Read Into the Garden for Free Online Page A

fact," she said, tightening her lips and making her eyes even darker, "we need something you even hate to tell yourself."
Everyone was silent. The candle licked the air, the flame snapping at each of us as if it was challenging us, calling for our secrets.
Jade finally broke the silence. "Cat, why don't you go first."
"I can't think of anything worse or more secret than what I told you all about my father and me," I said.
"Think harder," Jade ordered.
I struggled with memories. I've told them everything that matters when I was with them at Doctor Marlowe's, I thought.
"Well?" Misty asked, shaking my hand. "Give her a chance," Star ordered.
I really did tell them almost everything about my father and me, I thought. I wanted to get all that out of my system. What could I give them now?
And then it came to me. I couldn't have told them this because I didn't know it then myself.
"My mother," I said, "is more than just my adoptive mother. She's my half sister."
Misty and Jade dropped my hands at the same time I opened my eyes. They were all looking at me.
"Your half sister?" Jade asked. "I don't understand."
"Remember how you all kept asking me why my parents would want to adopt me, why my mother especially would take on the responsibility of a child if she was so uptight about everything? Well, that's the reason."
I told them what I knew about my real mother getting pregnant with me and how my half sister had been influenced by her father and eventually got married and was persuaded to pretend she was my adoptive mother.
"No one else but me and my mother and father knows the truth," I said. "No one but you now."
"But who's your real father then?" Misty asked
"I don't know. There's a lot I still don't know. It's worse than pulling teeth to get my mother to tell me anything else."
"You still call her your mother?"
"It's hard not to call her that when I speak to her, but I really can't think of her like my mother anymore. It's easier for me to think of you all as my sisters than her. She wants me to call her my mother anyway, and she's always reminding me that she's legally my guardian and I've got to neat her with the same respect a parent deserves. She says sisters don't have the same reverence for each other. You know how she rules the house, how she always did.
"It's complicated," I admitted, "but up until now, I've done what Jade said, I've avoided thinking about it myself. I mean, I'd like to know more, but I don't as well. Know what I mean?"
"No," Misty said. "That's all too wild. Your whole life you thought your sister was your mother? I don't know what I would do if I found out such a secret. Why did they keep it a secret? It's crazy."
"I know. I guess anyone would think we're a sick family," I said, and stared at the flickering candlelight. "How I wish that what Jade said would happen could happen," I told them.
"What do you mean?" Misty asked.
"That I could toss all this into the fire and watch it go up in smoke."
They all stared at me, and then Star shook her head. "What?" Misty asked her.
"Just like Cat," she said, "to come up with a secret that none of us could top. Well, I guess that gets us off the hook."
"Yeah, Cat's secret makes anything I could come up with sound so stupid," Misty said, looking at Jade.
Jade sighed deeply. "I agree," she said finally, putting her stamp of approval on the decision.

4 True Confessions
    The girls were shocked that I knew so little about my family and my origin. All I could say was "I don't know," and "I'm not sure," to every question they fired at me, making me feel like some criminal under the lights in a police station.
    "If it was me, I'd be dying to know everything," Misty finally said. "I'd nag and nag until your mother, I mean half sister, told you every nitty-gritty detail. I'd give her no peace, not a moment."
    "It's not that easy to talk to my mother," I said. "She can turn herself off like a light switch."
"I know what you said before, but I still don't understand how you