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Turning to go, Madaest on the thick stack of papers on Mos my way," she said in a soft cat's purr I pity you Catherine, as I pity your brother I pity Bart too, savage as the little monster is I pity everyone in your household, for all will be hurt But I won't letof what made you the way you are, hold back my hand Jory will be safe with me, with my name, not yours"
"GET OUT!" screamed Mom, who had lost all control She picked up a vase with flowers and hurled it at Madame's head! "YOU RUINED YOUR SON'S LIFE AND NOW YOU WANT TO RUIN JORY! YOU WANT HIM TO BELIEVE THERE IS NO LIFE BUT IN THE BALLET, DANCING,
DANCING-- BUT I AM LIVING! I WAS A DANCER, AND STILL I AM SURVIVING!"
Madaain, as if she too would like to hurl some object, and slowly she bent over to pick up the broken vase at her feet "I gave you this How ironic that you would hurl it atbrittle and hard seemed to crack as she looked at Mom with softness, and she spoke with rare humility "When Julian was a boy, I tried to do for him as best, just as you try to do for yours what is bestand if , it was done with the best of intentions"
"Isn't everything?" said Moht, so reasonable-- and in the end even the excuses ride the waves of indignation like that fabled straw everyone tries to grasp to keep fro for straws that don't exist I tell ht, before I climb into bed with my brother, that this is the reason I was born, and for every wrong I have done I have consoled ht decisions I have finally given my brother the only woman he can love, the wife he so desperately needed I havein your eyes, and in the eyes of the world, I don't give a daive a damn what the world thinks!"
My grand her aged face I could tell she, too, was hurting I watched her thin, heavily veined hand reach to touch my mother's hair, but she drew it away and kept her eyes blank and her voice under control: "Again I say, I pity you, Catherine I pity all of you, but most of all I
pity Jory, for he is the one with the most to lose"
Quickly I backed away and hid as she hurled herself out of Mo Bart, who stabbed at her with his unsheathed knife
"Witch, old black witch!" he snarled, pulling back his upper lip in a frightful way "I hope you never come back, never, never!"
I was h noant a hole to crawl into and die Mywith her brother The woman I'd loved and respected all my life orse than any mother I'd ever heard of None of my friends would believe, but when they did, I'd be so shamed, ridiculed, I'd never be able to face them Then it hit me Dad was my real uncle Not just Bart's but mine too Oh, God, what did I do now? Where did I run? It was not a platonic brother-sister relationship, a fake e for appearances sake, it was incest They were lovers I knew! I'd seen!
Suddenly everything was too sordid, too ugly, too shocking Why had they allowed their love to start? Why hadn't they stopped it fro?
I wanted to get up and go and ask, but I couldn't bear to look at Mom, or Dad either when he came ho me feel safer When I was called to dinner I said I wasn't hungry Me, as always starving Mom came to the closed door and pleaded: "Jory, did you overhear anything your grandmother said to me?"
"No, Mother," I answered stiffly "I think I' doith a cold, that's all I'll feel fine in theto explain why my voice was husky
Somewhere in all those tears I shed I lost the boy I was earlier today Now I had to beco mattered very much anymore, and for the first ti--he must know too
I sneaked to watch Mo in her fine blue- leather journal, and when I had the chance, I stole into her room and read every word she'd written, as dishonest as that was I was beco just like Bart But I had to know