Fines

"Yeah, but Daddy," Janie says, "I gave that one for his sin."

"Oh," Daddy sets the dime back down. "Okay."

Jack's manners all boy toots and wild shouts, I fined him. A dime. Yet, Jane wriggled a silver circle out of her wallet, plunked it on the table. "Here, Momma."






The wallet.

Goodwill. On the way home from Grampa's we follow Daddy's map to Goodwill. And leave with a wallet. Two actually.

"Now," Janie turns a black wallet over, traces a stitched high-heeled shoe, "if I can just get enough cards and money to fill this wallet, I'll be set to go shopping with, Momma." She rubs the fake leather, "And nickles, and quarters, and pieces of cash."

We wheel home in our big white car and they pour over the wallets. They poke fingers in all the slots and folds, bend them backward. "I noticed a couple of things," Jane reports, "like there was a driver's license place and I don't have a driver's license."

So, in the morning they clip little squares of paper, scrawl faces in red pencil. A driver's license.






Then another fine. Jane thump-thumps bare feet down the hallway after that black wallet. "Momma," she says, "I got you one cause I love you and one cause I needed to." She presses circle money into my hand. And I wonder that these fines aren't having near the sting I intended.