On summer afternoons when the air was gritty with dust and the sun beat down like a hammer, my Grandaddy Jess would walk from his store up to his house, sit on his front porch, take off his hat, and holler at Granny Ethel to bring him a glass. So she would crumble that cornbread she always kept on the back of the stove into a glass, pour in enough cold buttermilk to cover not all the way but almost, stick a teaspoon in it, bring it out to Jess, then go back to the kitchen where she had her radio. Jess would sit on the porch overlooking his store, his field of corn across the road, his son’s house with its tumbling children on the corner, and he’d think about this year, think about last year, think about next year, and—content—go back down to the store, leaving behind him a tall glass streaked with thick milk and dotted with breadcrumbs on the table near the porch swing.
