I insisted. "If we suffer, we suffer because of our own
sins,"
Cary claimed. Then he looked away. I knew
why. "Maybe what you think is a sin isn't," I said
softly.
"It's not a sin to love someone too much." "Yes, itis. he said quickly. "Remember
Adam?
Remember Original Sin?"
"Should I? Did I commit that, too?"
I started to smile. "All right, tell me." "After Eve ate of the fruit and was doomed to
be cast from Paradise, Adam ate so he would not be
without her. That's loving too much," he explained. "Just like a man to find another way to blame a
woman for his own mistakes," I said. Cary's eyes
widened.
"What?"
"That's just a Bible story, Cary. Do you really
believe it?"
He turned away again.
"The Bible is full of lessons that prove true in
our own lives," he recited mechanically.
I tried to see through his rehearsed words to the
true heartfelt feelings that lay behind them. There was
something more he wasn't telling me. I could feel it in
the silence and see it in the tight way he held his jaw. "Everyone seems to want to bury his head in
the sand in this family, Cary. It seems to be in the
blood," I said dryly.
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? Right from the start,
Grandma Olivia and Grandpa Samuel created a lie
about who my mother was. My mother continued the