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Show -236 you and Jacob to explain something to me. Why didn't you ever tell me that Carlo tried to jump out of the plane the day you scattered Adam's ashes?" I looked at Morgan. "I didn't tell her," she said. "How did she find out, then?" "Carlo told me. He tells me everything sooner or later, Buck." She pushed her glasses back up on her nose with one finger; behind the big gray lenses her eyes were alert and serious. "Why didn't you tell me?" she said. "The whole thing was over in two seconds," Jacob said. "Ask Buck. It was nothing." "I thought if he wanted you to know he'd tell you," I said. "And he did. So what's the problem?" "He's still a child," Alice said. "I'm his mother; I have a right to be told things like that." "He was nineteen last month," I said. "But we Skinners mature late," Jacob said. "It's a family characteristic; we stay kids much longer than ordinary people." "Do you mean me?" I said. "If so you're right." I went upstairs and laid down on the bed to stare at the slopes and angles of that dormered ceiling and consider my life. Through the open window I could hear birds startled by the summer weather singing their hearts out, and the mechanical sounds of Adam's neighbors manning their mowers, |