In one of her worst departures from sound judgment, Mama batted a three-day buildup of mascara and threw her keys at me. “Go ahead since you think you’re so big. Driving ain’t as easy as you think.”

       The keys slid across the floor and stopped an inch from my bare foot, their journey interrupted by a shard in the torn linoleum. Mama couldn’t mean what she said and I wasn’t falling for another of her tricks. I twisted my fingers behind my back and left the keys where they landed, waiting for her next cue.

       She hooked her thumbs in her armpits and flapped her pointy elbows in the air like wings. “Chicken. After all that popping off, you’re too big a chicken to even try.” She spun around, turning her back to me but goading with more chicken imitations as she lifted the arm on the hi-fi, pulled the stack of records up, and flipped the switch to play them again.

       I held my breath. A record dropped, the needle skipped over to connect in a scratchy groove, and music blared through the popping speaker before I dared believe she might be serious. Maybe I should be grateful she hadn’t heard what I really said.

       I didn’t say I wanted to drive that very day, while I was still seven. I said my cousin, Wanda, was lucky. Uncle Bobby let her drive the farm truck across the field on account of she turned ten and her legs were long enough to reach the pedals. What I hoped was that I would get to do the same when I turned ten, but Mama left the room to get a drink before I explained that part and came back tossing the keys at me.

       Mama forgot about me and the keys and picked up the hairbrush she used as a microphone. Facing the stereo instead of me, she sang along with Connie Francis, her favorite person on earth other than Marilyn Monroe, who didn’t count because she was dead. Keeping my eyes on her, I used my foot to pull the keys around the kink and squatted to pick them up, prepared to hand them over if she turned around.

       I backed out of the house, holding the screen door until it closed. Pappy called that door the disgrace of Crayfield County since the screen had been missing for as long as I could remember. He told Daddy to take it down because the only purpose it served was to slam and let everybody know when someone came or went, like the bell hanging on the door at the bakery. Nana sat next door and used that slam to monitor my whereabouts, so I wasn’t taking any chances.

       Crouched on the porch, I waited for another record change and Mama to start back singing. The music claimed most of her attention, playing from the minute Daddy left for work until he came back at suppertime and turned it off, asking if she aimed to bust my eardrums with it or to give him a headache. Either way, he wasted his breath. I had heard the songs so often they stuck in my head long after he shut them off, and she never fell short of ways to antagonize his head into a good ache.

       A few lines into the song, I decided I was clear and took off running. My feet hardly touched the ground as I ran to the end of the rutted dirt drive, across the patch of grass to the edge of our property where Mama parked her old Chevy, and grabbed the door handle.

      "Stop right where you are, Penny Sue Martox!” Nana caught me before I got in the car, despite my caution with the screenless door.

      Nana meant business when she tacked Martox onto the end of my name.  I sucked in a quick breath. My heart thumped like a trapped jackrabbit inside my sun suit, but I didn't turn toward her. With my thumb glued to the chrome button on the handle, I carefully reviewed the situation and it's potential consequences.

     Nana was too far off to hear my heart pound or see how hard I was breathing under the hair stringing down my back. And she was too fair to hold me to an order she wasn’t sure I had heard. She might say I should know better than to get in Mama's car, even without her warning, and spit out a few of her favorite threats. I let them echo in my head while I considered what to do next.

       I ought to tan your hide, Penny Sue.

       I have a notion to box your ears for not listening, little girl.

       I swear, child, I should haul you up to the funny farm and have your fool head examined.

       I deserved them all if I proceeded, but knew threats were the worst Nana would deliver, and maybe a lecture. Consistency was the main thing that set my grandmother apart from my parents, and one of the things I loved the most about her.

       Some of her consistencies were good, like her big heart and the way she protected me. Some weren't so good, like her big mouth and the way she protected me.  I was much older before I understood how the same thing could be both good and bad, but even back then I was smart enough to appreciate knowing exactly where she stood with everything and everybody, and what to expect from her.

      Nana fried chicken on Sunday and breaded pork chops on Wednesday. She scrubbed the porches with bleach water and a brush on Saturday and painted them in May, right after she planted tomatoes. She ironed everything in the house on Tuesday. Her right eyelid fluttered like a hummingbird's wing when problems plagued her, and if she was wearing anything except pastel pedal pushers, she was going in town or to church.

      She loved Daddy and me every minute of her life. She didn't like Mama for one second of any day.

       I didn't let on that I knew that she watched me like a hawk from behind her ruffled kitchen curtains when I played outdoors. She worried I would break my neck when I climbed the Dogwood tree, or get killed if I walked too close to the road, the pond, or the dried up quarry.

       "She spies on her like a communist, just looking for reasons to criticize me," Mama told Daddy.

       Occasionally, Daddy promised to talk it over with Nana. Sometimes, he defended his mother, explaining that she was concerned about me and got a kick out of watching me play. Mama usually said she'd like to give Nana a good kick, but sometimes she just slammed a door and said nothing.

       My hand tightened on the chrome. Nana would deal with me herself, or wait on Daddy to come home from work. By then, he'd be tired and wouldn't want to get Mama started in a tantrum. With a heavy heart, I ignored Nana and climbed inside the car, where I wasted no time shoving the key in the ignition and starting the engine.

       Keeping in mind Nana's repeated prediction that I'd end up at the bottom of the rock quarry one day, I paused with my hand on the gearshift. It couldn't be that hard to shift into reverse, otherwise Mama wouldn't pull the car up to the very edge when she was mad at Daddy or Nana, which was almost every day.

      Nana yanked the car door open and pulled me out. I felt another jackrabbit in her heaving chest as she hugged me close and choked out a brand new threat. "Penny Sue, you're going give me a heart attack."

       The words felt harsh, but her tone wasn't. I was sure I could calm her nerves before we passed the Oak tree, and make her forget I had done anything wrong by the time we reached her house.

       "Mama said I could," I cried. "She gave me the keys and called me a chicken if I didn’t drive."

       I would regret those words for years, and blame them for destroying the lives of everyone around me, especially my own.