Uncle Devereaux

Neither my mother nor my father ever spoke about what he had done. That way, it was almost as if he didn't do it, whatever it was. Almost, but not quite. I discovered part of the truth that very day those two men brought him to our home. I was listening behind the kitchen door, having returned unexpectedly from the yard where I had been playing.

"The doctors say he is…um…cured…of his, er…impulses," one of them said. "We can't keep him anymore anyway. If not for you two, he would automatically have been transferred to the larger state facility."

"He's luckier than his victims were," said the other man. They will never get a second chance to do anything."

"I have to live with that all of my life," cried Uncle Devereaux. And to my parents one of the men said: "This is very generous of you people, very generous indeed."

"We didn't help him when he needed it and he's our blood," said Mother in a tone which meant the discussion was over.

"It will never happen again," sobbed Uncle Devereaux. "I have no need to do it anymore. Really I don't! I swear it!"

At this point I was discovered behind the door and the conversation ended. I didn't know what to expect after what I had just heard, but I remember feeling so pleased to look upon his smiling face. I loved him instantly and knew that he loved me too. It was the moment of our bonding.