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Show 2 His mother found him sitting on wet grass under the hedge, turning over brown thready leaves, sniveling, his mouth full of chewed peas, unable to explain his tears, which she ascribed to fear of punishment, which was also true. * * * While he was drifting to sleep one night his bed was shaken by something small and old that scuttled away, making a sound like a rusty hinge. He drew a picture of it the next day and hid it under a pile of dirty clothes in his bottom drawer. When he came home from school in the afternoon he found the drawing on top of his bed, pinned to the coverlet, and he felt his stomach turn cold. That night his mother came into his room after he was in bed and asked him if he ever played with his penis. He said no. She told him about a boy she had known in school who had gone insane and had had to be locked up in the hospital in Provo for the rest of his life, with his arms strapped down. He didn't do it at all, Lorin said. Everyone at school knew why he had gone insane, his mother said. Even the girls. Lorin assured her he never did. Some people went blind, she said. He never would do it either, he promised. She sat on the edge of his bed crying, and he lay there with the covers pulled up to his chin, blinking back tears as the ceiling grew dark. His father baptized him in the tiled font next to the recreation hall, triggering a primal memory. He wore white pajamas, and his father wore a white suit. The bishop was talking with one of the mothers in the front row of folding chairs set up by the font, and there were other parents |