the stairs. But Ted believes she was pushed. He said so, with no horror in his voice. Said it as if it were a fact he was reading in her obituary: Lydia Brierley is survived by her son, Edward, and her husband, Saul, who shoved her down the stairs. We didn’t go to the funeral.
A few years later, when a neighbor of Ted’s parents contacted Ted to tell him Saul had died, I was home from college for winter break. Ted didn’t say much after he got the call. Just drank half a bottle of whiskey, even though he never really drinks at all. Then, when he was good and hammered, he stood in my bedroom doorway. Stared at me as he slurred, “Whatever I’ve done to you, Fern. My Experiments. Whatever fear I’ve made you feel. I never hurt you. Never laid a hand on you. You never have to worry about that from me.”
I remember lying in my bed, sheets pulled to my chin like a child. I stared at him with wide, admiring eyes. Besides the time he left me alone overnight, let me spiral into thoughts of being orphaned—it was the closest he’d come to acknowledging that his Experiments weren’t always to be revered. It felt like hearing I love you.
I know I shouldn’t psychoanalyze my own father, but it’s difficult not to do. According to his obituary, Saul Brierley was deeply respected. He was known around town as a good, dependable man who helped out his neighbors and worked his fingers to the bone to provide for his family. But behind closed doors, he was someone else entirely. Mara says that Saul was a red-faced electrician who believed that the measure of a man was in what he did with his hands. He called Ted a “faggot” for doing well in school, for nearly acing the SATs. Ted’s always acted as if it didn’t bother him—A faggot’s a bundle of sticks, he said to me once, as he emerged from his office after seventeen hours of loud, frenetic typing, and do you know what sticks do, Fern? They burn—but why else would he latch on to the success of Brennan Llewellyn, the top of their class in grad school, as the benchmark he must meet and surpass? If he can be on talk shows, too, if he can publish a bestseller every other year, if he can hear an audience’s applause, see all the starred reviews flood in, he’ll know for sure that his father was wrong. That his mind made him more of a man than his hands ever did. That he didn’t need to hurt anyone else to know he was strong.
So I don’t blame him for the way he is. If anything, I admire him. Ted is a man who saw the truth about his father—how toxic he was—and got the hell out. A lot of people wouldn’t have the strength to leave someone behind so completely.
And honestly, he’s done okay. He never called me names. Never hit me or punched me or twisted my arm so far back the bone actually snapped. It’s not like he even wanted me in the first place. Ted and Mara never planned to have kids. They had no ovulation tests, no calendars with circled dates. But it happened anyway and they did the best they could.
Still, when I think of my childhood, most of what I remember is a persistent ache. Like a fist pressed against my ribs. Like legs that cramp after sitting in the same position for too long. So was their best enough?
Will mine be?
I know that Eric will be great. As a father, he’ll know the lyrics to every lullaby. He’ll know details of fairy tales that are still fuzzy to me. I know there’s one about a girl who gets eaten by a wolf disguised as her grandmother. But I have no idea how she arrives at that moment. How she doesn’t even see that the woman is really a beast.
And why are these the stories we tell to children? How do we tuck them in afterward and expect them to sleep? I wonder if it’s really so different—the fear Ted provoked and prodded, and the telling of tales where kids are devoured. Maybe we scare our children to prepare them for the world. Men in welder’s masks. Witnesses who see but don’t help. Basements that double as dungeons. But if my world is soon to be that of a