Little Monsters

by Adrienne Brodeur

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

The doctor reviewed Adam’s long history of episodes, noting that he generally cycled once a year, typically in the late spring, with symptoms lasting anywhere from ten to fourteen weeks. “Looks like you’re not too far off your normal schedule,” he said. “We should be able to manage this pharmacologically, no problem. That said, many of my patients benefit from group therapy. Have you considered this option, Dr. Gardner?”

Back in his day, socks like those indicated only one thing: a pansy.

When had it become a crime to appreciate an attractive woman?

He waited in line behind a lumpy woman in leggings, an unfortunate fashion choice.

Danny McCormick, the most popular kid in his class, had seen his hesitation, and Ken’s reputation as a loser was sealed in middle school as it had been in elementary, where he’d been teased for not having a mother and crying easily, but most of all, for being fat. Well, who’s crying now, Danny McCormick? Ken had kept an eye on that dickhead’s net worth, and from now on, it would be from his rearview mirror.

Abby competed with Ken by pretending not to care, which he had to admit was a fucking brilliant strategy.

here was a good idea—he could give his father an extravagant gift for his upcoming seventieth birthday, a gift so over-the-top that the old leftie might think twice about his condemnations of capitalism, religion, and freedom.

Abby pulled the tab on her jacket’s zipper, knitting its teeth, and stepped out of the car.

“You know you’re the reason she’s dead, don’t you, Abby?” That silenced her. Later that night, Kenny slipped into her bed to apologize, distraught. “I didn’t mean it,” he said. But Abby knew he had. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just miss her.” Overwhelmed by guilt and confusion, Abby comforted him, heartbroken to know that she was responsible for their mother’s death and her brother’s loss.

Abby found herself editing the story to protect her friend—the wildness, the stints in rehab.

She was seven weeks pregnant. She had yet to tell a soul.

Abby planned to give the painting to her father for his seventieth birthday; it would also be how she announced her pregnancy.

Normally, Jenny was the first person Abby would tell news of this magnitude, but something was off between them lately, a chilliness that seemed to have blown in with the new year. They hadn’t fought, but Jenny had been avoiding her for a while now, rarely answering her calls and claiming to be too busy for their weekly lunch date.

For the first time in decades, she was hungry. Instead of wanting to disappear, Abby wanted to be seen.

The disease was most common in families of French Canadian descent and Ashkenazi Jews. Her family hailed from County Kerry, Ireland, on both sides.

Did we ever hear Adam’s background??

Now she understood that her physique was the result of a disease that caused her muscles to get stuck in a flexed position for a nanosecond longer than normal, resulting in an unintentional workout.

Steph didn’t understand why Catholics seemed to stick to the same dozen or so names—John, Peter, Michael, Joseph, Thomas.

Her father, an avid Red Sox fan, retreated to the den, while she and her mother flipped through old photo albums, letters, and medical files at the dining room table.

Her dad is someone else. Maybe ken's dad. Bday drama coming

“I guess,” Steph said. “But it leaves a mystery. And the only explanation I can come up with is that someone in our family wasn’t as God-fearing as you. Someone had an affair, no two ways about it.” There, she’d said it. “I’m just trying to figure out who. Grandma Maria, maybe? She was kind of a flirt.” “Really, Steph,” her mother snapped. “That’s hardly your business.

The details that her mother shared were cliché: a handsome stranger, too much to drink, getting in over her head in the back of his car. Mary Beth couldn’t remember big chunks of the night and had been naïve enough to be unaware that she’d lost her virginity until she missed her period.

Steph hadn’t realized she’d been shouting until her mother shushed her and glanced toward the den. And then it hit Steph. “Oh my God,” she whispered. Her father didn’t know.

“Mom, you haven’t been eighteen for a very long time,” said Steph. She didn’t have space for anything but the stripped-down truth. “You’ve had decades to make this right.”

