"That's terrible, Karen. You never said anything." "I don't tell you half of it."
"I'm sorry," I said. I couldn't imagine having a mother who admitted to not wanting you born. She saw the look of pity and pain on my face.
"Actually, it's gotten worse recently:" she said. "Worse? How?"
Her eyes filled with tears, and she pressed her lips together. I waited, holding my breath. What could possibly be worse than what I had already heard?
"If you tell anyone, especially your parents, I'll kill myself," she said. "I will," she emphasized when I looked at her.
Then, to illustrate that she wasn't just talking, she leaned over, opened her night-table drawer, and took out a very sharp kitchen knife. "I'll cut my wrists so fast and so deep there'll be no chance of saving me."
I couldn't speak. It felt as if someone were squeezing my neck. She put the blade against her skin.
"Okay, okay. I believe you. I swear, I won't say a word to anyone."
She studied my face until she was confident I meant it, put the knife back, and closed the drawer. Why was she keeping such a knife in her night-table drawer? She sat back again. I saw how hard it was for her to tell me why it was worse, so I just sat quietly and waited. She took a deep breath, sounding like someone who was about to go underwater.
"He comes into my room at night," she said. "At night? You mean, after you go to sleep?" "Yes."
"What does he do?"
"What do you think?"
It suddenly felt as though we were sitting in an oven. I shook my head. I was afraid to think, to imagine. The expression on my face made that clear. I could feel the heat in my cheeks as my blood rose through my neck.
"What?" I managed.
"See? It's upsetting you. I told you not to come in.
I told you to go home. You should have listened to me and stopped being my best friend. I wasn't being snotty. I was only thinking of you."
"I'm all right. Just tell me, and don't worry about me or my feelings or anything," I said firmly.
"Is that right?"
"Yes. Don't leave out a detail."
"Okay, big shot," she said, as though I had challenged her. "I won't. He opens the door very slowly and comes in so quietly it's more like a dream--a nightmare, I should say. First, he gracefully peels the blanket off me. Then he sits beside me and he puts one hand gently over my mouth' and his other hand under my nightgown. The first time he did it, I was so shocked and frightened I couldn't speak, much less yell, so don't ask me if I did. The first time, that was all he did. Then he took deep breaths, put the blanket back, and left the room as quietly as he had come in."
"You didn't tell your mother about that?" I asked incredulously.
"No."
"Why not? Karen!"
"You don't understand how it is. I already explained how it is when I complain about anything. I was afraid she just would accuse me of lying because I didn't like him She would have said I dreamed the whole thing. I was afraid she would accuse me of making trouble for her and for us, and so I hoped it would never happen again."
"How can she not know herself, especially since he's doing something like that at night?"
"I guess I have to tell you, now that you've made me tell you this."
"What?"
"They don't sleep together anymore," she said. "Don't sleep together? What do you mean?"
"It's not brain surgery, Zipporah. They don't sleep in the same bed."
"Then . . . where does he sleep?" I asked, terrified that she was going to say he slept with her.