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Show in my father's house/ 199 wouldn't have made you come." He shook his head and swallowed. "It doesn't matter, Jeannie. I'm proud to be here with my little sister." We ate in silence, and left before dessert and the program, without speaking to my troop leader and her husband, slipping out the door as though we had stolen something, though in fact the only thing missing was my part in the troop singing, and I knew the absence of my soft alto would not be noticed. The air was clear and bursting with spring odors. Saul opened the car door for me again, and we talked easily on the way home,of his new duties in preparing for graduation, of his new girlfriend - daughter of a casino-owner, of his pride in my recent report card. "You keep working hard like this, Jeannie, and you'll really make something of yourself someday." I nodded, wondering what it was I should make of myself and whether it would make any difference for any of us. Saul and I didn't talk of the father-daughter banquet then or ever again. To do so was to open our eyes to the pain that socializing brought us and to open our hearts to the longing for our father and the shame we felt for his absence. My father often brought children from the other families when he made his weekend visits. I was excited to see them, although the extra bodies meant more work for my mother. Two or three children meant more beds to make, more mouths to feed and hush, more people demanding my father's attention. Sometimes my father invited one of us to accompany him to |