And so, reluctantly my mouth began to open slowly. At that point all the stars had fallen into black holes. My mind felt the gravity pulling on them. My thoughts had dispersed into the unknown. I began to wrestle with my words, words that would not fit the shape of my mouth.

     My father's grave look said  one thousand things. I felt bad for that look and I wanted to fix it. I am still like that today. I have an inborn need to fix everything that is broken. When I can't fix it, I have failed. I did not want to be a failure before my father's eyes. I was his only son. That alone was reason enough to prove my loyalty. I had to make him feel better by fixing his broken heart. Particularly, when he kissed me on my forehead and promised me that everything would be all-right. He said nothing would happen to me.

     But what about my mother? What about her secret? Mother gave me everything I wanted. If it would have been in her power to get me a whole continent, I would have had it a day after I requested it. That is what the books she brought me from work were to me, whole continents. Every Friday she arrived home with a plastic bag full of books. She rescued these books from a land fill. She worked in housekeeping and collected books people threw away. She collected them for me, despite that I was nine and could barely read. Books lined our window sills. Books rose in towers on the living room floor. Books kept broken vases from falling over. All those books were my mother.   

    And so, my mouth began to say what I had seen across those Sundays in church.