Free Don't You Trust Me? by Patrice Kindl Page B

really, he was generous to her because she belonged to him. She had his genes; she was an aspect of him that would live on into the future after he was dead. He was really being good to himself when he saved up for her college education. He was ensuring that a part of him would survive and thrive.
    Even Aunt Antonia’s buying spree for me had been based on the same thing. Okay, she and Janelle didn’t share any genes, but her husband and Janelle did, so it seemed right to her to spend his money on his sister’s child, especially since there was lots to go around. If she’d had any idea who I really was, do you think she’d have showered me with all those lovely clothes? Not a chance. She’d have called the cops, more likely. I was like a parasitic cowbird’s egg that had been laid in a finch’s nest. If the finch mother had recognized me for what I was, she would have pushed me out and let me go smash! on the stones below.
    Parents care about their kids because it’s their chance at immortality. At least, that’s the only way I can make sense of parents sacrificing for their children. If I had a kid, I don’t know how generous I’d be. Don’t worry; I’m not planning on becoming a mother, in either the nearor distant future. But I guess it’s reasonable that parents want their kids to do well in the world, if you look at it that way.
    â€œMom,” Brooke was protesting. “You know that Dad is better than that! Stick up for me!”
    â€œYour father is both a successful businessman and a decent human being, Brooke. He talks that way because he worries that you are too openhearted. He’s afraid it makes you vulnerable to all the wickedness of the world.”
    â€œMom! Dad! I’m not some little toddler anymore!” Brooke caught my eye, sitting quietly at my place at the table, and blushed, probably realizing that she sounded exactly like some little toddler. “And I don’t believe that there is that much honest-to-goodness wickedness in the world,” she said defiantly. “I think that if you could see into the inmost heart of a person who has done something really, really wrong, you would find that they were just—just misguided. It was because they had an awful childhood or something.”
    Well, if Brooke could see into my inmost heart, I supposed she would think I was doing something wrong by being here at her dinner table. And I couldn’t claim to have had an awful childhood, so I had to beg to differ.
    Uncle Karl was girding up his loins to march into battle again, when Aunt Antonia apparently decided that she had had enough of the subject. In any case, she headed him off by asking, “Morgan, where did you getthat pretty gold chain? I don’t remember seeing that before.”
    I glanced down at the chain around my neck. “Oh, I’ve had it for years,” I said vaguely. “Could you pass the butter, please?”
    Brooke looked surprised, either because I had just helped myself to some butter or perhaps because on the day after I arrived, she had, in her innocently curious way, looked over every single item Janelle had packed in her luggage. There had been no gold chain then. However, she evidently concluded that neither mystery was worth solving. I mean, a gold chain is a small thing, which might easily escape notice. She was soon diverted by a discussion about debate team, which her mother was anxious she join.
    However, I can sense that you, my reader, may not be satisfied by my explanation. You remember what I said about that gold chain. I implied that Aunt Antonia had bought it for me. I also implied that because she was so generous, I had stopped taking things that didn’t belong to me.
    Well, it certainly wasn’t my fault. We had gone into the jewelry store because Aunt Antonia’d had a repaired piece to pick up—a gruesome old-timey brooch. There were two clerks. One had