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Show (,03 She coughed. "I feel l i k e I ' v e got a bone in my throat. What bothers me most of a l l i s r e a l i z i n g that the devil can have his way here, too. I always thought we would be safe from this sort of thing. " "What sort of thing?" I imoh'inr-f -z Jezebels sedudng my father ~ the man I had always thought of as being beyond seduction. My voice must communicated some horror, for my mother quickly informed me that, to the best of her knowledge, my father did not have conjugal relations with any of the women. "If he did, he'd be breaking the Law of Chastity. They're too old to have children, with the exception of one. And she's divorced." "Divorced? But Mama, Daddy said he would never marry a divorced woman - that it would be like commiting adultery." She nodded sorrowfully. "I know he did. Why do you think my heart aches so?" I was speechless. My father had always been a man of his word, in my estimation. Saul said he had broken promises to him - that he had taken the money they were earning in the spinach fields as children, the money they had saved for new bicycles or a rainy day and had spent it without consulting them. But I had thought Saul was being petty. Perhaps my father did break vows. He had disavowed me, in a way, by declaring •ny character before it was fully formed. I remembered an m proclaiming uid Testament scripture Athat if a woman made a vow to tne Lord and it be disallowed by her father or her husband, her sin would fall on the man, not the woman. In the patriarchal culture, the man had ultimate responsibility. He had disallowed me before I had been able to make any vows of my own |
