I have to be there.”

“You can’t go out in this. It’s twenty degrees and the roads are glass.”

“I would rather freeze in the snow as a free man,” he said, “than die in a warm bed as a prisoner.”

Before we left, I climbed onto a dining chair in the front hall and tucked a small microphone up into the arms of the chandelier, and I asked the owner of the house for permission on a recording before I did it.

Grandpa gave it in a clear, steady voice, with the date, like a man who had done this before.

It took twenty minutes to get him into coats and scarves. We went out through the garage, away from the carriage house, and I eased my car down the driveway with the tires crunching over packed ice.