Our grandsons stood beside me, holding the sign they’d made for him. He strolled over like nothing had happened. “A man gets lonely out there,” he said, and I smiled sweetly and told him he’d left somebody out.
For forty years, Roscoe drove over the road. Three weeks away, a few days home, then back out for three more. I packed his cooler with ham sandwiches and those little oranges he liked. I did it when the furnace quit in January, and I did it after his mother had a stroke and moved in with us.
His mother needed help getting into the tub. I cut her pork chop into small pieces and did her hair when she asked. She called me Libby-girl, and sometimes she squeezed my hand while I worked the brush through it. Roscoe asked about her when he called. He asked about the boys, too.
Our son had two boys, seven and nine, and they stayed with us most weekends. Roscoe called them “my boys,” and I never corrected him. Last Tuesday, he said, “Can’t wait to see my boys, Lib. I’m bringing ’em something.”
His company swapped trailers at a big truck stop by the interstate, about an hour south. Roscoe left his rig there and drove home in his pickup. I thought we could surprise him before he got on the road back.
The boys were excited, and his mother heard us planning from her wheelchair.
“I want to come,” she said. “I want to see my boy’s face.”
The boys made a sign from a pizza box with markers. The youngest wanted to draw a truck, but he ran out of room, so he drew one in the corner. I remember that little truck because he kept asking whether Grandpa would notice it.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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