The American Academy of Pediatrics could not explain why Martin, at seven years old, rolled around on the living room floor flapping his arms and cawing, while Teddy, who was not yet five, waited placidly on the front walk. Teddy rolled the empty wagon back and forth and sucked his thumb. Teddy was Emma’s defenseless plum baby who still nursed, who worshipped her weary body the way no man ever had. Martin, her firstborn, rose each morning with novel ways of turning Emma into someone she hated. Martin refused to get in the wagon until he found his troll doll with the hot pink hair and the hot pink shirt that read TOTALLY RAD, and after ten minutes of him flapping and cawing and not even looking for the troll, Emma wanted badly to hit him. Instead, she leaned down until her nose was almost touching his and she yelled into his face, If you don’t stop that I swear to God I will throw all your toys in the trash and I mean every single one do you hear me.
For some reason that didn’t make Martin stop. He only cawed louder right back at her, eye to eye, like she was the enemy and he the proud and defiant baby freedom fighter. He was not a baby. He was a big kid, which she screamed at him. She collected every toy she could find and dropped them into the can under her mother’s kitchen sink, where of all places she found the totally rad troll doll, so Martin was all right again, which meant she could be all right again, and both boys climbed into the wagon. Martin had his troll and Teddy had his plastic dragon and Emma had made it all morning without hitting anyone. She had a clogged milk duct in her right breast, which had lately grown into an enormous veiny ball of cement. Nevertheless, she persisted in pulling her kids in the wagon all the way to the park.
“When you were fghting with Martin, two birds stopped singing,” Teddy said, sailing his dragon over his head. The pain in Emma’s breast made her dizzy. She wanted to go home. She hadn’t wanted to go to the park in the frst place. She was here because of guilt. She was here because she was probably getting divorced. She was here because she was living temporarily in her mother’s house. She was here because the central organizing committee of Nation Awake, whose website said that its mission was to build identity, support community, and win local power, had chosen the town of Avalon, Ohio, for its frst annual White Family Picnic.
At dinner the night before, Emma’s mother had read the coverage aloud from her phone. Nation Awake, as it turned out, had a local campus chapter right here in Avalon. It had grown from ten to thirty members in the past year alone, according to a student spokesperson, who, oppressed by endemic cultural Marxism at the university, wished to remain anonymous. In fact, membership in white nationalist groups was up by at least ffty percent nationally, and growing. Nation Awake had invited organizations from Kentucky and West Virginia, from Pennsylvania and Maryland and Michigan. They were expecting picnickers in the hundreds.
Why Avalon? Emma said. I’d think we’re too small to be noticed.
Eloise held up her hand and kept reading. Appalachia is an obvious choice, the spokesperson said. The region is overwhelmingly European. Avalon, for example, has a population of twenty-four thousand. Twenty-two thousand of those people are white. We have been sneered at, made to feel bad about ourselves in the name of diversity. But our pure Scots-Irish ancestry is a source of pride, not shame. Like the Avalon of legend, we will rise to defend the land and the people from darkness.
Eloise put down her phone. Can you imagine, she said. In this year of our Lord 2017. Shameless. After what happened in Charlottesville this summer. And the media, my God. So voyeuristic and breathless.
In Emma’s opinion, Eloise sounded rather breathless herself. Emma rubbed her breast irritably.
What happened in Charlottesville? Martin asked. Nothing, Emma said.
What’s the Avalon of legend? asked Martin.
It’s like Legend of the Star Dragon, Teddy said, which was one of his audiobooks.
No, it’s not, Emma said.
The counterprotest is at one p.m., Eloise said. We’re trying to get numbers, but the mayor advised businesses to close and people to stay home.
So let’s stay home, Emma said.
Nonsense, Eloise said. White families need to say no. Which was how Emma knew she was being told to bring the kids.
