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Show house/, 419 id Brian's mother was the sort of person who could get something Lice that started - a stubborn woman, a woman who had always A matriarch. trorn the pants in the family' - as my father would have put it.A ie was the sort of woman who would despise my father, not because a was a polygamist but simply because he was a man aware of is own {mmw€ and holding the capacity to exercise it. And too, tie was a powerful member of the Church, although her curses re saltier than the Lake itself. I was suddenly afraid that my past would reveal itself nthe way I stood with my head half-bowed and turned aside, or n the way I held my mouth clamped shut, afraid I would, say omething in anger that I could regret forever. I submerged he fear quickly, like a foot rising in the baptismal fount. "Let's go, Brian," I said, pulling him toward the door. We had left without his mother's blessing. "I don't need it," Brian said. "I've never had it jefore - no reason to start anything different." "But what will we do, Brian?" I asked as we drove forornly :o the apartment. I forced my eyes from the yellow envelope on the dashboard to watch children crunching leaves in the gutter. They seemed far away, creatures of the moon. My own leaf-shuffling childhood seemed farther: a brief, rotating star. He sighed deeply. "I don't know." My voice trembled. "We'll still get married won't we?" I wondered if he knew what I had been suspecting for the last few days - that I «fc carrying his child, a tiny fingerling swimming in the waters of my dreams. "Don't worry," he said. "It'll be all right." |