But when she is done with the summer sweet bud, she does fly off and suddenly I am aware that I am standing there with no idea what to do or where to go next. Maybe I should go back inside. Try to plead again with Agnes. Tell her one more time that I’m sorry. Why do I always have to be so mean about everything? Calling her a freaking lunatic was going too far. No wonder she never wants to see me again. Why do I get so impatient with her? Especially since I love her more than any other person in my whole life?
I turn around and close my fingers over the doorknob. It’s small and cold in my hand. Lifeless. My fingers don’t move. After a few seconds, I let go and sit down on the front step. I can’t do it. I’m sorry that I’ve said things meanly and I’m sorry that I’m so impatient, but everything, every single word I’ve said about Emmanuel and Mount Blessing has been the truth. My truth. And I won’t go back—I won’t, I won’t—and pretend that it isn’t. Even for Agnes.
There is a scratching sound coming from inside the door. I open it carefully and stare into Mr. Pibbs’s blue eyes. Scooping him up, I sit back down on the steps and turn him around so I can look at his face again. “Hey, buddy,” I whisper. “I’ve got one just like you, only a little smaller. You know that?” The cat blinks his wide eyes and gazes back at me. “Has Lillian been a good mother to you?” I ask. Mr. Pibbs ducks his head and brings his left paw up to his face. With a tiny pink tongue, he begins licking his fur with small, short strokes. I press him tightly against my chest and bury my face into his silky white coat. He smells like wood and smoke and Nana Pete’s perfume. I bury my nose in deeper, trying to smell Nana Pete again. Alarmed, the cat leaps out of my arms and runs for the fence. I don’t stop him. I put my head down and sit there for a long time, not moving.
When I look up again, the first thing I see is Nana Pete’s car. Her car. I run toward it at breakneck speed; maybe, maybe, maybe, yes! God, here are her keys. And that’s how it happens. I don’t know which direction to go in or even if Lillian’s workplace is in Savannah. I don’t even know what to do yet when it comes time to put more gas in the car. I know only one thing as I slip the silver key into the ignition and put the Queen Mary into drive.
It’s time.
My time.
And I am outta here.
Lillian lives on a street called East Gwinnet. It’s a pretty little street with exactly the kind of neat white houses I pictured when we left Mount Blessing. But it’s so narrow that I almost hit the first car that comes driving down the other side. The guy behind the wheel leans on his horn and then sticks his middle finger out at me. I’ve never seen such a gesture before, but I’m almost positive it’s not good. I ease up on the gas a little after that and then brake hard at the end of the street as two women cross in front of me.
“Excuse me!” I lean out the side window. The women are wearing white sneakers and shiny sweat suits that rustle when they walk. The slighter of the two has a pink foam curler in the middle of her forehead. “Have you ever heard of a place called King’s?”
The women exchange a glance and then shrug. “No,” the shorter one says. “Sorry.”
“You’re pretty small to be driving a great big car like that, aren’t you?” the bigger one asks. I sit back down in the seat.
“It’s my grandma’s,” I say, stepping on the gas and waving out the window. “She said I could drive it.” I ease through three more streets, rolling the word over and over again along my tongue. “Grandma.” It tastes good in my mouth, a new sweetness filling a bitter, empty space. Just as I am about to cross over West Charlton Street, I notice an elderly man putting a letter into a mailbox on the corner. I roll down the window again.
“Excuse me, sir? Have you ever heard of a place around here called King’s?”
The old man’s face, as worn and as wrinkled as a baseball glove, widens into a grin. “Eat breakfast there every mornin’.”
“Breakfast?” I repeat. “You mean it’s a restaurant?”
He leans against a brown cane and chuckles. “Yep. All-night diner. Good, too. Serves everything from eggs and bacon t’ hominy and grits.”
I sit back slowly. So she’s a waitress. Why am I disappointed? I lean forward again. “Can you tell me how to get there?”
The man lifts his cane and points down the street. “It’s right on the river. Get yourself down on Martin Luther King Boulevard and drive for a while, till you get to Broad. Then make a right. King’s is right at the end.”