A Secret Identity by Gayle Roper Page B

time with our drinks, my salad, and Todd’s cottage cheese, topped with a dark brown substance the consistency of burnt applesauce.
    “What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.
    “Apple butter.”
    “It’s brown.”
    “Umm.”
    “You actually eat brown food?”
    “With great relish,” he said, taking a forkful. “And you eat brown food too. Meat’s brown.”
    “Meat doesn’t count. It sort of matches your eyes,” I pointed at the apple butter.
    He made a choking sound. “What?”
    “Well, it does.”
    “If you say so. No one’s ever made that comparison before. Want to try some?” He offered me his dish.
    I looked at it dubiously.
    “Come on,” he said. “When in Rome…”
    “Res ipsa loquitor,” I said.
    “Precisely,” he said.
    I stuck my fork in his dish just enough to get the tines damp.
    “Coward,” he said.
    “Precisely,” I said and with great trepidation stuck my fork in my mouth. I was very pleasantly surprised. “It’s sweet.”
    He laughed. “What did you expect?”
    “Brown food? Meat. Gravy. They’re not sweet.” I took a real forkful this time, making certain to get some of the cottage cheese too. “I like it.”
    “Uh oh,” he said and pulled his dish back to the safety of his own placemat. I politely ate my own salad.
    “Tell me about your family,” I said as we started our main courses.
    He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I’m an only child of elderly parents. My mother died when I was five, and my father tried his best, but it was hard.”
    I could tell by the expression on his face that it was still hard, or at least the memories were.
    “How old is elderly?” I asked.
    “My father was fifty-five when I was born, my mother forty-three. They had long since given up on the idea of a child.”
    “So your mother was only forty-eight when she died?”
    He nodded.
    “Mine was twenty-nine,” I said. “I was one.”
    We looked at each other with sympathy.
    “So your father raised you too?” Todd asked.
    I shook my head. “My dad died with my mother. Automobile accident. One of those massive pileups where they had the misfortunate of being between two semi trucks.”
    “Ouch,” he said. “My mother died of ovarian cancer.”
    We were quiet a minute, chewing, contemplating.
    “So who raised you?” he asked.
    I spent most of the main course telling him about Mom and Pop, laughing, filled with warm memories.
    Todd listened, a sad kind of envy just below the surface. “You had a wonderful childhood in spite of everything, didn’t you? Just like in books.”
    I nodded. “Lots of love, lots of laughter, and a real, practical faith modeled rigorously.”
    Todd sighed. “Well, I had the faith part anyway, and I truly am appreciative of that. My father loved the Lord and saw to it that I had opportunity for real faith too. Church and Bible school every Sunday morning and youth group every Sunday night. Vacation Bible school. Church camp. But the love and laughter part weren’t there.” He put his knife and fork on his empty plate and leaned back against his seat, trying to keep his face impassive but not quite succeeding.
    “My father is a nice enough man, I guess,” he said. “He has a PhD in English literature and taught at Millersville University for years and years. He was there when it was a state teachers college, then a state college, and finally a state university. He is very scholarly, highly respected in academic circles, and very introverted. His life is medieval literature and culture. Samuel Pepys and his diary and John Milton are much more important to him than I’ve ever been.”
    I thought of Pop and his great lust for life. I imagined little Todd being read a bedtime story from Paradise Lost . I shivered. Certainly one of the rings of Hell.
    Todd reached for his iced tea and turned the glass in circles on the table. He stared at the watermarks as he talked. “I learned as a little boy that my father was happy when I was quiet and invisible, so