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  "Sit!" she screamed, pointing to the La-Z-Boy the Doctor loved. I did so quickly.

  "Pay attention!" she ordered. They were nearly always her first words to me, as if she was afraid I could fix my gaze on something else and ignore her completely, just the way the Doctor often did. She wouldn't start until she was satisfied my eyes were directed at her.

  "You should know how you came to be living here with us," she began.

  That a strange thing to say, I thought. When a child is born, she lives with her parents. What is there to know about that?

  "You are an adopted child. You understand what that means?" she asked.

  I did. but I didn't understand how it could mean me. I did not nod: I did not shake my head. I couldn't move.

  "I am not your natural mother. God help me if I was," she muttered, looking up at the ceiling. She lowered her eyes on me like someone aiming a canon and fired her words, "I am what is more properly known as your adoptive mother. You were born in the Doctor's clinic. That's why I have always wanted you to call him the Doctor instead of Daddy or Papa. He is your adoptive father. understand? He is not your daddy or your papa."

  She took a deep breath before continuing. To me it seemed as if she were vomiting poison that had been inside her forever and ever.

  "Your real mother was one of his patients. You were brought here as part of some cover-up. What a devastating thing it would have been for the worldfamous Dr. Claude De Beers to have the world know that one of his patients had been raped in his precious wonderful clinic." she added, wagging her head and speaking in a mocking tone.

  She paused again. My eyes were probably as wide and as full of shock as they could be.

  "That's right, raped, and by one of the attendants, he says. Maybe she was raped by another patient, I say. Most probably another patient. Both your parents were mentally ill, which, in a way of thinking, helps explain everything."

  She stared at me a moment, her head tilted a bit as if she was studying something in my face,

  "Do you know what rape means?"

  I had heard the word often enough on the television news, of course. but I nodded too slowly and with little conviction. Her initial words were still burning through me like hat coals, searing my heart and lungs, making it so difficult to breathe, much less talk.

  She wasn't my real mother? The Doctor wasn't my real father? I was to think of them both as my adoptive mother and my adoptive father? My parents were patients? What did she mean by "that explains everything"? It was complicated, but mostly very cold. I felt I was being cut out of their lives. My little bags would be packed and I would be sent on my way to live in some orphanage. Amou would return to Brazil and I would never see her again.

  My adaptive mother went on to explain in detail how a rape occurs and how what the rapist deposits in the victim can cause the victim to become pregnant,

  "Which is what happened to your real mother. Chances are she didn't even know it was happening to her. Maybe she was one of his catatonic patients. It turns my stomach to think of it." she added with an ugly grimace. She could twist her beautifully shaped lips out of shape and slit her eyes so easily, anyone would think she was composed of rubber.

  "Anyway," she continued, bringing her face closer to mine. "I want you to start thinking about how lucky you are we let you live here, how lucky you are I let you live here. There is no point in permitting him to lose his wonderful reputation and therefore all of his fancy, wealthy patients, whose families pay the high fees that keep us wealthy, but I don't have to suffer a single instant because of that."

  She pulled back, her arms folded under her breasts, her shoulders still hoisted like a hawk's.

  Tears burned under my lids, but I was afraid to cry, still afraid to move a muscle.

  "Actually. I wanted you to know all this because I want you to understand that you could have inherited insanity of all kinds. I have to be firm with you so we can keep whatever mental disease you might have under control. If you don't, you could end up in the same place. Maybe now you will listen better and behave," she concluded.

  She stared at me. "Well, what do you have to say?"

  I shook my head slightly. "I don't know." I managed to utter.

  "You don't know. I'll tell you what you should say. You should say 'Thank you. Thank you for giving me a nice house to live in, food to fill my stomach, and nice clothing to wear even though I'm not really a De Beers.' That's what you should say. Let me hear it. Go on."

  "Thank you," I said through trembling lips.

  "Good. Now, before you decide to do anything else that might upset me, you think about all I have told you and what might happen to you if you don't. Is that clearly understood. Willow?"

  "Yes." I think I said. I wasn't sure if any sounds came from my lips.

  She looked very contented with herself, actually relieved. I watched her walk out. Even after she was gone, I felt her heavy presence over me. It was as if she had left her shadow behind to watch me.

  Amou surprised me by coming in a moment later, her face streaking with tears. Apparently, she had followed us and hovered just outside the doorway the whole time.

  "Oh, Amou Uno, my poor Amou Uno," she said, and opened her arms for me.

  I felt like a drowning victim, gasping for air, falling into the rescuing arms of my Amou.

  You must not listen to her terrible words. Willow. You must not." she said, and repeated it like a prayer. No one is worthless who is born. God makes children. You have no disease in you, nothing bad in you Okay?"

  I nodded, but as one too stunned to really appreciate what she was being told or what she was agreeing to by nodding. Amou held me and rocked with me. My little heart pounded, and then, afterward, when she went back to her dinner preparations, I ran off behind the house and hid myself behind the biggest oak tree. I remained out there for hours and hours. When Amou called for me. I did not answer, nor did I go back. I crouched deeper into the shadows, even though it was so hard to ignore her pleas.

