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"Water seeks the lowest level," she muttered. "They're your kind now, is that it? All I've done with you, tried to teach you is wiped out, right? It's in the genes. It's in you. You're her all over again. I might as well give you over to Satan himself."

"My girlfriends are not bad. They're good. They're sensitive and concerned and we care about each other, more than our own families care about us. It's nothing like you think."

She whipped her eyes at me and filled them with such cold accusation, I couldn't help but look away. That just confirmed whatever ugly thoughts bad blossomed like black weeds in her garden of fear and loathing.

"Get upstairs," she said. "You'll go without supper tonight."

"I don't care. I already ate," I muttered.

My angry words seemed to renew her energy. She lifted the broom again and started to swing it at me, but instead of backing up, I remembered Star's words of encouragement and stepped forward. Geraldine looked like she wanted to whip the skin off me, but I didn't retreat or cower as usual.

"Don't hit me again," I said firmly. "Stop it."

She froze.

I was holding my breath and even though my whole body was trembling, I held my ground. I glared at her, defiant, determined.

Then she shock her head, the tight, thin lines in her face softening.

"What's the use?" she asked herself as she lowered the broom. Her shoulders dropped like rocks in a pond. She sighed deeply, her body shuddering as if her heart had truly cracked. "You can't change what's been there since birth. It was foolish of

me to even try, to ever hope."

"What's been there since birth? What are you talking about? Tell me!" I screamed.

She turned away as if I wasn't even there and headed toward the kitchen.

"I want to know more," I called after her. "I want to know the truth, all of it. I've got a right to know and you have to tell me."

She paused and looked back at me. I never saw her look so small and tired.

"You want to know the truth?" she asked, and laughed coldly. "The truth is you're truly your mother's daughter. That's the only truth that matters in this house."

She continued down the hallway.

"That's not enough. I want to know it all," I cried. She ignored me and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind her. I stood there a moment, my body shaking so much it made my teeth chatter. I embraced myself and took a deep breath. Then I went up to my room and closed my door behind me. A terrible silence rained down around me. I couldn't even hear her running water or clanging pots below. She was probably still fuming, standing there and staring at the kitchen door.

We were both shut up in our own nightmares, and lived in the same house filled with only horrid memories, I thought. Surviving them seemed to be all that mattered now. That was the only thing that really held us together. It certainly wasn't love.

Love probably never set foot on our doorstep, and if it had and come in, it would have looked around once and fled. Which was exactly what I felt like doing.

4 A Hidden Past

Geraldine didn't call me to dinner and I didn't leave my room until nearly nine o'clock. I knew she would either be listening to music, watching one of her television evangelist programs, or just dozing in her chair. I was surprised to discover she had gone up to bed. I welcomed the quiet and made myself a hot chocolate.

While I sat there, I thought about the way the girls had reacted to my secret and my ignorance concerning my past. Perhaps I should take Jade's assignment more seriously, I thought. I listened hard for the sounds of Geraldine moving about her room, but heard nothing. Then I rose, quietly put my cup and saucer into the dishwasher and went into the pantry. I turned on the light and looked up.

There was a storage area in a crawl space that was entered through a small square door in the ceiling of the pantry. On occasion I had heard Geraldine make references to it, but I couldn't recall ever seeing her open the little doorway and go up there for anything.

Now, I gazed up at it and considered. In no other room in the house, save my parents' bedroom, could anything like old documents, pictures, whatever, be stored. I had never gone into Geraldine's closets, of course, but my suspicions centered on the crawl space. We had a stepladder in the garage. I went out there and, as quietly as I could, began to bring it into the house. It was awkward going through doorways, and I knocked it against the doorjamb in the kitchen.

My heart stopped and started slowly as I listened hard for sounds that Geraldine might have heard something and gotten up to see. She often slept with an ear open for burglars because we had no alarm system. The house creaked as the ocean breezes whipped in from the sea, but I didn't hear any footsteps or any doors opening.

Feeling safe, I continued to the pantry, set up the ladder, and climbed to the ceiling. The crawl space door seemed stuck in place. As I suspected, it hadn't been opened for a very long time, maybe even years. It was difficult pushing on it without making any noise, and at one point, I almost slipped off the ladder.

Finally, the little door cracked open and gave way to my efforts. It had to be slid to the side. I practically inched it along, trying to keep the smallest sound muffled. When I looked up, I realized there was no light, so I had to go back down the ladder to a cabinet under the sink and get the flashlight. The batteries were dead. Everything in this house seemed to be conspiring against me, trying to prevent me from finding any trace of my own past. Fortunately, Geraldine's obsessive attention to household inventory paid off because there was a supply of fresh batteries in the drawers assigned to tools and hardware. I quickly got the flashlight working and returned to the ladder, practically tiptoeing my way up.

The beam of light revealed a wall of cobwebs on every side of the opening. The dust was so thick that it looked like a second layer of wood. But there, to my right, were several cartons tied up with thick string. None of them were labeled. Once again, I descended the ladder, this time to get a utility knife to cut the strings around the cartons. I went back up and, completely disregarding the cobwebs and dust, pulled myself into the crawl space and, on my hands and knees, approached the cartons.