True and annoingly selfish. So obvious . Like that doc of the girl who was half black in her jewish family

Would he still feel the same about her? Steph felt bereft, then suddenly, she was enraged at him, too. The obliviousness. He could count, couldn’t he? Nine months was nine months. Had it never struck him as strange that his wife gave birth to an eight-pound baby six and a half months after their wedding? Was it possible that he hadn’t done the simple math?

“You know I’ll be able to track him down. Save me the time and humiliation. You owe me that much.”

Later that night, gripping Toni’s hand as if it was the only thing that tethered her to the earth, Steph Googled Adam Gardner. Her biological father’s

Did his gorgeous charts and graphs add up to anything? Had the whales really been communicating in full phrases? he

A short time later, when Emily came into a small inheritance, she bought some acres in the dunes of North Truro and built a studio. A room of her own, she used to like to tell

Adam, something every woman needed. A slice of heaven on earth; she called it the Arcadia.

His children liked to build things, a trait they inherited from their mother.

Wife #2: Elizabeth Swan. Married in 1979, divorced in 1980. Was it necessary to count Beth? The marriage had been a “rebound,” as they say, only lasting a few months.

This marriage didn’t need to go on his permanent record. Wife #3: Gretchen Wingfield. United in 1983, splitsville in 1990.

Fatherhood

!!!

Yet while he loved his children dearly, Adam would be the first to admit he didn’t understand them. How had they ended up so unlike him?

Adam was sophisticated in terms of his taste in art, but when it came to portraying the female form, beauty was what mattered. And yes, he knew better than to say as much to Abby. He’d heard all he ever needed to about the male gaze.

She wasn’t sure why she was keeping secrets, except for an underlying feeling that her success might derail the men in her life, who were accustomed to getting the lion’s share of attention.

“Did you hear me, Charon?” her father yelled at the pond, saliva gathering in the corners of his mouth. Okay, something was definitely not right. Abby’s chest tightened. “Looks like you’ve lost weight, Dad,”

Abby understood that she was not to tell Ken about the wildest parts of his wife’s wild-child days, and Ken made it clear that the topic of his past was off-limits in her conversations with Jenny. Her brother had worked hard to become the striking, successful man that Jenny had fallen in love with, and he did not want his bride to know that he’d ever been anything less than that.

“There’s something else,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m a little worried about Dad. He’s pretty”—she paused, searching for the right word—“energetic.” “Abby, he’s fine. You’re always so dramatic,” Ken said, dismissively. “I talked to Dad yesterday. He’s just worked up about some new whale research.”

Little monsters, indeed!

Did either of his children appreciate any of the sacrifices he’d made?

His sweet, unruly, little monsters.

Grandiosity, he knew, was a telltale sign of mania and one that his daughter was always on the lookout for. Adam

The guy was so beta. How could Ken take life advice from a seaweed-eating pacifist?

Jenny still can’t seem to let go of”—he searched for the word—“that incident.

I try to hold a mirror up for you to see how your behavior affects you. And I still root for you.”

“Again, it would be helpful to know exactly what Jenny walked in on that drove you here in the first place.” “I told you at our first session what brought me here,” Ken said, hating to think about what Jenny might have seen or heard that day when she’d walked in on him in Command Central. Why had he thought wearing noise-canceling headphones was a good idea? “Try me again,” George said. Ken crossed his arms. “It’s not what you think.” He had nothing to feel guilty about. “I’ve never touched a woman other than my wife since I got married.”

We still don’t get the full answer

undo what she saw.” Ken shifted uncomfortably. He liked to watch people cuddle was all, not something he planned to admit to George.

WATCH???? Ok so it was cuddling and not anything more?

“For as long as I can remember, my father’s been on some monomaniacal mission around whales. You have no idea how much oxygen one man can suck out of a room.

The world doesn’t need another Michael, no offense to my dad.” “And no world has ever needed a Regis or Finley.”