The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter (best classic novels TXT) 📕

But you didn’t even get to go. “Hey, this is how it works. I earn the money and she spends it. What’s hers is hers and what’s mine is hers.”

Sometimes Dad talked like this about Mom. Lauren felt that old thrill in hearing it, but it left a sick aftertaste, like she’dbinged on candy just because Mom said she couldn’t. Dad talked about Mom like she was his disobedient oldest child who wouldsteal his credit card and run around unsupervised.

“Don’t worry about any of this, Lauren,” Dad said. “Your mom is going to come back home, and the Bills are going to win theSuper Bowl.”

 

Lauren sat cross-legged at the lip of the Bethune auditorium stage at an evening rehearsal of All My Sons, Claire and Stitch Rosen on either side of her, as Mr. Smith paced around them. Abby in the audience seats. Stitch, a sophomore,played Joe, Kate the matriarch’s husband, affable manufacturer of defective aircraft parts. The scene: Kate begs Joe to preservethe fantasy that their older son is still alive, somewhere in the Pacific theater, destined for a happily-ever-after withAnn, the beautiful girl.

Stitch had been one of the last boys to change. Over the summer, his voice dropped, his nose widened, his legs grew so fastthat they bowed with the effort. He had bad skin and a glassy, distant affect, as if he were always five minutes away fromfalling asleep. It was often difficult to tell if he was bored by the task at hand, or in fact extremely engaged to the pointof a trancelike state. Onstage, he projected his dialogue in a baritone singsong that didn’t sound much like the mild tenordrone of his regular speaking voice. Maybe his delivery was a prank, but because he was so committed to the joke, and becausehe never broke character or revealed the punch line, when he was onstage there was a vibrating tension—a suspense of uncertainty,an essential mystery to his every word and gesture. Mr. Smith said Stitch had charisma.

“‘Nobody in this house dast take her faith away’—c’mon, that’s a great line!” Mr. Smith was saying to Lauren. “It lands likea series of blows. It’s pretty close to iambic”—he paused, whisper-counting the beats—“hexameter. Poetry in prose.”

“It can still be a good line if I say dare instead of dast,” Lauren said.

“And what an act of projection!” Mr. Smith continued.

“Or should,” Lauren said. “No one in this house should take her faith away.”

“Kate says they shouldn’t rob Ann of her faith that her beloved is still alive,” Mr. Smith said, “when really Kate is talkingabout herself. ‘No one dast take my faith away’ is what she’s truly saying. She’s saying, ‘Nobody mess with the reality I’ve created for myself—’”

“You get that, right?” Stitch asked Lauren. Lauren didn’t know if Stitch was making fun of her or making fun of Mr. Smith,or neither, or both.

“‘—because—because I’m the one holding this family together,’” Mr. Smith–as-Kate finished.

“Are we sure it’s not a misprint?” Lauren asked. “Dast?”

“Think about it: Kate had a son old enough to be a pilot in World War II, so even if she’d had him just out of her teens .. .” Mr. Smith’s eyes widened, and he held his hands open toward Lauren, as if giving her some kind of cue, like this scrapof information was especially relevant to her. “So even if she’d had him very young, she would have been born at the turn of the century. You don’t think people talked a bit different back then?” Mr. Smithsaid.

“Try the line again?” Abby said. She had to call out to be heard from the seats, yet she still sounded calm and patient.

“Nobody in this house—dast—take her faith away,” Lauren said.

“You say that word like it’s in quarantine,” Stitch said.

“Words will never hurt you, Lauren,” Claire beside her said.

“Think of people you know of—of great faith,” Mr. Smith said. “Your mom, for instance.”

Lauren glanced over at the auditorium exits as if Mr. Smith had spotted Mom there.

“My mom?” Lauren asked.

“Or, Ted, do you think it would be helpful for Lauren to imagine that she’s doing Shakespeare?” Claire asked, and turned to Lauren. “You wouldn’t change all the thees and thous in Shakespeare, would you, Lauren?”

“You’re not even in this scene!” Lauren said.

Claire smiled languidly at Lauren from where she sat, her legs slung to one side under a long corduroy skirt. She shaded hereyes and looked out at the seats where Abby was sitting.

Paula said that there were two Claires, the cat and the dog. The cat was slinky and sneaky. She watched you and avoided youat the same time. The dog gazed at you dreamily and wanted your approval and you wanted to take the dog home, but then youfound the cat sneaking around your house instead. Lauren missed Paula, just then.

“Okay,” Mr. Smith said, clapping his hands together. “Lauren, you have homework. Tomorrow morning, when you’re in the shower,say the line ten times fast. It will be just you in there, no one to make you feel self-conscious, and you can really—reallywrap your mouth around it. Uh, wrap your tongue around it. Whatever!”

“Stop Harris-ing her, Mr. Smith,” Claire said, teasing, and Mr. Smith shut his eyes and shook his head, putting his handsup. Everyone in the upper grades thought it was hilarious how the senators in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings saidHarris instead of ha-RASS. Jason Harris, a junior, had to deal with a lot of jokes. The lower grades, as well as PJ and Sean, had more to say aboutthe pubic hair on the can of Coke.

“Do you want somebody to walk you home?” Stitch asked Lauren.

“No, thanks, I can walk,” Lauren said, shouldering her backpack.

“Is your mom still away, Lauren?” Mr. Smith asked. Claire cocked her head in sympathy. Lauren tugged at one strap of her backpack,pretending to adjust it. How did they know about Mom? What did they know? Lauren paused in the space between the question and her response. She felt the space she took up in their imaginations.

“She is coming back