the opposite. He made jokes with the shop girls. When vagrants stopped at our gate, he would give them food. Most especially, there was that little coloured girl who used to hang out at the supermarket in town on the weekends, begging at the entrance. She was always dressed in the same blue floral dress, and when she smiled, she had two of the deepest, loveliest dimples in her cheeks.” “Did she smile like that at my grandfather?” you ask, and your father lets go of your hand to rub his knee. “Every time,” he says. “Because she knew he was always going to give her sweets.” In your mind she shuffles forward, smiling up at the sweet old man as he digs into his pocket, and with a dramatic tip of his hat, fills her palms with lollipops, coils of liquorice, silver-wrapped chocolates. “People,” your father sighs, “people used to try and tell him not to do that. They said he was encouraging her too much. And he used to say… she’s just a child. He said every child should get sweets on a Sunday.” The words, ‘That’s nice,’ start, and then stammer on your lips. You’re not sure, of course, if that was really nice. You know your father isn’t, either. “He always seemed really fond of that little girl. Something about her innocence, maybe, in spite of her situation. He used to say it was a shame she would have to grow up.” And you see for a moment what your grandfather, your sweet old man, must have been imagining when he had said those words. Little girl lost inside a body turned woman, that blue floral dress stretched tight across curves, over breasts. Her smile lipstick-scarred in the night streetlights. Those dimples lost forever as she grins, empty-eyed, at the men who slow their cars, open their doors, close their fists. Of course it hurts, conjuring these thoughts. “He was a grand old racist, in all his words,” your father says, maybe to himself. You reach your hand out for him to take it. You feel the tremble in his grip; you rub your fingers over the tight-white of his knuckles. His jaw is edging, grinding his teeth. He lets go of you again, and drops his head into his hands. iii. sick “Your grandfather,” your father says, “used to collect old bones. Animal bones. Roadkill. Dead strays. It didn’t matter what state the body was in when he found it. How broken; how torn. Rotten, decayed; stink-
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