"Hers."
A strikeout. He wrote a K because she told him to, and then a backward K when the next one went down looking, because apparently that was a thing.
"You said you bought it," he said. "The suitcase."
"I did."
"When?"
"Twenty-three years ago. At a department store in Jackson that isn't there anymore."
"For what?"
The radio filled the car for a while. Somebody stole second.
"For her," his grandmother said.
"Where was she going?"
"Memphis."
And that was all. She did not say it the way people say a thing they're hiding. She said it the way people set down something heavy and step back from it so they don't pick it up again by accident. Malik sat with the clipboard on his knees and thought about his mother at fifteen, his age, rolling that grey suitcase with its clicking wheel somewhere he had never heard her mention, not once, not in all their reasons.
Cedar Bluff was a town that made Delmore Street look like a city. There was a Dollar General and a Sonic and a stoplight that blinked yellow after ten. Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church sat at the top of a short hill, red brick with a white steeple, and a lit sign out front said ALLEN CHAPEL A.M.E. — REV. ODESSA M. PIKE, PASTOR — ALL ARE WELCOME — FISH FRY SAT 4PM. Next to it, behind a row of crepe myrtles, was a smaller brick house with a carport and a porch light already burning.
"You leave it on?" he said.
"Always."