At the park, Emma navigated the side of the police barricade designated for people who were against the White Family Picnic. The other side had no baskets, no blankets, no hot dogs, no ants, and no white families. Only a few League of the South guys in embarrassing breeches and suspenders. On Emma’s side, the turnout was also sparse. She found her mother and her aunt Dev at the fountain handing out placards that read NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS ALLOWED. Emma parked the wagon next to them and lowered herself onto the steps. Her breast was a pulsing alien egg sac about to hatch. “Teddy, I need you to nurse,” she said.
“Teddy doesn’t want to nurse from your disgusting monster boob,” Martin said and stuck his troll doll in his mouth.
“As soon as we get home you’re getting a spanking,” Emma said.
“You spank him too much,” Eloise said.
How much was too much? Once already this week. Twice the week before. The American Academy of Pediatrics was unequivocal on the matter. Not only was corporal punishment wrong, it also didn’t work. Emma had scrolled through the whole useless statement. Of course it was wrong. Of course it didn’t work. Yet, again and again, it was what she did. Emma loved Martin helplessly. Yet, just as helplessly, she wanted to hit him. The American Academy of Pediatrics had very little to say about what Emma typed into the search bar on sleepless nights. Violence. Instinct. Desire.
“You spanked me,” Emma said.
“I never did,” Eloise said.
“You hit me with a hairbrush,” Emma said.
“It was a different time,” Eloise said. “Besides, reflexive violence is completely different from systemic violence.” She gave a placard to a Happy Hills attendant whose hair was teased into a cotton candy bouffant.
“I still don’t know what you mean when you say that,” Emma said.
“I would never have told you that later I was going to spank you,” Eloise said. “That’s cruel. It creates a system of pain, fear, and punishment. I simply physically expressed my natural feelings in the moment. No premeditation. No method. When it was over it was over. It was honest. Emotional.”
“You could try the Discipline Café,” Dev said.
“The Discipline Café?” Emma asked.
“It’s at Mother Ginger’s,” Dev said. “The new childcare cooperative. You know, where the uncooperative hardware store used to be.”
“Right,” Emma said, and didn’t explain, even to herself, why she hadn’t been there yet. If Dev was not Emma’s actual aunt, there was no better word to describe her. Gadabout. Cool customer. Eloise’s best friend for nearly forty years. She wore her signature bleach-stained black T-shirt with a pocket for her chewing gum. She wore her signature mint-green Keds. She tossed Dum-Dums to Martin and Teddy, who nearly overturned the wagon diving for them.
Eloise held up a placard. “Did you get a look at these yet?” she asked. “Woody letterpressed them with the Multigraph I gave him. Impressive, right?”
“Woody didn’t show up, huh?” asked Emma.
“He’s contributing in his own distinctive way.”
“He’s using,” Emma said.
“Your brother needs your support, not your judgment,” Eloise said. She offered the placard. “Bring one of these to Mother Ginger’s when you go.”
“I never said I was going.”
“We want them up in all the local businesses.”
“Oh, Mom, I don’t know,” Emma said. She put her hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t have to take it.
Her mother looked at Emma the way she’d been looking at her since she was a baby, wondering if she would change. “Listen,” she said. “That thing with the hairbrush—hitting or whatever you called it—I would never do that now. People change. At the molecular level, I’m a completely different person. That’s scientifc.” She slipped the placard into Emma’s tote. Emma’s breast punctuated into a sharp needle. She stretched out the collar of her T-shirt and looked down to see that a white scab had formed on her nipple. The American Academy of Pediatrics had very little to say about breastfeeding your child beyond two years of age, but Teddy didn’t want to stop and Emma didn’t know how to stop him.
“I’m hungry,” Martin said in his pterodactyl voice, perfectly pitched to make Emma want to escape her body. “And Teddy’s hungry too. We’re both hungry.” He began to kap his arms. “Hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry.” The American Academy of Pediatrics had very little to say about maternal instinct. Emma used to think it was a myth. Now she knew it was real. Before Martin, she’d never felt that ache in her arm, that overpowering urge to swing out and make resounding contact. Now she couldn’t ignore it.
__________________________________
From Avalon, Rise: A Novel. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2026 by Madeline ffitch. All rights reserved.
