The surprising thing is, I took to Massachusetts like a horse to hay. I could never have imagined there being so many hills and trees, rivers and lakes in one place. My only sadness, besides postponing Paris, was leaving Ryder and the widows. Ryder took the news with a smile, then said he didn’t mind his guitar man being a Yankee but he wasn’t up to becoming one himself, thank you very much. He and Jim had quite a few howling blues sessions the two weeks before we left. Ryder liked the house so much, he stayed to take over the rent and he said he’d go find himself a señorita to move in and split the bills with him.

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.