Meméré and her little purple car like to drive everywhere with me. Drive down the highway that might be longer than the way to Heaven. The one lined with graying palm trees on the way to the closest city where she likes to get coffee that smells fresh and not like the kind that sits in her pot all day and all night. Drive and drive, smelling coffee and watching blue sky.
One day you won’t want to drive with me anymore, she says. You’ll have friends to go out and have fun with and leave me behind. I promise her that I won’t.
We drive and drive to the library that’s close to the school I went to when it was the first southern spring. The roads are all on hills, you don’t see many of those away from New England. Past the too-pink house, around the many curves and turns in the road. Every yard is full of green grass and some have dogs or white fences. I get Because of Winn-Dixie, because that’s what our Florida town is like. Her grandma-car still smells like coffee. And we drive and drive until we’ve found our way home, and she waits again until she can get her best coffee.
