Chapter 15: Gran's Garage

I read it standing in the garage with my shirt still crooked.

Waylon read it over my shoulder.

"Her tutors," he said. "She's going to swear her tutors drew your rocket."

"She's going to swear I copied her."

"Under oath."

"Annika has cried on cue at three funerals she didn't care about," I said. "An oath isn't going to slow her down."

We went to Galveston for Thanksgiving.

Just the two of us this time, in my Honda, with a pecan pie from a Houston bakery on Waylon's knees.

He held it the whole way.

Gran met us on the porch.

She looked at the pie, then at him.

"Store-bought," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"At least you're honest."

She put him to work before he'd set his bag down.

An outboard off a neighbor's skiff was in pieces on the garage floor, and Gran wanted it running by Friday.

They spent all Thanksgiving morning on it together, not talking, passing tools without asking for them.

At one point I heard Gran say, "Well, I'll be damned," which from her is a medal.

We ate at three.

Turkey, cornbread dressing, Gran's okra, and the store-bought pie, which she had two slices of and insulted both times.

Waylon fell asleep on the couch by eight with his boots still on.

Gran threw an afghan over him.

Then she looked at me and tipped her head toward the garage.

She didn't turn on the big lights.

She turned on the lamp over the workbench and climbed up to the top shelf, the one I'd never been allowed to touch.

"Gran."

"Hush. I'm seventy-one, not dead."

She came down with a shoebox.

Inside were photos.

A girl on the dock with a fishing pole taller than she was.

The same girl at fifteen, sticking her chin out at the camera, mad about something.

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