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Show in my father's house/ 215 "Black hair?" We were all amazed. Little Jennifer would be the first - and last - brunette in. our family of tow-heads. After preening, my father's frown returned. "The neighbors found out, somehow. They've been snooping around, asking questions about Elsa and Rachel. Maybe someone saw Leora go for Elsa. Or maybe it's just too obvious, even without this birth." "Oh, Rulon," my mother broke in, "how can it be ignored in a town the size of Wells!" My father nodded glumly. "And I suspect some of the kids have been blabbering again. You know how some of them just can't keep quiet." Although the population of Wells, Nevada was largely comprised of truck drivers, dealers, change clerks, and prostitutes, the entire town suddenly adopted a self-righteously meddlesome attitude toward the Allreds in Wells. Why, they queried, hadn't Aunt Rachel gone to a hospital, as normal people do, to have her baby? Where, they wanted to know, was her phantasmical husband? Where did he get his money? If he worked, why were the children so poorly-clad? Why didn't their mother apply for welfare assistance if he wasn't supporting them properly? And what, they challenged, was the relationship between these two families who moved into their town in one weekend, whose children seemed always to have known each other, and who looked so suspiciously alike? One morning a policeman appeared at Aunt Elsa's front door. "We know all about you, Mrs. Jacobs," he sneered. "I hope you know the way you're living is immoral and illegal." On Aunt Elsa's porcelain cheeks two bright spots appeared. "It might be illegal, but it isn't immoral1 Why don't you go |
