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Show •87 of us about sex-it was the only major human concern he never lectured us about-but something in his manner implied that it was deeply exciting but fearful and perhaps even finally wrong. Like it or not, a little of his uncertainty had rubbed off on me. Once in bed Mary-Ellen abandoned all primness and threw herself bodily into the dark act; only two years older, I felt as if I belonged to a more frightened generation. Afterward I lay with my hands behind my neck and stared up at the brown ceiling. Our flat roof leaked and the steady rains of winter had left a complex pattern of waterstains. They reminded me of something, and suddenly I knew what it was: the maps my brother Jacob had liked to draw in the margins and blank pages of his high-school textbooks. I wondered what he was doing, whether he was still a lawyer. "We could go to Colorado," I called out to Mary-Ellen in the bathroom. She stuck her head out. "Aren't you going to take a shower?" "What for? It's Sunday, there's no class tonight." "We're having dinner with my aunt and a lot of important people are coming. I ironed your best shirt, and you should shave again too." While I was toweling myself off she poked her head around the bathroom door. "Do you think I'm just a spoiled |