"Grandpa."
"Seven hundred dollars," he said. "Which is robbery, it is worth nine. But he came with a trailer, so." He drank his coffee. "Six hundred and forty I gave your mother. For Orlando. For the half the gym fund doesn't do, so your sister can coach her babies for gas money and not for a debt. Sixty I kept, for the muffler." He finally looked at me. "Don't make the face."
"You loved that motor."
"I loved your grandmother," he said. "I loved that motor because it took her out on the water once. She was sick the whole time. It was a terrible day. It was the best day." He set the thermos lid down on the bench. "Your mother did not want to take it. She stood in my driveway and said, Tata, I can't, and I said, puiule, you are going to hear me say it now. I can. I can, this time. I can. And she took it." He shook his head. "Twenty-five years too late. But I can."
I went over and hugged him, which made him say something in Romanian that I think meant enough, and he patted my back with his shaking hand, and then he pointed with his chin at the bench.
"There is a Lawn-Boy," he said, "from the woman on Rensselaer Street, with the dog that bites. Two-stroke. She says it smokes. Of course it smokes, it is a two-stroke, it is supposed to smoke. But it smokes blue, and it is supposed to smoke white. Tell me why."
"Too much oil in the mix," I said. "Or the rings are going."
"Which?"
"I don't know yet."
"Good," he said. "Find out."