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Show in my father's house/ 181 "N - No." "What are you?" "Uh ~ I don't know." "Don't you believe in God?" "Of course I believe in God." "Then what are you?" I turned away from him and stared into the glass eyes of an animal, hung from the wall. I shuddered and pulled away. "What is that? It's dead." "Sure it is. How else could my father hang it on his wall? It's a moose. He shot it last year, in Canada." "I have to go home," I told the minister's son. I felt angry, not being able to tell him what I was. My father was as good as his father, or better. My father didn't have to write down his sermons. And he didn't shoot animals, even for food, let alone hang them on his wall. "I'll come with you," Robert offered. I drew away. "No. My...my mother is giving piano lessons. There's nowhere to play at our house." I didn't want him to be there when Aunt Helga came home from vork and counted her tips, didn't want him to see all seven of us :hildren and ask where my father was. He walked me to the corner and we stood beside a lilac bush, iuddenly I felt warmly toward him again, and I didn't want to spend mother afternoon alone. "I've gotta get back. I'm gonna practice marbles. Sure you on't want to play?" |