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does.”
    â€œMiriam Cohen isn’t half as pretty as I am, is she, Leon? Not half as pretty.” She looked at herself inmy dresser mirror and stroked her hair. I thought about what she had said about keeping Pin a secret. The idea made my heart beat faster. I was afraid, afraid of … losing him.
    It made my fingers numb again. Ursula saw me opening and closing them.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with your hand?”
    â€œNothing,” I said quickly. She reached out and took my hands into hers. I looked into her smiling face and the numbness seemed to go away.

Chapter 3

    U RSULA WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD WHEN FATHER performed the abortion. I knew she was having sex with boys. She told me all about it. That was an effect father had on us, I guess. We were both very matter-of-fact with each other about things other brothers and sisters kept very private and personal. We got into the habit of sitting together in the dark of our rooms, after a night out with someone, and discussing it. If I went out, she would be waiting up for me in my room. And if she went out, I was either waiting in her room, or in my own with the adjoining door wide open.
    One particular night she came in about a quarter to eleven. She was permitted to stay out untilmidnight and most always she stayed out right to twelve, so I was surprised to hear her walking up the stairs. The light went on in her room and I walked in rather than wait for her to come to me this time. She was standing in front of the dresser mirror, combing her hair harshly with a metal comb. I watched her for a while. She was obviously very agitated.
    â€œOK, what’s the matter?” I said, taking a seat on her bed.
    â€œEverything.”
    â€œThat narrows it down perfectly. Didn’t you go out with Mike Elias tonight?” Elias was in my class and he was always telling me how much he admired my sister. He buttered me up a lot. I was very indifferent to him, sometimes downright rude, but he ignored or took everything I dished out.
    â€œYes,” she said, unbuttoning her blouse. I saw a red streak down the back of her neck. It looked like a scrape of some sort.
    â€œWhat happened here?” I said, getting up and touching it.
    â€œHe was a bit clumsy in the ‘throes of passion.’ How do you like that expression? Shirley Bennet showed it to me in a book today. ‘The throes of passion.’” Her lips grew tight and she squinted her eyes as if she were about to break out in tears.
    â€œBeautiful. What really happened?”
    â€œThat’s what happened,” she said, with a little laugh following her as she hung the blouse up in the closet. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it.
    â€œWhere did you go with him?”
    â€œWhere you went with Cora two nights ago, Kaplan’s Lake. It was a great spot—dark road to the lake, and parking there with the moonlight dancing on the water. Isn’t that the way you put it?”
    â€œYou went there just because I went there, didn’t you?”
    â€œYou know good spots are hard to find. Mike always wants to go to the cemetery and I don’t feel comfortable there.”
    â€œShit.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Leon?” she asked with a sly smile on her face. I watched her reach back and unfasten her bra. Her breasts shook for an instant and then stabilized in their firmness. At fourteen, Ursula had the bosom of a fully grown woman. She turned around and reached up for her nightgown.
    â€œSo? What happened to make you so upset and bring you home early?” I waited as she went out to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face. I didn’t like the way she was avoiding me. It wasn’t like her. Usually she was eager to discuss her dates and get my opinions. The first night she let a boy put his hand on her naked breasts, she came home and we lay together on her bed in the dark. She spoke softly, telling me how it sent electricity