and violence was reassuringly familiar. For the first time all night he felt nearly at ease. Apparently, these people weren’t as different as he’d first imagined.
7
CORRINE WOKE FEELING CLOUDY AND ANXIOUS, experiencing a sinking dread as she reviewed the evening’s absurd and mortifying climax. As many outrages as her sister had committed over the years, this was truly the most unforgivable.
She found Russell out in the kitchen, finishing off the dishes, a fresh blue-and-yellow bruise on his left cheek.
“Ouch,” she said. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when I breathe.” He poured her a cup of coffee from the French press.
“I still can’t believe it. When I woke up just now, I thought, There’s no way that actually happened.”
“On a happier note, the Democrats took control of both houses.”
She heard a thump from one of the kids’ rooms. “Oh shit,” she said. “We’re going to have to have a serious talk. But first we’ve got to figure out what to say.”
“Fucking Hilary.”
“Really. Hilary the C-U-N-T. You were so great, Russell. I never thought I’d approve of anyone using that word. Ever. But I couldn’t think of a more appropriate deployment.”
“Well, I’ve always believed there is a precise word or phrase for every need, and that was the exact word for the occasion. And by the way, she’s banned from our threshold henceforth.”
“You won’t hear an argument from me.”
“Persona non grata.”
“I think we need to talk to the kids right away.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But not this morning. Too much to process. I’ll come home early tonight and we’ll have a family dinner.”
Sometimes, just when she needed him most, Russell came through for her, and she suddenly experienced a little shudder of guilt about her recent preoccupation with Luke.
The kids were unusually quiet, and even manageable, as if fearful of what might happen next. Russell took them off to school, promising to get home early. Corrine poured a second cup of coffee and tried to plan her day. She had to go to the office and organize Saturday’s food giveaway in Harlem, but she also knew that she wouldn’t really be able to concentrate—the combination of a little too much wine at dinner and being completely distracted by the situation that Hilary had created.
How many times had she asked herself why she’d chosen her as an egg donor, her irresponsible, coked-out, slutty little sister, and yet, to question that decision was to question the children’s very identity; they were, for better and for worse, hatched from Hilary’s eggs, and she couldn’t repent the choice without in some fundamental respect renouncing the result. She couldn’t imagine loving her children more completely, and at this point days and even weeks went by when she never once thought of the circumstances of their conception, because she could not possibly have felt more like their mother. For most of human history, being a mother meant bearing young from your womb. She’d always imagined that they were out there in the void, waiting for her, these little souls, and that after years of struggle and miscarriage and failed in vitro fertilizations she’d discovered a way to reel them in. She believed they were hers; she would never allow herself to be swayed by mere biology.
But now she was scared, riddled with doubts, most specifically that they would love her less when they found out the facts, that they’d blame her for not being who they had so implicitly believed her to be, or, worst of all, that they would gravitate toward Hilary, their real mother, their flesh and blood. She’d once had a nightmare in which her sister and Russell had run away together with the children. She sometimes masochistically imagined the day in the not too distant future when one or both would ask if they could live with Aunt Hilary. She was haunted, too, by something Hilary had said that summer they’d all shared the house in Sagaponack
7
CORRINE WOKE FEELING CLOUDY AND ANXIOUS, experiencing a sinking dread as she reviewed the evening’s absurd and mortifying climax. As many outrages as her sister had committed over the years, this was truly the most unforgivable.
She found Russell out in the kitchen, finishing off the dishes, a fresh blue-and-yellow bruise on his left cheek.
“Ouch,” she said. “Does it hurt?”
“Only when I breathe.” He poured her a cup of coffee from the French press.
“I still can’t believe it. When I woke up just now, I thought, There’s no way that actually happened.”
“On a happier note, the Democrats took control of both houses.”
She heard a thump from one of the kids’ rooms. “Oh shit,” she said. “We’re going to have to have a serious talk. But first we’ve got to figure out what to say.”
“Fucking Hilary.”
“Really. Hilary the C-U-N-T. You were so great, Russell. I never thought I’d approve of anyone using that word. Ever. But I couldn’t think of a more appropriate deployment.”
“Well, I’ve always believed there is a precise word or phrase for every need, and that was the exact word for the occasion. And by the way, she’s banned from our threshold henceforth.”
“You won’t hear an argument from me.”
“Persona non grata.”
“I think we need to talk to the kids right away.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But not this morning. Too much to process. I’ll come home early tonight and we’ll have a family dinner.”
Sometimes, just when she needed him most, Russell came through for her, and she suddenly experienced a little shudder of guilt about her recent preoccupation with Luke.
The kids were unusually quiet, and even manageable, as if fearful of what might happen next. Russell took them off to school, promising to get home early. Corrine poured a second cup of coffee and tried to plan her day. She had to go to the office and organize Saturday’s food giveaway in Harlem, but she also knew that she wouldn’t really be able to concentrate—the combination of a little too much wine at dinner and being completely distracted by the situation that Hilary had created.
How many times had she asked herself why she’d chosen her as an egg donor, her irresponsible, coked-out, slutty little sister, and yet, to question that decision was to question the children’s very identity; they were, for better and for worse, hatched from Hilary’s eggs, and she couldn’t repent the choice without in some fundamental respect renouncing the result. She couldn’t imagine loving her children more completely, and at this point days and even weeks went by when she never once thought of the circumstances of their conception, because she could not possibly have felt more like their mother. For most of human history, being a mother meant bearing young from your womb. She’d always imagined that they were out there in the void, waiting for her, these little souls, and that after years of struggle and miscarriage and failed in vitro fertilizations she’d discovered a way to reel them in. She believed they were hers; she would never allow herself to be swayed by mere biology.
But now she was scared, riddled with doubts, most specifically that they would love her less when they found out the facts, that they’d blame her for not being who they had so implicitly believed her to be, or, worst of all, that they would gravitate toward Hilary, their real mother, their flesh and blood. She’d once had a nightmare in which her sister and Russell had run away together with the children. She sometimes masochistically imagined the day in the not too distant future when one or both would ask if they could live with Aunt Hilary. She was haunted, too, by something Hilary had said that summer they’d all shared the house in Sagaponack
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