Georgia Tech, he told everyone at his club it was his doing. He came to my graduation in Atlanta and wore a cap that said MY DAUGHTER THE ENGINEER, which he had paid to have printed, and I did not speak to him for nine years." She put the hard hat back on. "He is ninety now and he lives with me in Signal Mountain and every morning I make his tea. So. Life is long, and people are complicated, and you are hired. Monday at seven. Wear closed-toe shoes."
* * *
My mother texted every day. Good morning baby. Praying for you. Your daddy loves you. Please come home and let's talk. I didn't answer. I didn't block her, either. I'm still not sure why. I think I wanted to be able to see her keep trying, and I wanted her to see me not answer, and I knew both of those were small, mean wants, and I let myself have them anyway.
My father didn't text at all.
Grant texted three times that first week. Once to say Mom's not sleeping. Once to say I need to talk to you, not about them, about me. And once, at 1:12 in the morning, a photograph of the M4 in our driveway with the bow finally off, lit up by the garage light, and under it: I hate this car so much Jo. I haven't driven it more than to the gas station. Dad keeps asking why I'm not taking it to Murfreesboro.
I looked at that photo for a long time. Then I wrote, Why aren't you?
The three dots came and went. Came and went. Then: Because I'm not going back to Murfreesboro.
And then nothing, because it was 1:15 in the morning and my brother had apparently decided that was where the conversation should stop.
* * *
We met on the Walnut Street Bridge on a Sunday afternoon at the end of April, because it was the only place I could think of that belonged to neither of us. He walked over from the North Shore side and I walked from downtown, and we met in the middle, near the truss where Grandma Ida had put my hand, and for a minute neither of us said anything. The river was high and brown from a week of rain. A guy went by on a unicycle. Somebody's wedding party was taking photos at the south end.
Grant looked bad. He was wearing a Chattanooga State Community College T-shirt I'd never seen before, and he'd buzzed his hair, and there were dark half-moons under his eyes.
"You didn't drive it here," I said.