For years, my grandfather was missing. Before that, he was a respected doctor. If you were injured or otherwise ill in our valley, he would fix you up. He was the kind of guy who drove two cars, one for business and the other for pleasure. Together, we patrolled the back roads in the summertime.  The green of the trees flashing by was the color of being slapped.

I didn’t like my grandfather, but I liked how his car shifted and accelerated around the turns. I liked the feeling of my hands or bare feet dangling out the window. As if they were impermanent. As if they could be snatched away at any moment. I liked feeling like that.

Once, while filling up at a gas station, my grandfather gave me the only piece of advice I’ve ever followed: never marry someone you love.

Eventually, my family discovered that my grandfather didn’t just have two cars; he had a second family, too. His second wife was much younger- 30 or 40 years his junior. She sent my grandmother a note confessing to her crimes. She said she’d met my grandfather at a medical convention. They were lovers and colleagues. They had the same interests: fixing peoples’ bodies. Ignoring their souls.

They made three little babies together. Each of them younger than myself.

With the bare bones of his second life exposed, my grandfather took his expensive car out for a ride one evening and never returned. When the PIs found him hundreds of miles away in a city with no connection to my family, over a decade later, his teeth were so bad they looked like tombstones in an abandoned cemetery. He had no possessions, no ID, only a little sign that read, Please Forgive.

They say only love can break your heart.