"No," said Mrs. Wiggin. "She was wise enough to know that if she didn't keep Peter's secret, it would split the family apart forever. No, she kept that hidden from us. But she made sure we knew just what kind of person Peter was. And about everything else in her life, everything Peter left for her to decide for herself, she told us that, and she listened to us, too, she cared what we thought."
"So you told her what you believe?"
"We didn't tell her about our faith," said Mrs. Wiggin. "But we taught her the results of that faith. We did the best we could."
"I'm sure you did," said Bean.
"I'm not stupid," said Mrs. Wiggin. "I know you despise us, just as we know Peter despises us."
"I don't," said Bean.
"I've been lied to enough to recognize it when you do it."
"I don't despise you for ... I don't despise you at all," said Bean. "But you have to see that the way you all hide from each other, Peter growing up in a family where nobody tells anybody anything that matters-that doesn't make me really optimistic about ever being able to trust him. I'm about to put my life in his hands. And now I find out that in his whole life, he's never had an honest relationship with anybody."
Her eyes grew cold and distant then. "I see that I've provided you with useful information. Perhaps you should go now."
"I'm not judging you," said Bean.
"Don't be absurd, of course you are," said Mrs. Wiggin.
"I'm not condemning you, then."
"Don't make me laugh. You condemn us, and you know what? I agree with you. I condemn us too. We set out to do God's will, and we've ended up damaging the one child we have left to us. He's grimly determined to make his mark in the world. But what sort of mark will it be?"
"An indelible one," said Bean. "If Achilles doesn't destroy him first."
"We did some things right," said Mrs. Wiggin. "We gave him the freedom to test his own abilities. We could have stopped him from publishing, you know. He thinks he outsmarted us, but only because we played incredibly dumb. How many parents would have let their teenage son meddle in world affairs? When he wrote against ... against letting Ender come home-you don't know how hard it was for me not to claw his arrogant little eyes out ......
For the first time, he saw something of the rage and frustration she must have been going through. He thought: This is how Peter's mother feels about him. Maybe orphanhood wasn't such a drawback.
"But I didn't, did IT' said Mrs. Wiggin.
"Didn't what?"
"Didn't stop him. And he turned out to be right. Because if Ender were here on Earth, he'd either be dead, or he would have been one of the kidnapped children, or he'd be in hiding like you. But I still ... Ender is his brother, and he exiled him from Earth forever. And I couldn't help but remember the terrible threats he made when Ender was still little, and lived with us. He told Ender and Valentine then that someday he would kill Ender, and pretend that it was an accident."
"Ender's not dead."
"My husband and I have wondered, in the dark nights when we try to make sense of what has happened to our family, to all our dreams, we've wondered if Peter got Ender exiled because he loved him and knew the dangers he'd face if he returned to Earth. Or if he exiled him because he feared that if Ender came home Peter would kill him, just as he threatened to-so then, exiling Ender could be viewed as a sort of, I don't know, an elementary kind of self-control. Still, a very selfish thing, but still showing a sort of vague respect for decency. That would be progress."
"Or maybe none of the above."
"Or maybe we're all guided by God in this, and God has brought you here."
"So Sister Carlotta says."
"She might be right."
"I don't much care either way," said Bean. "If there is a God, I think he's pretty lousy at his job."
"Or you don't understand what his job is."
"Believe me, Sister Carlotta is the nunnish equivalent of a Jesuit. Let's not even get into trading sophistries, I've been trained by an expert and, as you say, you're not in practice."
"Julian Delphiki," said Mrs. Wiggin, "I knew when I saw you out on the front sidewalk that