Vacation memories become real again
/I thought I remembered it exactly: my father taking the ceramic dog-bank down from the chest where it sat every day of the year; my mother shaking quarters and dimes and nickels onto the chenille bedspread in their room; the three of us dividing and piling and counting.
Get a knife, they would tell me when the dog had expelled its final coin. I would run into the kitchen and return with a dull blade and poke it through the slit on the top of the dog's head and dig out dollars that were stuck inside, that could be felt more than heard. When the bank was empty, we held our breath and let our eyes savor the piles that stood like silver volcanos on the spread.
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