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Show &((, my house and answer '.my own phone or door. Friends from long ago appeared -- people I d i d n ' t know s t i l l lived in the city and that I never dreamed would ever know about my family. Bridges I thought had burned long ago s t i l l bore the weight of my f a t h e r ' s death, while other relationships seemed not to be bridges at a l l , but mirages. It rained as the family gathered at the big house to plan the funeral. Saul, who was in town, did not go - nor did Danny. It seemed as deeply sad as the cause of our meeting that they refused to meet with us at such a time. The old family factions were . s t i l l there, perhaps more poignantly than ever. Ambition showed more sharply, envy more b i t t e r l y, equanimity more s i g n i f i c a n t l y and kindness more gently as we met to make decisions for our father. In the foyer, I had overheard one of my brothers - who had been ' l e g a l ' a l l his l i f e - offhandedly confess to another mother that he was glad to be a 'legitimate' son because 'there would be no question about his right of inheritance. Whether he was t a l k i n g about my f a t h e r ' s property or his priesthood c a l l i n g or his surname, I didn't know. My brother was young and handsome, l i a b l e to reckless talk at times. But anger rose in me anyway that he would be callous enough to make such d i s t i n c t i o n s to a woman who had spent her l i fe and reared her children without the complacent refuge of a legal marriage. The burden had been on her to legitimize t*eir l i v e s and now he had taken the source of her lifelong pain and stuffed i t in her throa+t, aa xgraafgf lleeaavvinegs us a l l speechless, How could he not know that we were li e„go-iit tiimmii z7eedd - byv blood, by genes, by p h s i c a l and s p i r t u a li ^in^h^eirtiatanncceess that couldn't _ nidn't he know that we be measured on forms or documents/ ui"" . . ^ , • ^ - a n d sacrifices of our parents? y^^WE=Te^Tt^^ed'-by-xhe-^e±zefs and sacri |