Outside Spartanburg, South Carolina, I stopped again to fuel up and piss. I bought a road atlas containing a map of Greenville, which included the town of Greer. In a phone booth, I thumbed through the worn pages of a phone book to look up the address for Charles Boykin. There was only one. I found the street on the map. I had to stop three more times for directions before I found it—a large white house with a red front door and a wraparound porch lined with blooming azaleas.

I’d imagined that my mother’s childhood home had been something more than our walk-up apartment in Montague Village, but I’d never gone so far as to picture exactly what it looked like. I sat in the car for a long time, trying to summon the courage to walk up to that porch and knock on the door.

An old Cadillac pulled into the driveway. A man and a woman climbed out. The woman was petite, a bit stooped, in a flowery dress and carrying a large wicker bag on her shoulder. The man glanced down toward the Jeep but did not appear to notice me watching him. They walked up the steps and into the house. A light came on in the front window. The woman appeared there to part the curtains.

All at once, a great weariness overcame me. I felt as if I lacked the strength even to drive around the corner, much less to go home or find a hotel or a rest stop. I eased the seat back and closed my eyes.

I awoke with a start. The light of the day had faded to dusk. I glanced toward the window. There stood my grandfather with his arms crossed, peering down at me through the open window.

“Can I help you?”

“No, sir,” I murmured.

“You’ve been napping here for a while,” he said.

“I . . . I got tired,” I said.

My grandfather leaned over. My voice felt trapped in my throat.

“I’m sorry,” I croaked.

I turned the ignition and put the Jeep into gear and lurched away from the curb. I caught a last glimpse of my grandfather in the rearview mirror, staring at the car. Was I imagining a hint of recognition on his face?

I drove until I saw a sign for I-85 South. Why not? I thought.

The first night, I pulled into a rest stop outside Columbus, Georgia, and slept in the Jeep. On the second, I stopped in New Orleans at a cheap motel on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, where I rented a room with pale-pink walls and a bathroom that smelled of mildew, brine, and cigarette smoke. The day afterward, I made it all the way to San Antonio and sold the Jeep at a used-car lot for a thousand dollars cash. There, I thought. I had stolen a car. No turning back now.