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Show in were all legitimized t by the beliefs and sacrifices of our parents? And most of all, why didn't he know that we are legitimized by love and that in the eyes of heaven, even a bastard is blessed if he loves his God and fellow man? And didn't he know that the failure to legitimize life through love is the spawner of insanity, the father of destruction, the instigator of the vor-y oiroumctanac of rivalry which had assassinated our father? A feiApoments later, the same young man rose and spoke to us. "I hear a lot of talk about 'noble bloodlines' and how Daddy's natural children are his, but those who were adopted into the family through marriage aren't. Well, there's no such thing as noble blood! And these adopted children are as much Daddy's as any of us who have his blood!" Murmurs ran through the room. I felt confused but kept silent, thinking about the contradictions I had just witnessed. Bloodlines are nothing, paper is eVe^y-thing^ lew§3;cned Aunt arah'sdaughter,~Janice.,. who had gone the day before to my father's office and mopped up his blood so that Aunt Helga wouldn't have .to do it. I thought of her there, kneeling on the green tile floor, swabbing it gently, almost reluctant to rinse the cloth, and her tears diluting it anyway. It was physical . . ., a sacred essence, her only-Megitimacy on earth since her mother was fifth of my father's plural wives, and her thinking that here was her source, the engendering of her mortal life, so savagely squandered. And now squandered again by her own half-brother. But she stared fixedly at her hands and said nothing. And so I said nothing. Some of the mothers had already decided what should comprise |