(from "Speeding In The Driveway")

Our small blue house in Minisink Hills sat on five acres. I took a morning walk with my grandfather, held his dry, knobby hand because I wanted to show him wildflowers that'd grown without my mother's seeds, but I stepped in deer shit near the fence that separated our yard from the Lewellyn's. He didn't know what to do and I didn't know what to ask of him. We'd never taken a walk alone and after this we wouldn't again. He never kept Bay and me by himself; in my family men didn't watch children.

The shit felt pleasant at first, a soft surprise, until the smell, like a trick.

I don't remember how I got back to the house, if he carried me or if I ran ahead and he walked behind. He was slight with a chronic stomach condition they were writing into the textbooks at the University of Pennsylvania, so lifting me would've been risky for him, awkward for me. When we first saw each other, we didn't kiss and hug, just brushed cheeks. He wasn't a grandfather you could hang on and I'd taken a romantic chance holding his hand, but he'd let me.

I limped back home, weeping, my white ankle sock wet and brown, frightened by my mistake, my patent leather shoe with the pearl side-button caked with warm shit. I hated to get dirty. My mother overdressed me so I'd be ready, at seven years old, for fame. I'd torn and mussed my clothes before, but this shame felt different and like regret for someone besides me.

My father removed my shoe and sock because my mother wouldn't touch it, and my grandmother held her breath and washed my foot, then used just the tips of her fingers to wash my things in the kitchen sink. She pinned my shit sock on the clothesline; my mother put the other sock in the laundry basket and threw away my shoes. With nothing to do my grandfather looked hurt, and I could've told him everything was okay but I didn't yet lie.

My grandparents had driven to Minisink Hills from New Jersey for Sunday dinner. My grandmother went back to making her sausage and peppers, using plum tomatoes from my mother's box garden. Our kitchen was tiny and too hot because the motor on the box fan had burned up. I usually sat on the counter, but I punished myself and went to my room. I knew they couldn't forget, and would tell the story over and over because that's what my family did when we got together. They made other people's memories theirs.

At the table they kept looking at me, at my pale face, and my father told me not to worry so much, but I couldn't pretend my foot was clean and I didn't want to look at my grandfather because I'd ruined him, too.