The Unwelcomed Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

in them herself. I was very self-conscious about how long I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Whenever they took me anywhere, I did keep my eyes down and avoided looking at boys especially. Every sexual thought I had I immediately subdued. My grandmother had convinced me that I was more vulnerable than other girls. I was on constant guard, waiting for that evil seed inside me to start sprouting.
    She inspected my hands immediately when I came into the living room. I had taken great care with my nails. It satisfied her. She looked at me in my oversize dress, fixed a strand of my hair that had escaped the knot, and then nodded approval.
    “You look very nice,” Grandfather Prescott told me. He looked at Grandmother Myra.
    She reached for a box on the sofa side table beside her and handed it to me. She said nothing.
    Grandfather Prescott said, “Happy birthday, Elle.”
    I was shocked. What could be in a box like that? Slowly, I opened it and saw the silver cross. It was a good six inches long and four inches wide, at least, and it was on a silver chain. How could I wear something so big around my neck? I plucked it out carefully, stunned.
    “I’ll put it on you,” Grandmother Myra said. She took it from me and went behind me. I stood there while she fastened the chain. The cross fell over the crests of my breasts.
    “Isn’t it . . . too big?” I asked, trying not to sound ungrateful.
    “It’s so you’ll never forget,” she said. “You can put it inside your dress.”
    I did so quickly.
    “Thank you,” I said.
    “Take your sweater,” she told me. “There’s a chill in the air tonight.”
    It was late June, but nights could be cool in Lake Hurley. It was why people from New York City bought and rented summer homes there. We didn’t live on the lake, but we were only about a half mile from it if we went through the woods right behind the house. I had done that only once with my grandfather, who wanted me to see it at twilight. We didn’t see much of it. It was as if we were gazing at something forbidden. He wasn’t a fisherman and never suggested we go for a boat ride. The only way my grandmother acknowledged the lake’s existence was to comment about a breeze that came off it. Many times, I was tempted to go there on my own when I was outside at the rear of the house, which was where my grandmother preferred me to be. But I was afraid of walking off our property without specific permission to do so. It was as if we had an invisible electric fence, and if I crossed the line, I would suffer a stinging shock.
    “You stay in the backyard, missy. No need to be attracting the curious eyes of those city people who come up here and drive past our house,” she told me. “A young girl just standing around or even sitting and reading will bring unwanted attention.”
    Maybe it was unwanted to her, I thought, but not to me. I craved any attention.
    Nevertheless, I avoided the front of the house, afraid that she would further restrict my going out alone. Our house was on a good-size lot, but what made it private was the fact that the land to our right was in some family dispute for as long as I could remember, so no one could build on it, and the land to our left was owned by someone who was waiting forever, it seemed, for its value to go up. The nearest house to ours was a good half mile away on both sides. The sense of isolation was just fine for my grandmother, who wasn’t the type who would walk over to a neighbor’s house to borrow a cup of sugar anyway.
    I loved this time of the year, because the trees were so full and, maybe because of the moisture coming off the lake, so richly green. No matter how bright the day, the inside of the woods looked dark and cool. From time to time, I would spot a buck or a doe and its fawn. Of course, there were too many rabbits and not enough foxes to control their population. No matter how hard my grandfather tried to protect whatever vegetable garden he had