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Excerpt from Darin Strauss's "More Than It Hurts You"
The policewoman, her hair up, carried their son to the police car. Zack's thin friendly face rested on the woman's blue shoulder. Josh gnashed his teeth watching this. As a father he was so unfit for this moment it disturbed his balance like vertigo, like lightheadedness. The serenity of the baby's uncomprehending, impassive face looked as it had that first night in the hospital, with the merciless tubes connected to his body-So these are the things that I can expect will happen to me, as your son. That calm felt more horrifying than tears would have been. In the coming weeks, Josh kept seeing this, kept picturing Zack as he bounced along with the policewoman's stride, his noodle-arm around her collar and shoulder. The back of her neck had a patrol tan and showed its perpendicular cords; Zack's arm looked very pale in comparison.
Dori stood next to Josh and a little behind him in the doorway. Up on frenzied tiptoes, she tried grinning at her receding son, waving as if at a cruise ship's goodbye rail.
"Bye, honey!" In a sickening, sham-cheery voice. "We'll see you soon, okay? Bye! Bye! Bye…"
The male cop appeared at Josh's side. "Thank you for not making this, you know, any worse than it needed to."
Josh thought what to say. "Fuck you," he managed, without force.
The other man nodded, as if truly sorry.
"You seem like good people. Do what you can to get him back. That's the only advice I can give you is do what you can."
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