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.

Roy didn't say anything about Beni's being in

detention and neither did I, of course. Fortunately, Mama was too tired when she got home from work to ask us much about our day at school. The trouble with Ken the night before had left her drained and she barely had enough energy to eat dinner. Ken came home after we'd finished eating and demanded to be served. Often, when he drank too much, he was belligerent, blaming us for his own failures. We had heard it so often we barely listened anymore. Even Mama behaved as if he wasn't there.

He babbled through his litany of complaints. "You're all a burden. None of you appreciate me. You should all be doin' more for me now. Roy shouldn't be thinkin' he's something special for

workin'. I had to work when I was only ten years old and I didn't resent my father. Latisha should stop naggin' me."

On and on he went, slipping into his diatribes about the government and race prejudice.

"Now that you know you got white blood," he told me with eyes of accusation, "you're probably going to pretend you don't know us:'

"I won't," I insisted.

"Believe me, Rain, you're going to lean on your white side more than your black. I bet deep down you're glad you got white blood."

"That's not true and I'll never deny Beni, Roy and Mama. Never," I vowed.

You I would deny, I thought, but I wouldn't say it.

He smiled with that irritating disdain I had learned to despise.

"We'll see," he said.

I warmed the food and served him, hoping a full stomach would quiet him down and put him to sleep early. I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable with him since he had revealed the truth about my origins and what he hoped to do. His eyes followed me about the kitchen, his gaze making me so nervous my fingers trembl

ed and I nearly dropped a dish. Roy had gone to his room right after Ken arrived. I knew he was brooding about everything and was especially furious at Ken. What Mama didn't need right now was a full-blown fight between the two of them. Roy was smart enough to realize that was exactly what would happen if he remained in Ken's presence.

I hated seeing father and son competing like two lions for the same territory, each needing to be recognized as master, circling each other, eying each other, ready to roar. Since Roy was bringing in the checks now and Ken was just wasting what little we had, Roy was seeing himself as more the head of the family and Ken knew it and resented it. With Beth's problem now, our little home was so full of tension, you could practically see it crackle like lightning in the air.

Beni was very anxious and afraid about tomorrow. She withdrew as soon as she could, not even wanting to watch any television. Mama fell asleep on the sofa while Ken finished his dinner. After I poured him a cup of coffee, he pushed back on the table and gazed up at me with his bloodshot eyes.

"I'm not sorry I let out the truth about you," he said. "Your Mama was the one who wanted it kept hid all these years."

"I wish I never knew," I said and began to clear away his dirty dishes.

"Yeah, well, you do and you should know you owe me. I took you in when your own folks didn't want nothin' to do with you," he said.

"You got paid well for doing it," I snapped back at him. It was like having a scab torn off a healing wound to have him remind me that I had been discarded, given away and forgotten.

"That wasn't enough. Now it's up to you. You're a grown up woman:'

"What do you want me to do?" I cried at him.

He shrugged.

"Nothin', except when you do get some work, be sure some of it goes to me. Payback. Both you girls oughta be workin'," he started again. "Help tide me over until I find something new. Maybe not Beni so much as you," he added, which just made me feel that much worse. "No one appreciates me," he chanted like some member of his own private cult.

I sucked back all the words that wanted to go flying off my tongue and finished cleaning up. Ken nearly fell asleep in his chair sipping his coffee and finally did get up and go to the living room. I heard him try to start a conversation with Mama and then give up. Less than a half hour later, he was fast asleep.

Beni lay in bed with her Walkman earphones over her head, her eyes closed. I knew she was trying to shut out the world. How often lately I felt like doing the same thing, but after a while, you have to open your eyes and take off the earphones. Reality wouldn't go away.

She jumped when I touched her hand.

"Sorry," I said.

She lifted the earphones and sat up.