and stopped often, and called Sonny to give him her exact location.
Sonny would always end the phone call with, “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
And Tass would respond, “I can’t believe it either.”
She always started driving at dawn, and by sunset she was pulling into a motel to bed down for the night. The rooms at the motels were small, the walls thin, and the cleanliness of the sheets suspect. So Tass slept in her clothes and kept the television on for company.
She arrived on the afternoon of August 26. The Toyota was caked in road dust and dead insects. Tass didn’t look much better.
After she climbed out of the car, she thanked God for her safe arrival and leaned her entire body against the side of the vehicle.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Padagonia shrieked merrily as she ran out of her house and across the road to Tass. “You made it! Oh, thank God!” Padagonia threw herself into her friend and wrapped her bony arms around her neck.
When they finally pulled apart, Tass smirked and said, “So you knew I was coming, huh?”
Padagonia offered a sheepish grin. “Sonny called me.”
“That boy,” Tass sighed.
“What did you expect? An old woman like you driving halfway across the country?”
“Old?”
The two laughed.
“Well, make yourself useful,” Tass said as she walked around to the back of the car and opened the trunk.
Inside, the house was filled with shadows. Tass’s hand crept along the wall in search of the light switch.
“Gosh,” she exclaimed, “what’s that smell?”
“I painted,” Padagonia announced.
Tass hit the switch