Toni carefully refrained from pointing out that there were horror books, too. And it was hardly fair to take that tone with Ryan, who, if not a bookworm, was certainly a good reader. She just bowed her head submissively, and murmured something conciliatory.

Rod Junior kept right on with his breakfast, ignoring the whole thing. Rod finally turned to him after a moment and asked, “And what about you, son? Any stupid nightmares?”

Rod looked up, first at her, then at his younger siblings, and shook his head. “Nightmares are for babies,” he said contemptuously, polishing off the last of his eggs.

Rod gave her a there, you see! kind of triumphant glance, as if that had proved something. Presumably that she should have somehow trained the younger kids out of nightmares by now, weaned them away from bad dreams as if she were toilet-training them.

All it proves is that Rod is his father’s child.

And that Rod Junior knew how to say the things that his father wanted to hear. Young Rod was Rod’s unconcealed favorite. He succeeded at the things Rod Senior thought were important; he had learned how to parrot every opinion his father had, whether he understood it or not. But most of all, it proved that he hadn’t a gram of imagination.

Of course he doesn’t have nightmares. He doesn’t have enough imagination to produce them. But she could hardly say that to Rod, who spoiled the boy something awful. Or even if she did—imagination wasn’t the kind of thing that Rod valued. “Guts,” “smarts,” “brains,” “gumption,”—all those mattered. Not sensitivity or imagination.

She wondered what that little “I don’t believe in nightmares” remark was going to earn Rod Junior this time. Every time he came up with some comment that showed how much like his father he was, he generally got a reward by the end of the day. Probably the CD player he’d been wanting. Not that the other two had any real use for a CD player, but Rod Junior’s room was stuffed full of the toys and treats his father brought him every time he said something his father considered clever. Or, in other words, proved himself to be a copy of Rod. It happened at least once a week, and it wasn’t fair to the other two.

She sighed, though strictly internally. But life isn’t fair. They’re just learning that a little early. I think it’s time to change the subject before he starts in on Ryan and Jill.

“Rod, I hate to bother you”—she always began her requests with that phrase—“but the dryer is getting unreliable. I’d really like to call a repairman to come and look at—”