The Lost Daughter Read Online Free Page B

tied my tubes, when they took Derek out,” she confessed in a low voice. “I didn’t tell Gerry till after. We can’t afford another. We’ve got to get a house.”
    “I think you’re fine with four. Two of each,” Brooke said.
    “I wouldn’t have had the courage to do it if this one hadn’t been a boy. Feminism’s a dirty word with this clan.”
    “I’m not sure it’s a word they can pronounce,” Brooke said, smiling.
    “Still, you know. Mum’s got a point.” Kate glanced around. Mum had risen and was making her way purposefully toward the drinks table. “If you wait much longer, Meghan’ll be halfway through elementary school. Look how mine play together.” She gestured toward the climbing structure, where her two oldest—both girls, their ages sandwiching Meghan’s—chased each other around the slide. “More than six years apart, you’ll never get that pleasure. There’ll be other pleasures, of course,” she hastened to add. “I don’t mean that, if you’re having trouble, you should stop—”
    “I appreciate your concern, Kate. Really, I do.” Brooke had straightened up. She liked Kate, she reminded herself. Kate had helped her learn the ins and outs of the O’Connors; had protected her from them. Her platter almost empty, she was already moving away. “We’re just taking our time,” she said.
    She set the handful of wings down with the rest of the food, which looked fairly scavenged. Two of Sean’s cousins were combining platters, tucking the empty ones away. Cumulus clouds crept over the horizon; the air was growing heavy. Several stands of late iris and daylilies had been trampled, Brooke noticed. She’d have to get to work early tomorrow, cut away the ruined blooms, prop up the injured stalks. Sean’s younger brother Danny was tossing up chunks of watermelon and catching them in his mouth, to the delight of a gaggle of nieces and nephews who tried the same and were littering the grass with juicy pink blobs that would draw bees. By the begonias sat a human layer cake: Gerry with Meghan on his lap and baby Derek, now awake, on hers. Derek’s lacy christening gown trailed over Meghan’s knees. With her uncle’s arms cupping them both, Meghan was giving the baby a bottle. “Look at me, Mommy!” she cried when she saw Brooke. The bottle immediately dipped; the baby’s arms flailed. “I’m nursing!”
    “Good girl,” Brooke said. “Keep the bottom up high, okay? Don’t want Derek to suck air.”
    “Here you go, Derry. Here you go.” Meghan turned her attention back.
    “She’s a natural,” Gerry said.
    “She loves your little guy,” Brooke said. Though Gerry didn’t reply, she heard his remark in her head:
She’d love one of yours better.
They never let up, even when they were silent. Even Neal, the gay one, when he visited from San Francisco, asked what was in Brooke’s oven.
    “Uh-oh,” said Meghan. Derek had twisted away from the bottle and begun to fuss.
    “It’s okay, honey,” Gerry was saying. He tried to lift the baby, get the bottle, and slide Meghan down at the same time. Brooke stepped in and picked up Derek. As she put him to her shoulder, she sawGerry’s eyes widen, as if her knowing how to burp a baby was a miracle. She turned away so that he couldn’t see the aggrieved look on her face. Derek gave a hiccup and a belch.
    “Eww!” cried Meghan. “It’s all nasty on your shoulder, Mommy!”
    “Doesn’t matter,” Brooke said. “It washes out.
You
feel better, don’t you?” she said to the baby—whose face, truth be told, looked like that of a jowly old man contemplating a jar of pickles. She was about to set the baby on her hip when she found Gerry reaching for him. She handed him over and went to find a paper napkin for her shoulder.
    The cumulus cloud had risen and darkened; the smell of ozone was in the air. The various components of the baggy family called the O’Connors—though there were Mulligans among them, and Peases and even