Mama and Gram didn’t receive the news of our moving well at all. The day we left we drove up to their house to say good-bye and only Mama came out: Gram wouldn’t leave the kitchen. Mama stood there on the porch in front of our Chevy sedan and loaded trailer with her arms crossed tight as if she were cold, though it was almost ninety-seven degrees under a eucalyptus tree. Jimmy walked up and hugged her. I heard him apologize for taking me so far away. That’s when Mama let loose crying. I ran up and hugged her, then whispered her something low but truthful: “She’ll pass on real quick, Mama. We won’t be gone more than a few months.”

But it was Gram who passed on so fast, that very July while Jim was working his first week at Heywood Paper Products and I was hanging curtains in the parlor here on Saunders Hill. Gram and I never talked much but I loved her and felt terribly low that we couldn’t afford to go down to the funeral. I sent Mama a telegram and Jimmy borrowed money from his mother and wired a bouquet of lilies.

Jim’s mama was a lot like him, big-chested and quiet, though she had auburn hair and blue eyes. It was Jimmy’s father, Francis, who gave him the good looks. There was a photograph of him standing on the riverbank under the half-built bridge that eventually killed him. He’s wearing a hard hat, his hands are on his hips, and his legs are spread slightly apart. What threw me was the smile. It was enormous. His eyes were shadowed under his hat, but you could see how dark and deep-set they were.

Mama Suther had that picture framed and kept it on the mantel in her living room. We fell into the habit of having Sunday dinners over at her house. Most times I cooked, and rarely a Sunday played itself out without my mother-in-law reminding me or Jim that she wanted the picture of Francis buried with her. I thought it very moving at first, and even tried writing a poem from the viewpoint of the photograph. But after a while it got tiresome, especially in light of how upset Jim got every time.

Last spring, Ryder visited. The drive up through New York City thrilled him so much, he talked Jimmy and me into driving down for a long weekend, Leo too. It was a wonderful trip! Ride is coming up again this week from North Carolina. He’s been living there the last six months, working in one of those cigarette factories in Winston-Salem. He wrote us that he’s been playing his harmonica with a Negro blues band out in some small town in the woods. It’ll do Jimmy good to see him. Ryder says he’s going to talk us into another excursion to the city, but he hasn’t seen me as I am now.