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My sonna make me sorry?"

"I knohat you want," he said, all child again "You want randmother to love youfrom me--but you can't!"

I felt sorry for hio suck your baby bottle!" and with that I was off He screa soht back "And you'll cry, Jory!" he warned "You'll cry more than you ever have before!"

The road was dappled with sunlight and shadows, and soon enough Bart and his temper were far behind me The sun burned down hot on top ofI turned to see Clover racing to catch up Waiting, I knelt to catch hi iven me since I was three

Three years old I ree Mountains of Virginia, in a little cottage nestled down near the iven me not only Clover but also a cat named Calico, and a parakeet we called Buttercup Calico had roaht and never came back And Buttercup had died when I was seven "Would you like to be my son?" I heard the man's voice in my memory That man as calledas his na to understand so that had slipped over my head until now? Was my half brother Bart the son of that man, and not Daddy Paul? Why would Mom name her baby for a man not her husband?

"You gotta go back home now, Clover," I said, and he seemed to understand "You're eleven years old and not up to frisking around in the noonday sun Go back and find your favorite cool place and wait for me, okay?"

Wagging his tail, he turned obediently and headed ho back often to see if I'd turn away and he could follow again I watched until he was out of sight around the bend in the road Then I headed once e old mansion Inotten The ballet on Christaveto keep my mother sacred, my love for Daddy Paul intact,to let myself remember too much

Lovers came and went in everyone's life, I told erated a bit And like my dad would, I strode boldly up to the iron fence and de silently open, like jail bars to beckondrive until I was before the double front doors, and there I jabbed at the doorbell, then banged the brass knocker as loud as I could

Impatiently I waited for that crochety old butler to show up Behindinto a trap Gee, just like Bart and his iround to write this script I felt like soic password Only Bart knew that

Confusion and regrets brewed and unsettled my determination This didn't see, outdated home of a lonely old woman who needed Bart just as randrand terrible she'd done once

Quiet was all aroundme feel old My ho, Cindy squealing, Bart shouting, and E Not even a squeak came fro I ive up my idea of

confronting her Then I glimpsed a dark shadow behind one of the s draped with sheer curtains I shivered Alh to allow the butler to put a squinty watery eye to the slit "You can enter," he said inhospitably, "but don't you stay too long Our lady is frail and tires easily"

I asked her na of her as old wonored The butler intrigued estion of a limp, his ebony cane that tapped on the hard parquet, his bald pate that was pink and shiny His thin white rim lips But as old as he was, and as weak as he appeared, he still ed to convey a scary, sinister air

He beckonedhis too large, too even and too yellow teeth I squaredI could set everything straight and our lives would be as happy as they'd been before they came to live in this house that used to be ours alone

I didn't know suspicions were in ht it was only curiosity