| OCR Text |
Show gave money in place of intimacy, or maybe, closer to the point, to try to obtain intimacy. If I sat on his lap, let him hold me on his knees, tolerated the scratch of his day-old beard, I would be rewarded. Sometimes I climbed up there in hopes of enough for a new Barbie from the Cozad five and dime, a doll that would always remind me of my grandpa, a doll with rubber bands for insides that caused her joints to pinch and grab. A kiss, a hug, his patched and wrinkled hands on my bare knee seemed a small price to pay. Riding the lawn tractor was no different. My father disapproved of the money my grandfather gave us. Dad, he would say, that's too much. They have no use for pocket money. What passed for an allowance in our house was the understanding that if you needed something you asked for it. An arrangement my father told us was modeled on the way his own father treated him. I knew not to need. My grandfather, though, would give me things. I remember once finding a little gold bracelet in the closet in the spare room, wound around some doll clothes and at the bottom of the toy box. I wanted it. Wearing the bracelet, I wandered into the kitchen where my grandpa sat holding his moss-green mug filled with coffee and cream. Come on up here girl, he said, swinging his legs from beneath the table and opening his lap for me. I climbed up, careful to rattle the bracelet's tiny charms and rest my forearm where he could see it. Who are your boyfriends? He asked, his breath smelling of coffee and cigarettes. 95 |
