Read In the Blood for Free Online Page B

taught myself,” he said. He pulled back his shoulders, gave me a heavily lidded look. “Who taught you? A monkey?”
    “Luke,” said Rachel. She put her fork down heavily. “That’s not nice. Apologize.”
    “Actually,” I said, “my father taught me.”
    Luke’s face went suddenly pale, and his posture grew rigid. The father button, I knew it well. The absence of a male presence in the home was notable by the fact that no one had mentioned it. I took a small, dark victory inside for hitting him where it hurt. Mature, I know.
    “Well, he must have been a shitty player,” said Luke. Rachel had gone very still, too, I noticed, and bowed her head. She was bracing herself for I don’t know what kind of emotional storm. A strongermother would have punished him and sent him from the table, would have done so long ago. But I found I couldn’t judge her. I felt sorry for her more than anything.
    I offered a little laugh to soften the energy, and they both looked at me. “He really wasn’t very good, to tell the truth. He was awful.”
    There was a moment, a held breath. Then everybody laughed, and any tension disappeared like mist.
    “Who wants ice cream?” asked Rachel, giddy, it seemed, with relief.
    We both did.

4
    Dear Diary,
    I am not much of a journal keeper. I’ve never felt the need to record my thoughts. In spite of some early hardships, I have always been a happy person, free from angst. And I used to pity the poor souls who needed to record their pain on the page—the misfits, the outcasts, the wallflowers. The pretty one, the cheerleader, the prom queen didn’t need to do that, did she? She had no secret pain to share with a Moleskine. I have been the girl cruising in a convertible along the beach drive, my golden hair flowing. I am the one who is envied, who is desired. I am not sure when that changed. But it has changed.
    If, a year ago, you had told me where I’d be today, I wouldn’t have believed you. Since then, a gray and gauzy film has settled over my life. My limbs ache with fatigue; I can barely pull myself from bed. When I look in the mirror, my golden hair has gone mousy, my eyes sunken, my skin gray. My hands shake from a constant throb of anxiety. And my days and nights are filled with the incessant crying of my newborn child. The keening, inconsolable wailing fills every nook and cranny of myconsciousness. It’s possible that each of us sleeps a few hours a day. But I still hear his misery in my brief and troubled dreams.
    I am being punished. I know that. There is no other explanation. Somewhere during a past life, I must have done something horrible. Maybe I suffocated my baby, or perpetrated a mass shooting, or stabbed a homeless person in a dark alley. Somehow I escaped punishment in that life, and so now, lifetimes later, a very special kind of hell is being rained down on me, the full rage of karmic justice.
    And if you think I’m being overly dramatic, consider this: sleep deprivation is a sanctioned form of torture, as is piping into a closed room the sound of a baby wailing. In its pitch, every human recognizes the notes of accusation and judgment—it is the very sound of failure, a veritable siren of misery.
    Right now, as my son screams, I am sitting in my walk-in closet, with classical music blaring outside in the bedroom. But I can still hear it, a single ugly note that never ceases. In case you think I am a depraved and mentally ill mother, which maybe I am, it is my mother’s turn to walk and walk and walk him. We take shifts—my mother, my husband, and I. We walk and walk and walk and walk, and soothe and croon and shush and rock and rock and rock. We never stop moving; we have crossed miles, oceans, and traveled into space walking our boy.
    Colic, the pediatrician says. Whatever the hell that means. It should stop at eight weeks. The digestive system should mature by then.
    The Baby Whisperer. The Happiest Baby on the Block. What to Expect When You’re