Chapter 3

Maybe you're not shocked by the idea that a sister and brother could fall in love and then live together as husband and wife. But a lot of people would be shocked by that. I had been through enough by this time that I wasn't. In fact, I had even suspected that Micky and Susan might be brother and sister, before I met them. I hadn't been shocked about that, but of course it turned out they were both women, so the point had been moot. Still, I wasn't shocked when what I had thought about with them, came true with this new couple.

The reason I know I wasn't shocked is that, after Kathy told me the man sitting at the table with us was her brother, what I fixated on was her characterization of him as her "little" brother.

Part of that is because he looked the same age as her, if not a little older. Maybe that was because the bulk of his body was larger than hers. I don't know. But the sociologist in me heard her comment as a distinction between having 'a brother' as in "I married my brother", as opposed to having more than one brother, and marrying the younger one instead of the older one(s).

What all this did was flit around in my mind, as I thought about things in a helter-skelter sort of way, not able to concentrate on any one facet of the bombshell she had dropped. It was a little like trying to identify and see each piece of shrapnel as the bomb goes off. As a result I didn't say anything. I was thinking so fast and furious that I didn't vocalize. Part of that chaos was because of something about my own background that they didn't know about, but which leapt into the fray that consisted of my fragmented thoughts.

"I told you this would be a bad idea," said Randy.

Kathy just looked at me. I got the impression that this had all happened before... that they had told other people their secret... and that she was waiting to see what my whole reaction was going to be.

"You're adopted!" was what came out of my mouth finally.

Kathy looked surprised.

"Yes," she confirmed, looking a little confused at what I was concentrating on.

"Me too," I said.

"What?" asked both of them together.

"I'm adopted too," I said.

Kathy looked at Randy, unbelieving, and then back at me.

"You're not shocked that I married my brother?" she asked, incredulous.

"Well... I guess that's interesting..." I said. "I mean yes, I suppose I'm a little startled. But I've never interviewed anybody else who was adopted."

"You're not interviewing us, Bob," reminded Kathy.

"Of course!" I said hastily. "Bad choice of words. It's just that I wasn't prepared."

"For us to admit an incestuous marriage?" she prodded.

"No," I said softly. My mind was still whirling. I hadn't thought about my own past for a long time now. Some pretty strong memories and emotions were flooding into my mind. "I don't think much about my childhood. It was... difficult." I said. "What you said made me remember things I haven't thought about in a long time."

"Oh!" said Kathy, her tentative smile back. "So you don't think we're perverts?"

"Like I said, it's not my role to judge things like that," I said, marshaling my thoughts as the psychologist in me struggled to take charge of my brain again. "I've seen a lot of strange relationships." I was immediately sorry I'd used the word 'strange', and changed it in my next breath. "Different, I mean... unusual".

"Oh, believe me, we know just how... unusual... we are," said Kathy.

It suddenly occurred to me that they had told me a deep, dark secret about their lives... a secret that could cause them real trouble.

"Why did you tell me that?" I asked.

"We're friends," said Kathy simply. "Friends don't keep secrets."

"Do you tell ALL your friends about... this?" I asked.

"Of course not," she said, a frown furrowing her brow. "I suppose we don't have all that many friends, really. But then you came along and I knew there was some reason for it, and you're so nice and everything, and we like you, and..." She trailed off, looking a little surprised, as if she had just discovered that she had actually confessed everything to me.

I thought about this couple. Everything I had seen had been based on love and an easy-going relationship that a lot of people would be very jealous of. I had never seen them argue heatedly, or do anything that suggested they had as much of the normal uproar in a marriage as most people had. I had expected, before I met them, that Micky and Susan might be an incestuous couple, and that hadn't stopped me from talking with them. I had been way off base, of course, in my assumptions about them. It had finally taught me not to make such quick assumptions.

"I don't think you're perverts," I said. "I DO admit that I'm very curious about how it happened, but I'm not grossed out by it or anything."

Randy gave out another of those breathy sighs.

"I was afraid you'd get all pissed off at us and walk out," he admitted.

"You see why we can't be in your project," said Kathy.

"Actually," I said smiling, "the thought of interviewing incestuous couples has crossed my mind before. I was even thinking about doing my doctoral dissertation based on a project involving only incestuous couples."

"I don't like to think of us as... incestuous," said Kathy softly.

"I'm sorry," I said automatically. "I just don't know another term for it."

"It just seems natural and normal to me," said Kathy. "We've always lived together, and he always made me feel good, and I've loved him for as long as I can remember. It's like we've always been married."

"Can I ask you some questions?" I asked. "Just out of curiosity... as a sociologist?"

"No," said Kathy, standing up and going to the fridge to get something to drink.

Randy and I both slumped a little as the tension in the room returned.

Kathy turned around, looking at me.

"But you can ask some questions as our friend."

I stayed all afternoon, and long into the evening before I finally went back to my apartment. The conversation was eerie in a lot of ways.

A lot of what we talked about was being adopted, and the things we remembered, or knew about our real parents, or our real homes. That word "real" isn't a good one in this context, because for all of us, we didn't remember much at all about our "real", or birth parents. We all had parents who had raised us, and who we loved, and who were our "actual" parents, and our memories of "home" were associated with the people we thought of as our parents. But when you're adopted, you can't help but wonder about what life might have been like... the other way.

What made it eerie were the similarities in our respective stories.

I had been six when my birth mother - I didn't remember anything at all about my birth father - had gone away. I knew, later, that she had died, but no one ever told me why, or how. Kathy had been five, and Randy four, when they were whisked away to a new place.

"I was very sad," said Kathy, her eyes going unfocused as she remembered one of the few things about her life at that age. I had another brother, an older one, and he kept the bad men away from us before they came and took us away."

"The bad men?" I asked, feeling a chill run up my spine.

"Yes, they shouted and were mean," she said, her eyes focusing on me again. "I remember Ange taking Randy and me in the closet sometimes, to hide from them."

"Ange?" I asked.

"That was his name," she said.

"Odd name," I commented.

"Maybe, but that was it," she said firmly.

"That's weird," I said. "I had a brother and sister too, and I did exactly the same thing. There were men who came to see my mother, and they hit her sometimes. I used to take my brother and sister to hide behind the couch when things like that happened."

Kathy's eyes widened. "Us too!" she said. "Behind the couch, I mean."

I peered at her. "What else do you remember?"

"Nothing much," she said helplessly. "They were nice to us at the new place, but I missed Ange."

"I guess it would be normal to hide behind something big," I said uncertainly.

It was just spooky that our memories were so similar.