"Aunt Sara?"
"Oh," she said as if she had been caught doing
something illegal or immoral. I stepped out quickly. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to ruin your
dinner tonight."
She shook her head.
"Jacob doesn't mean half of what he says," she
insisted. I tried to keep a look of disbelief from my
face. It was something she had to believe to live in
peace, I thought. "He always regrets his blustering,"
she continued. "I told him. I explained it. I was just
taken by surprise. May is just curious. I know it's
natural. You didn't do anything terrible. I should have
been the one to start to explain. It's just that it's all so
overwhelming, isn't it? You're going along, growing
alongside boys, even playing the same games, and
suddenly you find you're very different." Her laughter
trickled off into the darkness.
I smiled at the simple but true statement. Then I
sat beside her.
"Did you have a lot of boyfriends before Uncle
Jacob, Aunt Sara?"
"Me? No. I never--no," she said. "Well, there
was someone I had a crush on," she confessed, "but
every girl had a crush on him."
"Who was that?"
"Teddy Jackson. He was always so handsome,
even when he was only twelve."
"Oh," I said. It didn't surprise me that any
woman would see Adam's father as a handsome
dreamboat, it was just that my dislike of Adam was so strong, I wasn't happy to hear about it. Aunt Sara was into her own memories, however, and didn't notice my