Cutler 02 - Secrets of the Morning

narrow shoulders rose and then fell so sharply I thought he would fold up like a suit of clothes that slipped off a hanger. Neither of us said anything for a moment. I was afraid of how he might explode with frustration and anger. One moment he was docile and so soft spoken, he was barely audible; and the next moment he was screaming, his small eyes stretching open, his face red, his thin, wiry body contorted.
    "I'm adopted," he confessed as though it were a crime. He spoke through his clenched teeth, telling me something I had suspected from the first day I had set eyes on his parents and saw how different they looked from him. "But they don't want anyone to know it. It's a secret we've kept all my life."
    He lifted his head to gaze at me and choked off his sobs and swallowed them.
    "You're the only person I have ever told," he said.
    "But if you're adopted," I said as softly and calmly as I could, "they shouldn't expect you to have inherited their musical talents, right?"
    "That's just it," he replied quickly. "If I don't demonstrate musical talent, they think people will conclude I was adopted and the secret will be out."
    "Why did it have to be a secret?" I asked.
    His body trembled and his dark eyes were bleak, warning me I was about to be shocked. Forewarned as I was, I still wasn't prepared for what I heard.
    "They don't live together like a husband and wife are supposed to," he said. My look of confusion forced him to go on. "They don't sleep in the same bed. My mother has never done what has to be done to make a baby. Don't ask me how I know," he begged and I had the suspicion that spying on people and peeping unobserved at them was something Arthur had been doing all his life.
    "Let's not talk about my problems," he said quickly, raising his head to face me again. "I shouldn't be so selfish and talk about myself with you incarcerated in this house for six months. It's a very unfair punishment and cruel, too. I'm very surprised at Agnes," he added, his thin lips whitening in the corners with anger.
    "It's not her; my grandmother made her do it," I said. "It's all right. I'll survive." I sighed.
    "I won't go out either," he said with determination. "I'll stay home every weekend night and be available to you if you want company. I'll do anything you want to do—play checkers, play cards, or just talk. All you have to do is ask."
    Earnestness like that put tears in my eyes.
    "Oh Arthur, I can't ask you to punish yourself like that. Don't you dare."
    "1 don't go anywhere important anyway," he said. "And I don't have any real friends. Besides, I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be with." He looked away quickly, embarrassed by his confession.
    It embarrassed me as well and for a moment I was speechless. I thought it was best and easiest simply to pretend I hadn't heard or understood.
    "The board's a mess," I said. "Let's start all over again."
    "Oh. Certainly," he said, rearranging the checkers, and we played on until I told him I was tired. I thanked him for keeping me company.
    After he left I thought about the things he told me. Why would a man and a woman live together as husband and wife if one of them didn't want to touch the other or be touched? Wasn't sex a way of bringing yourself as close to another person, a person you loved, as could be? And why would a woman be so frightened of it? Was it just her fear of becoming pregnant? How confusing and complicated the world was once you leave that realm in which you dwelt as a child, I thought. You lived in a bubble until one day the bubble burst and you were forced to look around and see that pain and suffering were not part of some make believe that would disappear with the blink of an eye. Certainly Arthur Garwood's wouldn't.
    In a strange way my punishment had trapped me and made things difficult between me and Arthur Garwood. I didn't want him to think I could become his girlfriend, yet I didn't want to hurt him by turning him down all the time when he came by to keep me company. Fortunately, Trisha stayed with me many nights and some of the nights when she didn't the twins were around. Whenever there was anyone else present, especially Donald Rossi, Arthur didn't come by. He spoke to me only when I was alone and wouldn't do any more than look at me and nod whenever he passed me in the school corridors or in the streets if I were walking with someone else.
    Then, Arthur made things even more complex when he came by one Saturday night to present me