My grandfather tells his story every time we are together. He drove that 23 hour stretch straight through, after a long day of work, after a day of city maintenance and concrete and streets filled with waste and filth, he drove into the North to rescue me. He tells me when we eat dinner and when he brushes the spiders from his begonias. Over card games and in the middle of reading his newspaper something will suddenly click and I am there when the phone rings and my mother is crying on the other end. I am there to see the tears falling from his cheeks and I am helping my grandmother pack sandwiches and coffee and apples. I am there on the bench seat of that old Granada keeping him company as the house lights slowly disappear and I am grabbing the wheel when his eyes are too heavy and fiddling with the radio trying to find any voice in amongst all these trees.
Sabrina Stoessinger
kanadatv.com
The Best of Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl