Brood Read Free Page A

Girl.
    â€œAlpine,” says Alice, choosing the Swiss Army.
    â€œI know kids don’t really use watches anymore,” Cynthia says. “What with phones and all.”
    â€œNo, this is amazing,” Adam says, strapping on the green-and-yellow watch with its face splashed with stars and daisies.
    Cynthia also read that amazing is what kids say now instead of cool. Things are clicking into place; this might not be as difficult as she was afraid it would be. Afraid? Forget it. Try petrified. Try sick with dread and uncertainty. Try hourly confrontations with her own inexperience. Becoming a parent at her age is like suddenly moving lock, stock, and barrel to a new country, knowing only a few rudimentary phrases of the language.
    â€œMore AC?” the driver asks. His voice is foggy, strange, off. It occurs to Cynthia that he might be transgendered. What a brave new world!
    â€œWe’re fine back here,” she says.
    She glances down at her hands and notices they are shaking. As much as she has looked forward to having custody of her sister’s children, she feels right now that the whole thing has been sprung on her as a huge surprise. No amount of thinking and wishing and planning has prepared her for this sudden and overwhelming sense she has that two helpless children have been entrusted to her. They have been through hell, and now Cynthia must remind herself that she has within her the power to restore them to some semblance of the carefree happiness and safety that she believes to be the birthright of every child.
    After accepting her gifts, they are paying no attention to her whatsoever. They are holding hands and gazing at each other. Their silent, cellular communication has not lessened in the many months they have been apart. Cynthia feels a small pang of exclusion, but mainly she is happy they have reconnected. Overjoyed, really. Overjoyed. No one will ever understand Alice the way Adam does, and no one will understand Adam like Alice, and thank God they are back together. May they never be separated again!
    â€œDid you have sisters where you were?” Alice asks Adam.
    â€œI guess. They had two girls, two boys, and me.”
    â€œWere they nice?”
    â€œThe last ones? Which ones do you mean? I had four different families.”
    â€œYeah. The last ones.”
    â€œThey were pretty old. They worried a lot about money. You had to choose if you wanted one of the heated rooms or a real lunch.”
    â€œI bet you took the heated room,” Alice says.
    â€œDefinitely!”
    â€œEating’s weird.”
    â€œMy Staten Island family served goose on Christmas Day,” Adam says.
    â€œIck. Let’s be vegetarian.”
    â€œOkay,” Adam says. “How many calories do you do?”
    Alice frowns, looks away. “So I guess you’re all mature and everything now, right?” she murmurs.
    â€œNo way!” Adam says, as if it were a matter of honor.
    And then, after a few moments of silence, Alice says, “Did you do okay in school?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMe neither.”
    The ringtone on Cynthia’s phone is chapel bells, and they are chiming now in her purse. She glances at the screen: Arthur Glassman.
    â€œHello, Arthur,” she says.
    â€œWhere are you?” he asks. He sounds furious.
    â€œIn the car. Thank you for arranging it for us.” She sees the driver’s eyes glancing back at her in the rearview mirror.
    â€œYour car is here, Cynthia. Waiting for you.”
    Chug-chug. The driver uses his controls to lock the doors.

Chapter 2
    I n a long, narrow apartment overlooking Gramercy Park, Ezra Blackstone and his sixth wife, Annabelle Davies, are fighting over air-conditioning. Ezra is seventy-one years old and has circulation problems and feels clammy and cold even on a hot day like this. Annabelle is twenty-eight; she spent the first twenty-seven years of her life in Monroe, Louisiana, and then, as she frequently