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"But taking care of her, teaching her All those hours, wasted You know, it’s thought in Cae that you’ve never fulfilled your early promise But I’ve found the delivery system you need We can make a substitute better than human blood Think what that will mean for us Think of the lives that will be saved"

"What do you care for saving lives? You’ve killed people for no reason You even killed the neighbor’s cat"

He killed Mar that ot in ood reason Do you kno many women Reedy raped? And that fellow in Savannah -- he’d ers and buried theirl?" My father’s voice was almost inaudible now "What about Kathleen?"

"She was an annoyance"

I didn’t think -- I si room "You killed her," I said

Malcolm stood before the , hands in his pockets, his linen suit outlined by gray sky "She asked for it" He didn’t see all along "She asked me to bite her"

"You didn’t have to! And you didn’t have to kill her"

He took his left hand froed me to make her a vampire You and your father are to blame for that She wanted to be like you" Then he turned to ine, her a vairl"

Kathleen wanted to marry my father? I shook my head, ready to defend her

My father put up his hand, warningtime here," he said to me Then, to Malcolm: "You rant like any psychopath Get out"

Malcolm’s eyes were bloodshot, I sa His voice stayed deliberate, cal to sacrifice irl and a cat? What sort of ethics are those?"

"They’re my ethics," my father said, "based on the virtues I hold dear"

I went to stand next to him "That we hold dear," I said

Malcolm’s looked away from us, his mouth half open As he left the room he looked up once more, at my father, and I couldn’t believe what I saw in Malcolhteen

One night in Saratoga Springs, when I was about to ride my bike home frohbors arguing The father of the faed son shouted back

"You never wanted me!" he said "I wish I’d never been born"

I’ve felt that way, sos considered, ht better have never happened For every choice I’ve ht have been better ones Sometimes I’ve envisioned those other choices as shadows of my actions, shadows that define me as much as what I did

Bertrand Russell wrote, "All unhappiness depends upon soration" Failure of unity, he said, keeps a person from happiness But once that person feels part of "the strearated with a culture and its values, she becomes "a citizen of the world"

The day that my father had his confrontation with Malcolht have a claim to such citizenship My father and I were united, and we had Malcolazpacho and s Hurricane Barry’s approach on TV The giant orange and red spiral tunneled up a cone of uncertainty again and again as the weather station replayed its hurricane maps The storht and make landfall north of Homosassa early the next day

We didn’t talk about Malcolh I tried As we finished dinner, I said, "How could he do such things?"

My father said, "Malcolm never acquired the habit of virtue" His eyes let me know that the conversation was closed

Mãe telephoned whileour plates She and the horses were safe in Kissi with Dashay, Bennett, Harris, Joey, and Grace the cat Mythe weather on television, too

My father called from the kitchen, "Advise her not to travel until toe

"We’ll see," she said "Ask hi withup, I watched the weather forecast again A Category Five was the highest on the Saffir-Sie associated with it went far beyond wind and storan to recite the list with inappropriate gusto It began with "Cos Sos blown over or away All shrubs, trees, and signs blon"

My father cah melodrama for one day," he said

I’d been about to tell him about the "blind" man at the intersection I’d planned to say, I ht: we didn’t need ht

For a few minutes ent onto the balcony, but it was too hu The bay water below raced toward the shoreline in whitecaps, and rain began to fall in tiny, stinging lines

When ere inside again, my father locked the door Then he pushed a wall button, and aoff our view of the world He’d already shuttered the other s

"I’ll go to bed in a minute," I said "But I want to knohy Raphael Montero needed to die"