  I was more comfortable out here, bathed in the darkness. I didn't fully understand everything my adoptive mother had told me, but it was enough to make me feel so empty. It was as if my body had lost all of its substance, and if I didn't cling to something, I might get caught up in the wind and carried off.

  The Doctor was away on a speaking

  engagement. He was often on those, and this one had taken him clear across the country to California. He was gone nearly three whole days, and during that time I continued to mope and hide from my adoptive mother's suspicious and critical eves as much as I could. I spent most of my time wandering alone outside the house. When it was time for dinner and I knew my adoptive mother would be there at the table with me. I actually felt myself trembling. I had little appetite. too.

  Before the Doctor returned. I developed a fever and Amou kept me in bed, bringing me my meals. My adoptive mother didn't think I was really sick, and Amou had to show her the thermometer. She drove her away by suggesting I might be coming down with something contagious. As it turned out. I never developed a cold or a cough, and as quickly as my fever had come, it was gone.

  When the Doctor returned, he asked for me. and Amou told him what had happened. My adoptive mother was at a charity event. He came right to my room, which was not something he had often done. I thought he might be angry at me.

  He never yelled at me, but whenever he spoke to me with my adoptive mother present, he always spoke firmly, sounding more like a schoolteacher than a father, adoptive or otherwise. With Amou at his side this time, he spoke much more softly, even lovingly.

  He knelt down and took my hands.

  ""I'm sorry you heard that the way you did. Willow." he began,

  "I'm adopted," I said, hoping he would deny it, hoping he would tell me my mother was simply alloy again and was saying something that wasn't really true, but he just nodded.

  "Yes, you are adopted. Willow, but that doesn't mean you are less to me. You are our daughter and thi
s is your home. This room is still your room and all your dolls and toys are still yours. This is not any less your home than it was before you were told these things."

  I wanted to ask him about the ward rape. I wanted to ask him if I was going to be a patient in his clinic, too, someday. but I didn't.

  "I was planning on telling you everything someday. Willow. but I was hoping to wait until you were somewhat older, so you could understand everything easier." he explained. "I want you to know that nothing will change. Nothing is any different. You are Willow De Beers and you will always be, until you get married, that is," he added with a smile. "Although many women keep their maiden names these days," he said, more to Amou than to me. "Come, get out of bed, wash your face, and put on something nice. Then come on downstairs." he said. standing. "It's almost time for dinner, and then afterward, you and I can read your schoolbook together."

  It was one of the few things he did with me on a regular basis.

  While I was getting dressed, my mother returned. and I heard them talking, The Doctor didn't raise his voice, but he was getting her more and more upset. I could tell by the shrill sound of her replies and how she was getting louder and louder.

  "I did what you should have done a long time ago." she concluded. "You're an expensive

  psychiatrist. Claude, but you don't seem to know how to handle your own situations at home. and I warned you at the start that I wouldn't put up with anything that made me unhappy."

  He didn't respond apparently, because I didn't hear him. I heard doors close and his footsteps in the hallway.

  Later, at dinner, my adoptive mother-- as I could not help but think of her now-- acted as if nothing terrible had been said and told. She chatted on about her social plans, something new she wanted to buy for the house, and a vacation she was thinking they should take. It was as if I wasn't even there, as if her earlier words had made me invisible. I felt the Doctor's eyes on me from time to time, but other than that. and Amou's talking to me. I imagined myself drifting away, like an astronaut whose lifeline in space had been cut. I was floating into the darkness. helplessly.

  At school I couldn't help wondering if I suddenly appeared different to my friends and my teachers. Did some of them always know the truth anyway? Was it something in my school records? There was one other adopted child in my classes, a boy named Scott Lawrence. For some reason his status as an adopted child was never kept secret. Of course, my adoptive mother had made it perfectly clear that I was a major embarrassment for the Doctor and his clinic, and so I had to be hush-hush. My very existence was a whisper.

  Now that I had been so bluntly told the truth and left with the idea that madness could sprout in my face anytime, anywhere. I was sure anyone and everyone who looked at me instantly realized what I was.

  At night I would lie awake and wonder what my real mother's name was and, of course, what she looked like. I would stare at myself in the mirror and study my eyes to see if there was someone crazy just waiting to pop out of me. And I would have terrible new nightmares about my birth.

  I knew what someone in a catatonic state was like because I had wandered into the Doctor's office from time to time and looked at some of his

  textbooks. I saw a picture of a woman who was catatonic. She looked like she was imprisoned in her own body. There were tubes connected to her, which was how she got food. When I asked the Doctor about it, he said sometimes people shut themselves up in their own bodies to escape from unpleasant things. They don't see or hear or even feel anything anymore.

  A baby made in such a woman would grow like a plant, I thought. Her mother would not even realize she was in her until it was time for her to come out. The mother might have to be cut open and the baby taken out. Afterward, the sewed up mother wouldn't even know a baby had been there. Was that the way it had been for my real mother?

