him. I knew, absolutely, that he’d decided to go after my sister.
I stood, frozen on the porch, poised between the warmth of my childhood bed and the darkness beyond the house. I don’t know what I thought, if I thought anything at all. Perhaps I was already beyond thought, already operating at a more primitive level, sensing the storm that was building within my father the way an animal lifts its face to the air and senses danger in the bush.
“What did you do?” Rebecca asked.
“I went after my father.”
A curious expression rose in Rebecca’s face. “You weren’t thinking of it as going after Laura?”
“No.”
And it was true. Even as I opened the screen door and stepped out onto the wet lawn, I knew absolutely that I was pursuing my father rather than moving to protect my sister, that my intent, shadowy and vaguely understood, was to join him in the tall grass, commit myself to whatever it was he had committed to the moment he’d crushed the cigarette butt into the ashtray beside his chair and headed out into the night.
The grass was tall and still wet with rain, and the blades, as they pressed my arms and legs, felt very cool and damp. The ground was soft, and I could feel my feet sink into it slightly with each step. The reeds had parted as my father had moved through them, leaving a wide trail for me to follow, already crouching as I went forward, moving slowly and secretly, as if I already had much to hide.
The trail led down the hill toward the sea. I could hear the waves tumbling not far away, but I couldn’t see them until the clouds parted suddenly and a broad expanse of light fell over the beach. It was then that I glimpsed my father’s head, saw his tangled black hair and sharp, angular face just for an instant before he sank down, squatting over the wet earth. I could tell by the motionlessness of the grass that he’d stopped, and for a moment, I stopped as well and stood, sinking imperceptibly into the rain-soaked ground.
For a little while I listened intently, my head cocked like some primordial creature. I could hear only the waves as they tumbled toward shore a few yards away and the wind as it swept through the reeds that surrounded me.
I don’t know exactly when I began to move forward again, or why, or what I was thinking as I did so. I remember only the sudden desire to penetrate more deeply into the green wall and the inability to draw back once I’d begun to move again.
I walked slowly, very silently, as if stalking a prey almost as cunning as myself. I remember shifting to the right somewhat, because I didn’t want to come upon my father. I’d glimpsed his position in a wedge of light, and I carefully edged myself away from him as I continued to slink forward through the reeds.
I didn’t stop until I heard a shifting in the grass, the slow, rhythmic friction of blades rubbing softly against other blades. As I continued forward, I could hear someone breathing, then two people breathing in short, quick spasms.
I stopped and peered out, gently drawing away the curtain of reeds that blocked my vision. That was when I saw her.
“Laura,” Rebecca whispered.
“Yes.”
At first my sister’s body appeared to me in a blur of white and black, her long hair shifting back and forth over her naked shoulders. She seemed to be rising and falling on a completely separate cushion of pale flesh. I could only partially see the body beneath her, the one which shuddered violently each time my sister rose and fell above it. It came to me only as a headless ghost, white against the dark ground, moaning softly each time my sister lifted the lower part of her body then eased herself down upon him again.
I could see his slightly hairy thighs, the nest of dark hair into which they disappeared, and finally the long pale shaft that seemed to pierce and then withdraw itself from the body of my sister.
It was 1959, I was nine years old, and so I’m sure I didn’t know what was happening there in front of me. Still, I knew that it was something powerful, occult, primitive, and at last profoundly private. I felt the need to withdraw, to sink back into the reeds and return to my bed, but something held me there, and for a moment, I continued to watch, shamed perhaps, but also mesmerized by the spectacle before me.
I don’t know how long I watched, but I do remember that during that time the idea that my father could be anywhere near such a scene completely left me. I remained fixed on the two bodies, as if dazzled by the continually building intensity of their motions, the rising force and deep needfulness I could hear in their breathing.
Suddenly, my sister arched her back and released a long, luxurious sigh. She shook her head, and her dark hair brushed back and forth along the lower quarters of her naked back. Then she fell forward in a spent, exhausted motion, the wall of her flesh suddenly collapsing so that I could see the green reeds beyond her, and deep within those reeds, my father’s pale blue eyes, motionless and vaguely hooded, with nothing at all in them of the voyeur’s seamy lust, but only staring toward mine in an instant of unspeakable collusion.
For a few seconds, we continued to stare frozenly at each other while Laura and Teddy hurriedly dressed themselves, took a final, strangely passionless kiss, then rushed away, Laura moving up toward our cottage, Teddy toward his.
Once both of them were out of sight my father stood up and started walking back to the cottage. I trailed after him, just a few feet behind. He didn’t look back at me. Perhaps he was too ashamed. I will never know.
Rebecca peered at me unbelievingly. “You mean that he never said anything to you about that night?” she asked.
“No.”
“Did he seem different after that?”
“Yes, but not toward me,” I answered. “Only toward Laura.”
Rebecca’s pen remained motionless above the still nearly blank pad. She’d taken very few notes, but I knew she’d absorbed every bit of my story, every nuance and detail.
“How did he change toward Laura?” she asked.
