The first time I heard of the school I was in the third grade. My mother was talking about it to her friend, Mrs. Cassidy.

"A school for those type of people?" Mrs. Cassidy had asked rhetorically, "It's like encouraging that sort of behavior Anna."

My mother was a little more liberal than old Mrs. Cassidy.

"Boys like that need guidance, not ridicule. Some say that it's in the genes and has nothing to do with choice," my mother said this while looking at me.

I was playing with a basketball that Lee had given me on my 9th birthday. My older brother wanted me to start training for school sports teams. He taught me different ways in which to hold the ball and the appropriate manners that came to ball handling.

Mrs. Cassidy watched me too and took a sip of her tea.

She said, "At least you never have to worry about your sons, especially this little tiger."

My mother looked at her sternly, "The earth will never be the sky."

Mrs. Cassidy smiled, "Of course, earth and sky are opposites."

"I am the sky!" I yelled, pretending to win an NBA game.

"No," my mother said to Mrs. Cassidy, "Ethan is the earth."

Mrs. Cassidy almost dropped her cup and stared at me. A long time ago she babysat my mother and would tell her mythical stories about the ancient Greeks. The sky represented the male identity of the world and the earth represented the childbearing female.

"I am the earth!" I yelled as if I understood what my mother was trying to tell Mrs. Cassidy.

A few years later, at my parents' funeral, Mrs. Cassidy approached me and told me more information about the school, as if she had been researching. She told me that it was what my mother would have wanted. It would take another couple of years till I finally attended Montega Academy.


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