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

She heard shouting, not just an argument but something violent. A half block west, some Oh-Rs were scuffling with proborts.Jane turned toward the commotion, and in front of her stood an out-of-towner, maybe an Oh-R, a large, tuberous man in a darkfleece and a fisherman’s hat, holding a sign twice as wide as he was. It was pasted with side-by-side photographs of Dr. Rosenand a bloody fetus. Under Dr. Rosen’s photo, it listed his name, home address, and telephone number in block letters, easyto read from a distance. The words printed over the top of both pictures were which one of these is human garbage?

Jane rehearsed a quick speech in her head, like the first time she stood outside the Respect Life classroom. She opened hermouth and balked, lifted her foot and put it down again. She would tell him that she is Dr. Rosen’s neighbor. That her daughteris friends with Dr. Rosen’s son. That we hate the sin and love the sinner. That this is a community, and yes, we have ourdifferences, and we all want what’s best for women and babies, but even if Dr. Rosen has lost his way, there’s a better pathto—

“Just so’s you know, Rosen has a practice of his own, three blocks east of here,” Mr. Glover was saying to the man in thedark fleece.

“Three blocks from this place?” the man replied, incredulous. “Y’all got more abortion mills than gas stations around here. You walk out your houseany direction and somebody’s killin’ a baby. Buffalo has gotta get its house in order.”

Jane opened her mouth and closed it again. Mr. Glover’s mustache twitched. “We love our city,” he said. “We hope you do, too. Anyway, a house is what you’re looking for—big brick entryway tacked on the front—can’t miss it. He should be able to see your sign. It would do him good to see it.”

Jane looked at her watch. It was time to meet Pat in the 7-Eleven parking lot, just past the Pancake Palace, where he wouldhand off Mirela so she could attend the protest with Jane for a couple of hours.

“It’s not too late!” the Oh-Rs were yelling at a cordon of escorts concealing a patient as they approached the barricadesaround the WellWomen building. “You don’t have to go through this! Who’s making you do this? Who’s gotten into your head?Come talk to us! You’re going to be okay, just don’t go through that door!”

Jane walked west on Main Street toward the 7-Eleven, past the proborts chanting, “Pray! You’ll need it! Your cause has beendefeated!” There were so many of them, skies and rivers and glaciers of them, beneath the low dirty clouds. Or they movedas one body, one endocrine system, heeding orders from the same glands, activated by the same secretions. Receptors and plasmamembranes. Instincts but no intentions. Some of them didn’t live anywhere near western New York. Others were students fromUB or Buff State—they didn’t grow up here, or they wanted to pretend like they hadn’t. Sometimes, though, Jane could hearthe flat hoof of the accent stomping in the chant. Yer kaaz. Gunna stap.

An Oh-R leapt toward a barricade and clapped a sign over the head of a probort who had unlocked arms with his comrade fora thoughtless instant. Culling the herd. The moan of a fallen beast. The sign buckled in half and a cop tackled the Oh-R.The sign read abortion kills a baby but not her memory.

The protesters thinned out as Jane approached the intersection with Harlem Road. Bridal shop, knitting supply store, bakery. When she reached the Pancake Palace, she turned around to watch the scene of the protest from a distance, scanning it for the heroic detail, the single black-and-white freeze-frame that could run on all the front pages—the moment of the water cannon’s impact, the protester confronting a bayonet with a chrysanthemum. But this was just people yelling at each other while other people stood around and watched. Father Steve was right—it had the busy idleness of a tailgate, one where too many people had started drinking too early in the day.

Hubris was the thing Jane hated most in herself, and hubris had brought them all here. They thought they could do Wichitaall over again, in a different town and a different season, with a different cast, like a traveling show, like the probortscouldn’t rewrite and restage it with just a little heads-up. Jane turned back and could see the dragon wagon idling in the7-Eleven parking lot. She sprint-walked toward the car. She turned her abortion kills children sign facedown against her chest and stomach with one hand, and with the other, she waved at Pat as he walked around the carto open Mirela’s door. Forget all this hullabaloo, Jane would say to the two of them—let’s all head home together instead,or grab a bite at the Pancake Palace first. It was so rarely the three of them together, they could make something nice outof it, play hooky—

“Are you sure about this, Jane?” Pat was asking. His face was gnarled, like he’d just tripped over the Samersons’ deck. “Is this an appropriateplace for a child?”

He was already angry with her, and she hadn’t spoken a word. Of course he was angry; of course he would ask this question.He was right to ask it. And he did seem genuinely aggrieved. And yet he had agreed to this drop-off plan. And yet he had drivenMirela here, to the protest at the abortion clinic that he so avidly disapproved of. And yet he was already lifting Mirelaout of her car seat and handing her over to Jane like she was a sack of groceries. And yet he was getting back inside thecar. And yet he was staring at Jane through the open window, appalled at the things she made him do.

A memory: Jane in their driveway, trying to get PJ, not yet three, into his car seat as he arched his back and flung his body around, howling and pulling at her