Wednesday by Tehlor Kay Mejia

Author:Tehlor Kay Mejia [Mejia, Tehlor Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2024-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

“So, who wants to start?”

Dr. Kinbott is sitting across from the Addamses looking just the way she always looks—altogether too cheerful for the situation at hand. We’ve been here for ten minutes of our designated fifty. No one has said a single word, and this question doesn’t prompt anyone to change that.

“Maybe we can discuss what it’s like to have Wednesday away from home?” she suggests. Still nothing. Pugsley reaches out to the bowl of potpourri in the center of the table between our family and the doctor and takes a handful, crunching on them as if they’re chips.

I stifle a laugh.

“I mean, for me…,” he says when he’s swallowed half a cinnamon-scented pine cone.

“Yes, Pugsley?” Dr. Kinbott asks with too much enthusiasm.

“It’s been really hard not having Wednesday around,” he says. His lower lip is trembling. “I…I never thought I’d miss being physically tortured so much.”

Again, I have to suppress a smile. We’ll always have our memories.

“Okay!” It’s clear Dr. Kinbott is reaching her limit. “Morticia, Gomez? How have you been coping?”

My mother leans forward in her chair. I can feel a scene coming on. “It’s been torture for us too,” she says. “We’ve really had to lean on each other.”

At this, my father reaches across me, taking my mother’s hand and kissing it passionately. “Times like these really highlight the strength of our connection, don’t they, mi amor?”

“Absolutely,” my mother breathes. His caresses become more enthusiastic as the room melts away for them once again. I might as well not even exist, let alone Dr. Kinbott and her sterilized therapy room.

“Enough!” I shout over their passionate kissing noises. “I have something to say.”

“Wonderful, Wednesday,” Dr. Kinbott exclaims. “I don’t know that you’ve ever volunteered information in this office before.”

Ignoring her, I stride to the front of the room with Gomez’s police file in hand. “It’s high time my parents faced the music,” I say. “It seems they’ve been lying to me for years. Keeping secrets. Murderous secrets that need to be addressed.”

I brandish the file in front of me, open to a photo of my father’s alleged victim. He looks like your typical jock, 1990s edition. His hair swoops. He smirks.

“Who is Garrett Gates?” I demand. “And why were you accused of murdering him?”

My father has never once failed to make a comment, or a pun, or a joke, or a new nickname out of anything I’ve ever said to him. It’s almost satisfying to see him lost for words.

“Those charges were dropped,” my mother says, her face a mask. “Your father is an innocent man.”

“The local sheriff isn’t convinced,” I tell her, thinking of the look on Sheriff Galpin’s face when he first heard my name. Your father’s a murderer echoing in my head for months.

“Whoa,” Pugsley exclaims, looking between my parents for an explanation.

“Wednesday, I demand you stop this at once,” my mother says. The mask is cracking. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

“Actually,” Dr. Kinbott cuts in, “I think this is exactly the place.

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