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Show I'm not coming to get you. Do you understand? Her eyes left the road and she looked at me sitting next to her. Okay, I said. I never asked to leave again. That summer I finished the second grade, said good bye to the nurse's den, and left for Seattle, wishing only for sleep. To save money, we drove across the entire country, perhaps lapping the moving van that held our household goods, perhaps meeting the military family that was renting our house from us, the child who would occupy my room, swim in the pool, walk with Ross down the street in the foggy fall mornings. We drove from Virginia to Nebraska in one day, not stopping to rest but driving straight through the night. Thirty-six hours. No need for a motel room. To keep awake, my father stuffed tobacco between his cheek and gum and rolled down the window for fresh air. Cozad sat halfway between the coasts; any time we moved we stopped to see both sets of relatives. My grandparents were intimate strangers, people I gave my bed up for when they visited and kissed when asked, but people I really only knew in outline. Seeing them so rarely ensured their distance. My grandpa, my father's father, terrified me. A gaunt man who wore suspenders to keep his pants hovering at his wiry waist, he spoke only to tease me about boyfriends, his laughter throttled by the hacking cough associated with emphysema. The effort left his forehead shiny and his gold-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. The last time I saw my grandpa he was in the Cozad nursing home. Long years of 90 |