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Show in my father's house/ 26 unspoken code of secrecy which was maintained -- witting or unwitting -- until we were curious enough to question it. For me, there was the growing awareness of meanings and relationships common to all children, and in addition, some unpleasant discoveries unique to my father's house. I'm not certain just when I sensed my father's relationship to the other women who lived in the compound -- the "aunts" who passed out cookies or tended me when my mother went away, who hugged or scolded me as though they had a perfect right to take my mother's place. At first, the "other mothers," as my father referred to them, were simply the mothers of my playmates -- the score of blond children who also called my father "Daddy." But I had watched my father: He kissed Aunt Sarah with his eyes closed just like he kissed my mother. He went downstairs to Aunt LaVona's apartment in the grey house and sat down to dinner with her children. Sometimes he came out of Aunt Helga's bedroom in the early morning with only his garments and bathrobe on. And during Sunday School when I was cozy on his knee, one of the other mothers had pushed her little girl forward, saying, "It's time to give someone else a turn, Dorothy Jeanne." But full understanding of the situation did not hit until the day Aunt LaVona's Timmy and I decided we would be married when we grew up. "You can't marry Timmy." My mother smiled into the bath- |