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.I knew that was what I finally had to do: tell the truth.And how did I know that?3Because of my mother: she could tell a story, and the stories she told, once my father left us, were always about the Emily Dickinson House.For instance, there was the story she told me when I was eight, a story about a boy and a girl, always nice enough, never too much older or younger than I was.They held hands and raced on foot and yelled sarcastic, innuendo-ridden taunts at each other, things that they'd heard or seen at the movies or on television or from their friends, who'd heard them in the same places and who'd changed them and made them their own.They were good kids, this boy and girl: they went over to each other's houses after school, on weekends and national holidays; they gave each other cards on birthdays and talked on the phone for hours.And one day when they walked past the Emily Dickinson House, the back door was open, which was unusual, and so they decided to check it out.As they crossed the threshold, as my mother told it, the door slammed behind them and the big house hummed like the warming up of an oversize garbage disposal.There were screams, faint but distinct, and when my mother finished the story I would let out a long, sour breath and whine, "But it's so unfair." And my mother would nod and say, "Emily Dickinson's House is like the last hole of a miniature golf course.Like the ball on that final hole, the children go in and then the game waits for someone else." Which was an unfortunate analogy, because my mother and I did a lot of miniature golfing together at this time.So my mother had her story (a story that never made either of us very happy, by the way), but now I was going to have mine, and it would be true.I would tell Anne Marie and the kids the truth about me and the Emily Dickinson House and how I'd burned it to the ground and killed those poor Colemans.I had lied for too long.Now that Thomas Coleman had shown up and threatened to spill the beans, I knew I should tell my family the truth while the truth might still do me a little bit of good and while I was somewhat in control of it.And maybe the truth would make me happy.This was what the bond analysts had told one another during their memoir-brainstorming sessions: "Just tell the truth, dude" (this was the way they talked: like surfers outfitted by Brooks Brothers)."You'll feel better afterward." It seemed a simple matter of cause and effect, which was the kind of thing I, as a packaging scientist, could understand and appreciate.But it would be tough, I knew that.On my walk out of Camelot, across Route 116, and around and around the parking lot of the gardening-supply superstore (I would have walked on the sidewalks along 116 or in Camelot, except there weren't any), I was picturing my little bambinos' faces as I tried to explain that Daddy was a murderer and an arsonist, not to mention a long-term liar, and that weakened my resolve a little.But that was OK, because I knew I was right to do what I was going to do, and I had surplus resolve and could stand to lose some of it.And then I walked back into Camelot, into my driveway, and lost some more of the resolve.Anne Marie's minivan was parked there.Like Camelot and the house and the children and Anne Marie herself, the van was well maintained and I loved it and them so much, could feel my love growing and growing, could feel my heart wanting to get bigger and bigger until it was so full of love that it would explode all over the place and make a mess and I would die and not care.I went around the house and through the back door and into the kitchen, the floor covered with gleaming adobe tile.I had no idea what adobe tile meant, exactly, except that I thought it had to do with Indians and clay and earth, and none of that seemed to have anything to do with what was on my kitchen floor.That floor and its name were mysterious and inexplicable, like love itself, and my heart continued to grow, testing the limits of its chambers.I bent to kiss the floor, put my lips right on the cool, cool tile.You are mine.That was my very thought, to the tile.You are mine, and I love you.But would the tile still love me back after I told it the truth about my past? I could feel the tile shrink from my lips at the very thought.Would my family not do the same? How could they not? Oh, I was afraid, not of one thing, but of everything, even though I'd been full of courage and determination not a minute earlier
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