And that is where he left her.
I watched it all in the side mirror.
I want to tell you I did something. I did not. I sat in that car and watched my mother stand on the gravel in the full sun with her handbag hooked on her arm like she was waiting for a bus, and I watched a boy sit in air conditioning behind tinted glass, typing on a laptop.
At ten minutes, I rolled my window down.
“Mom. Get in the car.”
“He asked me to stand here.”
“He can’t make you do that.”
“He can ask,” she said, without turning around. “And I can stand.”
The sun was coming straight down. There was no breeze. The corn didn’t move at all. A grasshopper landed on the hood of the Buick and sat there like it was waiting to see what would happen too.
