“Those songs that continue to play long after the last note has faded. Grandma. It was sonic southernness. It is everything I know.”

Grandma. Care was her method. Always. But she needed a break, and Mom knew it too. Attentive eyes. Mom took after her mother. It was settled. Grandma was coming home.

Norfolk, Virginia.

I came back as often as possible. The warmest smile you can imagine was there. That kind of smile that reminds you that you belong, no matter how long you have been gone. That kind of smile that holds you. That kind of smile that means so much, its absence would leave a void that nothing else could quite fill. That kind of smile is a lifeline.

“Wassup, nigga? Did you stay Black?”