The Explanation for Everything by Lauren Grodstein Read Free Book Online

words.
    â€œIt just takes a second,” she said, forcing the bag into his hands. “Come on, Andy, pour ’em in the water. I still have to finish the stew.”
    Well. The thing had to be done—there was no way around it, and regardless of his objections (the heat, the sweat, the moral question, his older daughter shooting his younger’s avatar in the head) it would be unmanly for him to refuse. The lobsters would go into the boiling water and scrabble for perhaps thirty seconds more, and then the scrabbling would turn into a faint scratching at the merciless stainless steel sides of the pot. And then, after another minute or so, the noise would disappear. Life, such as it was, would be extinguished.
    Sheila would remove the lobsters from the stockpot with tongs, perhaps holding them up for a moment to let the water bead off them, to admire how rosy they’d turned when boiled. Then she’d decapitate and deshell them to the benefit of the seafood stew she was making him and his daughters to celebrate the beginning of the new school year.
    â€œGo on then,” Sheila said. “They might break through the bag if you don’t get them in there soon.”
    What was his problem? “Right,” he said. “Okay.” He dumped the desperate beasts into the stockpot, and merciless Sheila clapped her hands. He looked out her window, at the overgrown maples with the menacing roots.
    The scrabbling inside the pot grew manic.
    â€œStew is a great way to stretch lobster meat,” Sheila said, turning her attention to a bowl full of potatoes. “It’s still an indulgence, of course, but buying two is a whole lot cheaper than buying four.”
    She blew a stream of air upward into her frizzy bangs. She was not just a murderer; she was a parsimonious murderer.
    But oh, how could he be churlish about this celebration? She didn’t have to do anything for him at all, much less buy him lobsters, much less carefully prepare them for ungrateful him and his ungrateful daughters. As they sat at the table together, Sheila’s dark wooden table, under the cracked plaster ceiling of her dining room, Andy watched both his girls gaze longingly at Jeremy’s chicken nuggets. The stew in their bowls was milky. Potatoes and translucent pieces of fish bobbed around the surface.
    â€œI’d like to propose a toast,” Sheila said, raising her glass of iced tea. She had been in AA for five years, and was very open about her alcoholism and related troubles; perversely, this was one of the first things he had liked about her. “To Professor Waite,” she said. “On the occasion of a new semester at Exton Reed. And to you kids too. Fifth grade and third grade!”
    â€œUgh, don’t remind me,” said Rachel, who just this past month had begun affecting an attitude of disenchantment. Was this normal preteen posturing? Or if something were really wrong, would she tell him?
    â€œAnd Andy, aren’t you up for tenure at the end of the year?” said Sheila, who remembered everything.
    â€œUgh,” he said. “Don’t remind me.”
    â€œCome on,” said Sheila. “You’re a shoo-in.”
    â€œWith tenure there’s no such thing as a shoo-in. Even at Exton Reed.”
    â€œBut you said your experiments were going so well!”
    â€œCircumstances change,” he said, mildly. He didn’t want his daughters to know what he worried about. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
    â€œGirls,” said mock-exasperated Sheila, “why can’t your father ever be optimistic?”
    â€œBecause then we wouldn’t recognize him,” Rachel said.
    â€œIt’s not his fault,” said Belle, an expert in fault. “He’s had a lot of bad luck.”
    â€œBut good luck too,” said Sheila.
    â€œGood luck too,” Andy repeated, to prove he could fake cheer. “I mean, here I am with you guys! If