  Maybe she didn't know I even existed, that a part of her was alive. She didn't name me or ever feed me-- she probably didn't so much as look at me and smile. I was just something that was, something without any history. My adoptive mother was right. I supposed. I should be very grateful for what she and the Doctor were giving me. They were giving me a name and a home.

  I couldn't help but be more curious about Scott Lawrence now. What image did he have of himself? Did he wonder about his real parents, too? Did he especially wonder whether or not he had any brothers or sisters? Could I have any? Was my mother married before she went to the clinic and could she have had other children before she became mentally ill?

  I couldn't really imagine Scott Lawrence being bothered by anything like this. Of all the boys in my class, he was one of the most outgoing, if not the most outgoing. There was nothing even to suggest he had any sort of inferiority complex. In fact, some of the boys thought he verged on the border of being a bully. He was hyper in class and loved to pull practical jokes on the girls, especially shy ones like me. Getting him or any of the boys in my fifth-grade class to be serious for a few minutes was as hard as keeping a fish out of water calm.

  Nevertheless, one day shortly after my terrible confrontation with my adaptive mother. I decided to chance it. We had a forty-five-minute lunch hour, but most everyone gobbled down his or her food in less than fifteen minutes and then spent the rest of the lunch hour in the shady area just outside the cafeteria. Our teachers who were on lunch duty monitored it as well as the lunchroom. We were not permitted to leave the designated section of the school grounds. Outside, students could play radios or CD players if they did so at a decent volume. Ordinarily, the boys stayed apart from the girls. We would laugh at the way some of them showed off, their fooling around and roughhousing occasionally breaking out into a more serious fight.

  Scott certainly had more than his share of those and, in fact, was on probation.

  I could see that some of his friends were trying to encourage him to do something outrageous. They loved seeing someone else get into trouble. Their catcalls and challenges were making Scott's cheeks crimson. Mr. Anderson eyed him suspiciously, looking as if he was just waiting to pounce. I wandered close to Scott and said. 'Don't let them get you in trouble...

  He tamed, his blond eyebrows lifted with surprise. Everyone thought he resembled the illustration of Huckleberry Finn that was on the cover of the copy in our library. He had hair that jetted up and out and was kept short. He had the same impish eves, with a face spotted with freckles, and lips the color of orange sherbet. In an instant he could look sweet and innocent, but as soon as the teacher's eyes shifted away, he could turn into an imp with eyes full of mischief.

  "If they were really your friends, they wouldn't be doing that," I added.

  "I know." he said. "They don't bother me." "Good," I muttered, and looked away.

  "How come You're not hangin. out with Madonna and her friends?" he asked me, referring to Selma Thursten, whose parents had permitted her to put a ring in her navel. She already had the suggestion of an oncoming bosom and wore tight pants with blouses that showed some midriff, especially after she acquired the ring. Scott often teased her by

  threatening to stick his pinky finger through it and rip it away. Anyone could see she enjoyed being teased and screaming at him whenever he did it in our halls and school classrooms.

  I shrugged. "I don't think she's anyone special," I told him.

  He liked that, "She isn't. You're more special than she is." he added, surprising me.

  "I am?"

  "Sure," he said. He picked up a rock and threw it dangerously close to Mr. Anderson, who didn't see it.

  "Why do you do things like that?" I asked him.

  "Do what?"

  "Take such chances of getting into more trouble?"

  "Nothing better to do." he quipped, but then looked quickly to see how I reacted. I smirked. "I don't know." he added, and looked a little remorseful. Then, as if he felt he was showing some sign of weakness, he added. "Why do you care if I get in trouble or not? I'm not one of your precious friends, am I?"

/>   "I don't have any precious friends." I hesitated and then, after a deep breath. said. "I found out something terrible about myself." Then I thought terrible might not be the right word to use, especially with him. "Secret, I mean."

  "What's that?"

  "If I tell you, will you swear you will keep it a secret?"

  "No," he said.

  I looked away.

  "All right. I swear, but it better be good, real good." Then he thought again and asked. "Why are you telling me anyway?"

  I looked at him, my eyes small, but dark and firm enough to impress him.

  "Because you're the only one I know who might understand." I said.

  His curiosity whetted, he softened his posture and looked very serious and interested,

  "Why?"

  "Because you're adopted."

  "So?"

  "I'm adopted. too. That's what I found out," I told him.

  His first reaction was to look skeptical and even threaten to laugh out loud. but the expression on my face stopped him and brought him closer to ine.

  "True?"

  "Yes," I said.

  Something in his face changed dramatically. It was like a smile coming up from under the mask he usually wore. He glanced at the others and then looked at me.

  "None of your precious friends knows?" I shook my head.

  "Big deal," he said after another moment, and then he turned and charged at one of his friends, deliberately knocking him into Mindy Hasbrouck. which started enough of a commotion to make Mr. Anderson chase everyone back into the cafeteria.

  I thought that was the end of it, and decided to put my great secret back into the safe locked behind my heart. but Scott surprised me that day by following the van that took me and four other students home after school. He rode behind us on his bike.