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Show in my father's house/ 39 dren. I've never even seen them." A mother, brothers and sisters never seen. I felt dark inside, a small hole growing bigger, darker. "Didn't you want to see them?" "Karen doesn't want anything to do with us. She left your father because of the Principle -- because he believed he must take more wives. He tried to send Christmas and birthday presents and he wrote lots of letters to them, but all came back unopened. Now hush up and kneel down. Time for prayer." I scarcely heard the words for thinking about Aunt Karen -- a mother I had never met besides all the other mothers, a mother who left my father and wouldn't read his letters, a mother who made my father and the mothers cry, but didn't want us. I was already feeling sick-to-my-stomach when my mother told me I couldn't sleep in her bedroom (as I usually did to save bed-space) because my father would spend the night with her. I moaned. It was just one cheat too many. "I don't like sleeping upstairs!" I cried as we went into the grey house. "There's a wolf in the cubbyhole. Danny showed me its tail." My mother stooped beside me. "Darling, that's not a wolf. It's an old fox stole someone bought at the thrift store. It isn't even alive." I just sobbed harder. "Shall I ask Aunt Helga to let you sleep with her this once?" |