People have asked me since how a son can sell his mother\u2019s car without her signature.
\nIt\u2019s simple. And it was my own doing.
\nWhen my husband Walter died eleven years ago, Brian sat at my kitchen table with a folder full of papers. He put his name next to mine on everything. The bank accounts. The house. The car. So that nothing would get tangled up when my own time came.
\nThe title on the Buick said Dorothy Hale or Brian Hale.<\/p>\n
Or. Not and.
\nEither one of us could sign it.
\nI thanked him for that at the time. I thought it was so thoughtful.
\nIt was a 2005 LeSabre. Tan. Seventy-one thousand miles. Walter picked it out at the dealership himself. He drove it for ten years and I drove it for eleven more.
\nThere was still a roll of his wintergreen mints in the center console. Gone hard as buttons. I couldn\u2019t make myself throw them out.
\nI wondered if the man from Janesville had found them yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay something, Mom,\u201d Brian said.
\nI could have said a great deal.
\nI could feel every word of it lined up behind my teeth.
\nBut I worked a telephone switchboard, and then directory assistance, for thirty-one years. I know exactly what a voice sounds like when a person has made up his mind before he ever dialed the number.
\nThere\u2019s no use reasoning with that voice. All you can do is make the connection and let him hear what\u2019s on the other end of the line.
\nAnd I knew something else, too.<\/p>\n
A seventy-six-year-old woman raising her voice in a supper club about her car keys doesn\u2019t sound like a woman who\u2019s right.
\nShe sounds like the proof.
\nSo I opened my purse. I took out my key ring. I worked the Buick key and the little black fob off it with my thumbnail. It took me a moment. My hands weren\u2019t shaking. I want that understood.
\nAnd I set them on the tablecloth next to the envelope.
\n\u201cThere,\u201d I said. \u201cNow. Is somebody going to cut this cake? Or do I have to do that myself as well?\u201d
\nKim cut it.
\nHer hands were shaking a lot worse than his.<\/p>\n
Brian drove me home in his truck. Nobody said much. The lilacs were blooming all along Cedar Street, and the smell came in through the air vents.
\nWhen we pulled in, my carport was empty.
\nThere was the oil spot on the concrete. My garden hose coiled on its hook. The coffee can full of sand I keep by the step for ice in the winter.
\nThat was all.
\nHe walked me to the door.
\nHe\u2019s fifty years old and six foot one. Standing on my front step under the porch light, he looked about nine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll take you anywhere you need to go,\u201d he said. \u201cGroceries. Church. The doctor. You call me, or you call the office and Mandy will find me. Any time. Day or night. I mean that.\u201d
\n\u201cI know you do.\u201d
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not mad?\u201d
\nI looked at my boy for a long moment.
\n\u201cThank you for the ride home, Brian,\u201d I said.
\nAnd I went inside and closed the door. Gently. So he wouldn\u2019t be able to tell himself later that I\u2019d slammed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People have asked me since how a son can sell his mother\u2019s car without her signature. It\u2019s simple. And it was my own doing. When my husband Walter died eleven years ago, Brian sat at my kitchen table with a folder full of papers. He put his name next to mine on everything. The bank […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40784,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40783\/revisions\/40784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}