He came up the porch steps. He sat down in George’s old rocking chair. The one next to mine. Nobody had sat in it in seven years.
“Tell me something,” I said. “Where did you grow up?”
He hesitated.
“Chicago,” he said. “The South Side.”
“Your parents?”
“My mom raised me. And my grandmother.” He looked down at his hands. “My dad wasn’t around.”
“What did your grandmother do?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“She cleaned offices,” he said. “Downtown. Nights. For thirty-one years. She’d leave at nine p.m. and come home at six in the morning and then get me ready for school.”
“Did she bank?”
Something changed in his face.
“Once,” he said quietly.
I waited.
“I was eight,” Brandon said. “She took me with her. To a bank downtown. A big one. Marble floors. She had her paycheck. She needed to cash it to pay the rent. She was still in her work clothes. She’d come straight from her shift. Gray uniform. Rubber gloves sticking out of her pocket. Her shoes were all… she had those cheap white sneakers. They had bleach stains on them.”
