I never dared bring a child into the world. When I was around 18, not long after my fiance died in a csr wreck, my foster mother took me aside and, for no known reason, totally out of the blue, told me solemnly, her voice dripping malice, "You're the kind of woman who would get up some dark night and knife your children to death." She then left the room, adding nothing else. I was suggestible as a child and adolescent, and I knew it. I could feel what she had just said settling over me like a curse -- a very real, very effective, active one. I knew that if I dared hzve children, that's exactly what would have happened. It's like her words had lives of their own, and penetrated right into my soul and took root there, not because I wanted them to, but because they had power of their own and I couldn't keep them out. I had no one to talk to, ever, I dared tell about that before I got to old to have children, so I kept it to myself, and it -- among other things -- kept me from ever having children. After that, over time, those ( ... )