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"I heard their granddaughter was deaf."

"I'm a different granddaughter."

"Oh. Didn't know. Course, I don't keep company with your folks. I worked for your grandfather once a long time ago. Built a tool shed for him. Paid me on time, too," he added. His truck rumbled along about half the speed of the cars that flew by us, but he didn't care.

"Everyone's in a mad rush," he muttered. "Chasing the almighty dollar, but they miss the good stuff along the way."

He smiled at me and then he grew serious as though the thought just crossed his mind.

"You're Chester's little girl?"

"Yes, sir."

"What ever happened to him? No one seemed to know much about him after he left here with your mother."

"He was killed in a coal mine accident," I said, my throat choking up immediately.

"Coal mine? Is that what he left here to do? I never could understand. ." He gazed at me a moment and saw the sad look on my face. "Sorry to bring it up. Didn't know," he muttered awkwardly. Then he turned into a concerned grandparent again. "I'm surprised to see Samuel Logan lets his granddaughter walk along this crazy highway."

"I just decided to do it on my own," I said quickly. He nodded, but his eyes remained suspicious. "That's it ahead," he said.

"I know. Thank you."

He stopped and I got out and thanked him again. "Now you don't walk that highway no more, hear?" "Yes sir," I said.

"I'm sorry about your father. I just knew him when he was younger, but he seemed to be a fine young man."

"Thank you."

"Bye," he said, and drove off.

I sucked in my breath, straightened my shoulders, reaffirmed my determination, and walked up the driveway to my grandmother's home. Before I reached the front door, a dark-skinned man of about fifty or so came around the corner of the house, pushing a wheelbarrow.

"You looking for Mrs. Logan?" he asked.

"Yes."

"She's around back in the vegetable garden," he said.

I thanked him and went to the rear of the house, where Grandma Olivia was on her knees in her fenced-in garden. She was dressed in a pair of old jeans and she wore a flannel shirt and work gloves. She had a wide-brimmed hat with a few fake carnations sticking up in the rear of it. I was so shocked to see her looking so casual, I paused to watch her dig out weeds. The contrast between the woman who reigned like a queen in the elegant house and this woman with her hands in dirt, wearing old and tattered clothing, was so great, I thought I was looking at a stranger.

She sensed me behind her and turned. "Hand me that iron claw there," she ordered, pointing to a pile of tools nearby. I hurried to do so. "Careful where you step," she said. "I don't want to lose any of those carrots." She took the tool from me and scratched the earth around a tomato plant. "You walk all the way?" she asked as she worked.

"No, Grandma. Some kind old man in a pickup truck stopped to give me a lift."

"You were hitchhiking?"

"Not exactly."

"You always get into trucks with strangers?"

"No."

She paused and wiped her forehead.

"It's going to rain tonight," she said with the same tone of voice Cary had used when he made his weather prediction. "We need it. I had a better garden last year."

"It looks nice."