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

Lauren felt a crystalline desire, a longing she could feel calcifying under her brow and the nape of her neck, for Dad tostop talking, stop being there. She did not want to have to share her anger with Dad’s anger.

“And why were you talking to them about Mirela?” Lauren asked. “She has nothing to do with any of this.”

“She shouldn’t have been there!” Dad’s voice had climbed to a yell.

If Lauren had to halve her anger to make room for Dad’s, then her pity would see its chance to sidle in and smother her resolution. She did not want to pity her mother, so small and helpless on the couch, so reasonable and remorseful.

“Mirela is nobody’s business but ours,” Lauren said.

“I didn’t volunteer that Mirela was adopted,” Mom said. “The reporter asked me, and I said yes. And then the reporter said,‘Could you answer in a complete sentence, so it’s easier for us to edit together later?’ so I said, ‘She is adopted.’ Or whateverI said. Then there was an awkward silence, like they wanted me to say more, and I didn’t know if it was just going to be deadair on TV. I guess I forgot it wasn’t live. I was trying to be polite. Notice how they keep cutting away to Mirela or to theother protesters? You can see there that they edit it together to twist the meaning. They manipulate the conversation likethat. They manufacture it.”

Dad was talking over her. “They wouldn’t have had any footage to manipulate if you had just shut up! Just shut the hell up!What the hell were you thinking, Jane?”

“Don’t tell Mom to shut up!” Lauren yelled, and Dad stamped out of the room.

Jane slumped deeper into the sofa. “Dad is right. Father Steve stood us up,” she told Lauren. “And as far as I know, the reverendis still in jail.”

“What for?” Lauren asked.

“Or not in jail, in the rec center.”

Mom had gone to all that trouble, and she hadn’t even made it to real jail.

“Why’s he in the rec center?”

“For disorderly conduct and for creating a physically offensive condition,” Jane said.

Dad by the door again. Shifting from foot to foot, snorting, shuffling. Nobody ever accused Dad of wanting attention.

“What does ‘creating a physically offensive condition’ mean?” Dad asked, gripping either side of the door frame like he couldtear down the walls if he received the wrong answer.

“It’s when Sean lays a log and forgets to flush,” PJ said from his spot inches away from the TV. PJ said this tentatively, like a peace offering.

“The reverend pulled a bit of a stunt,” Mom said.

“He threw a dead baby into the crowd!” Sean said.

“No—wait, how did you hear that?” Mom asked.

“Everyone heard that,” Sean said.

“Who is everyone?” Dad asked.

“I heard a bunch of lesbians started playing Hacky Sack with the dead baby,” PJ said. He paused and looked around, still concernedthat he was interpreting the mood of the room correctly. “That was a joke.”

Sean laughed, trying to reassure PJ. “Right, I get it, because Mom thinks all the baby killers are lesbians!”

“No, I do not—it’s not—it was a doll,” Mom said. Her throat audibly constricted on the word doll. Lauren wondered if her dad or brothers had heard it—that was the tell.

“You don’t know it was a doll,” Lauren said.

“A very realistic doll,” Mom said. “People assumed it was real, and he was shoving it in everyone’s face.”

“I shove my balls in your face,” yelped Sean, and PJ clamped his hand over Sean’s mouth, and Sean slurped at his brother’s palm.

“How do you know for sure it was a doll?” Lauren asked.

“A cop threw up,” Mom blurted out.

“So, right—why would a cop throw up if it was just a doll?” Lauren asked.

PJ made retching noises, opening his mouth wide enough for Sean to hock a loogie into it.

“When you were born, Lauren, Dad said you looked like a doll,” Mom said.

“I did?” Dad asked.

“I don’t remember that,” Lauren said.

“Of course you don’t—you were just born,” Mom said.

Mom only told stories about the three of them that they were too young to remember, stories they couldn’t tell themselves; they couldn’t quibble over details. Maybe that was when Mom loved them best, before they could make memories that she couldn’t have all to herself.

“Did it have a smell?” Lauren asked. “The baby?”

“Lauren, that’s kind of an awful question,” Mom said.

“Lauren, that’s kind of an awful smelly ass you have,” Sean said.

“It doesn’t even matter whether or not it was real,” Mom said. “They made their point.”

“Did you make your point, Jane?” Dad asked. “Did you get your point across?”

“Leave her alone!” Lauren screamed at Dad, standing up as Mom caught her arm, and he punched the door frame with his fistand walked out of the house.

“Hey, Lauren,” Andy said. The tone of a swiveling head. Andy, Stitch, and Rajiv were walking out of Tedquarters. She was latefor rehearsal. “Seems like your mom is so busy saving babies that she can’t keep track of her own kid.”

“The irony is not lost on her,” Lauren said.

“Sucks for you to have to kiss her,” Andy said to Stitch, “seeing as she thinks your dad’s a baby killer.”

“I do not think that,” Lauren said. Andy knocked into her opposite hip as he and Rajiv walked past. “Whoops, sorry!” he sangover Rajiv’s screeching cackle.

Stitch hung behind. “I’m sorry he said that,” Lauren told him.

“We’re expected to go to the auditorium now to practice ‘We Go Together,’” Stitch said, looking past her down the hall.

The big closing number, entire ensemble, the fastest choreography, lyrics full of junk and nonsense, mortifying wompa lompa lompas and dippety doo bee dahs. Lauren had skipped the previous run-through of the song, and she hadn’t practiced on her own at all.

Lauren followed Stitch to the auditorium. “Stitch, honestly, I’m sorry about everything that happened with the protest and all that junk.”

“Thanks,” Stitch said, stopping outside the entrance to the wings. “I think they’re set to go. Everyone’s up there but us.”

“Are you okay?”