That night when my father took me in his arms and asked me tell him everything I knew will forever follow me. That night is alive with me today and I can not forget my father's gloomy eyes nor the way his hairy arms felt against my back.

       I was only nine, the number right before a double digit, the number revered by some ancient tribes.In another nine months I would have been ten. Yes I was nine, the number of months a female carries an unborn child. But then it was my father who carried me, and fed me his worries, via the umbilical cord of the soul.

        He sat on the living room sofa and held me against his chest. I felt two knockings, like two people being on the opposite sides of the same door. Both knock but can not answer. Then came the question. It was fast and it was slow. I looked at my hands as if a string had been tied to  one of my fingers to remind me of an answer. I searched my father's eyes, but they waited.

        The answer my father was looking for had to do with  my mother's secret. I was the only one who knew;  but it was not because I wanted to know. You see my mother had made me her accomplice when she and I went to church. I saw what I saw, something I wish I had not seen. And now my father somehow knew, what I had seen. He wanted a witness and I was that only witness. He asked again what I had seen.

      But why did my father ask me? I was only nine. It was like he was asking me to be born all over again. Despite my age, I understood the great consequences  my revelation  would have.  Why was I born with eyes? I did not want to betray my mother by telling my father of her betrayal. I loved them both. I did not want to see another heated fight.