Secrets in the Shadows (Secrets 2)

There waiting for me was the picture of my mother at the window that I had started months ago now. I was drawn back to it to finish it. However, when I had done so and my grandfather, happy I had returned to my art, came upstairs the following Saturday morning to look at it, I knew I had driven a stake of deep sadness into his heart.

It was no longer my mother who was looking out the window, dreaming of escape.

It was pretty clearly I who stood there with that great need and desire. He wasn't going to recommend anyone else, least of all my grandmother, see the picture. He uttered a few words of praise and then said, "Zipporah's arriving any moment. Come down soon."

He left. My aunt Zipporah was coming to see how I was doing and have lunch with us. She had tried to visit as much as she could, but the summer was beginning and with it all the new preparations for the cafe. I expected her to push for my going there to work and get my mind off t

he accident.

I sat on the sofa and remembered that first afternoon with Craig, those moments when I had almost given myself to him in order to answer the questions I had about my own craving, intimate needs. I had been created up in this attic, maybe on the sofa that had been here then. It seemed not only

appropriate but also necessary for me to find the doorway to my own sexual identity and maturity here as well. In my heart of hearts, I believed it was almost something predestined.

For Aunt Zipporah and my mother, the sofa had been a sort of gateway, a place to find their escape. It gave them pictures, dreams, places, maybe even answers. Suddenly, as I sat there, it did so for me as well. It truly came like a revelation, a plan of action delivered from some spiritual energy or power I could connect with only up in the attic. I rose quickly and went downstairs, finally enthusiastic about something.

Aunt Zipporah arrived about twenty minutes later, gushing with exuberance, energy, happiness and excitement as always, but perhaps a little more so every time she came to the Doral House now. It was as if the three of us, my grandparents and I, were starving for joy and she was bringing us a Red Cross package full of delight and jubilation. I saw the way my grandmother fed off her cheerful laughter and smiles.

I could almost feel the transfusion of sunshine driving away the dark clouds, clouds I had brought.

She talked incessantly, refusing to permit any long moments of silence among us, filling them quickly with stories about the cafe, Tyler's new recipes, the characters who came in and the way the small city was preparing for the upcoming new college year. She had handicraft gifts from the artisans, jewelry, needlework, carved wooden figures, a bag of surprises with a story attached to almost everything.

The looks of joy and amusement I saw on my grandparents' faces convinced me that what I had envisioned upstairs in the attic while I sat on the sofa was right. I quickly decided that as soon as I had a chance to be alone with my aunt Zipporah, I would propose it. When she wanted to take a walk with me, I immediately agreed, because it would give me the opportunity to tell her my idea. I was afraid my grandfather would want to come along, but he saw us leaving as his opportunity to make some important phone calls, and my grandmother was preparing our lunch.

"You're walking so much better, I see," Aunt Zipporah told me as we started down the driveway. "No pain?"

"No, but I hate my limp. It makes me feel as if one leg is shorter than the other now."

"It's hardly noticeable."

"To the blind," I said, and she laughed.

"You never permit anyone to rationalize. You're

more like your grandmother than you realize." "Which is why I wanted to take this walk with you."

"I don't understand. What does that have to do with anything?" she asked.

"We should all face up to the truth, and the truth, Aunt Zipporah, is I really have never been a source of any happiness for Grandma and Grandpa," I began.

Of course, Aunt Zipporah tried to convince me otherwise. She had the verbal energy I dreamed of having. Immediately, she came at me with a barrage of arguments against my statement, describing the pleasure they took in my art, my good schoolwork, and simply my growing up under their protective wings.

"You made them feel young again when you gave them another bite of the apple," she concluded.

"Right now," I said calmly, "that's a bite of the forbidden fruit, Aunt Zipporah."

"What? Why, that's--"

"I'd like to do more than just go back with you and start working at the restaurant for the summer." "More?"

"I'd like to come live with you," I blurted.

She stopped walking, finally speechless for a moment. Then she smiled and said, "Well, you are. You're coming for the summer, Alice."

"No. I want to register for school there and finish my senior year there. I don't want to return to this school, and I don't want to live in this town anymore. I can't."

"But . ."

"If you don't want me, I'd understand," I said.