“Would you?” Wesley finished off the first beer and set the can down on the porch floor. “I mean, just for the sake of getting into her mind, would you?”
Tom rubbed the bottom of the beer can on his knee. He was still dressed in the gray trousers he’d worn to church, though his tie hung loose under his white collar. “No, I suppose not.”
“Well, then, that tells you you’ve got to take it slow with her. She’ll heed a little wooing.” Wesley opened his second beer. “ ’Course, that part could be fun.”
Tom glanced sideways at his dad and found Wesley doing the same at him. Momentarily the mischief faded from the older man’s eyes.
“So his name is Kent, is it?”
Tom nodded several times. “Kent Arens.”
“Kent Arens ...” Wesley sampled it. Quietly, he asked, “What’s he like?”
Tom wagged his head slowly, in wonder. “Aw, God, Dad, he’s incredible. He was raised in the South and he’s got impeccable manners, calls his teachers ‘ma'am’ and ‘sir.’ Exemplary grades, impressive school records, goals, the works. And he looks so much like me it’ll knock your socks off. Nearly knocked mine off when I put it all together.”
“Can’t wait to meet him.”
Tom went on as if Wesley hadn’t spoken. “Even the pictures of him down through elementary school. They were all there in his file, and when I looked through it ... well ...” Tom watched his thumbnail working against the paint on his beer can. “It was one of the most emotional moments of my life. I sat there at my desk, all alone, looking at this kid ... this boy who’s mine. I’ve never seen him before, and all of a sudden there before me are pictures not just of him, but of me. It felt as if I was looking at myself at those ages, you know, Dad? And I realized I was responsible for giving him life, yet I’d been robbed of sharing that life with him, and he’d been robbed of knowing me. And I felt guilty, and deprived, and sad. So damned sad I wanted to cry. Matter of fact, I did a little bit. I’ve had tears in my eyes more in the last couple weeks than in the last ten years, over this.”
“Does Claire know that?”
Tom glanced at his father and shrugged. Then he finished off his beer and put his can on the floor. They sat for a while, smelling the dusty pine duff from beneath the monstrous trees and the musty dog-days smell of aging cattails and lake shore, tipping their heads to watch a couple of mallards fly over the shoreline. The birds yelled, braack, braack, fading off in the distance as the porch roof cut them off from view. The sun warmed the men’s pants legs. The roof shaded their heads. Wesley reached into his tackle box for a whetstone and a fishhook and sat back passing time sharpening it.
Finally, Tom said, “Kent was conceived one week before I married Claire.”
Wesley finished the first hook and started on another.
“And Chelsea was beginning to get a crush on him, and Robby resents him on the football field because he bumped Robby’s best friend off the starting lineup. Also because he’s probably a better player than Robby is. Tomorrow at school we all have to face one another. It might possibly be the hardest for Claire, because she’s Kent’s English teacher.”
Wesley started on another fishhook. It rasped pleasantly against the stone, like some insect chirping in the garden. He took his time, studying his work myopically, checking the shiny tip again and again before finding it to his liking. He finished it and set it aside before he spoke again.
“Well, I’ll tell you what ...” He leaned back in his chair with his knees spread wide, resting his hands on them with the knuckles curled under. “A man sets a code for himself at some point in his life, and he lives by it. If he’s a family man, he gives his children something to live up to. If he’s a husband, he gives his wife something to rely on. If he’s a leader, he gives those under him standards to guide them. A man lives a life like that, he’s got nothing to be ashamed of. There isn’t a one of us didn’t do things in our younger days that we wouldn’t do now, if we could go back and change it. Only, we can’t. Living with mistakes, now that’s a tricky business. Tells a lot about a man, how he handles that. I think it’s always okay to feel a little guilty about some things—keeps a man in line, actually—as long as you don’t give guilt undue sway. Yessir, it’s a hard taskmaster, that guilt. I say, feel it, and wriggle a little bit if you have to, but then put it away. Get on with what you can change.
“Now you, Tom, you can’t change the first part of Kent’s life, but you can change the rest of it, and judging from what I’ve heard today, you have every intention of getting to know this son of yours. Be patient with Claire. Just keep loving her the way you always have. She’ll get over the shock, and once she does she’ll realize that this boy is going to bring something into your lives, not take something away. That’s the point when all this fuss will have been worth it for all of you.
“Meanwhile, you’ve just got to struggle along like the rest of us, and tell yourself that one big mistake doesn’t a bastard make, and I’m speaking of you, not your new son. Bring him around here sometime. I’d love to meet him, maybe show him how to pop for bass at the edge of the reeds or catch those sunnies out there off the point. Cook up a mess of ’em in beer batter, maybe tell him what kind of little boy his dad was. Be good for him, don’t you think?”
By the time Wesley was done, Tom’s heart had eased some. He sat relaxed with his head resting against the back of the chair; the situation at home seemed a little less dire.
“You know what?” he said.
Wesley chuckled. “That’s a dangerous question to ask an old windbag like me.”
Tom grinned and rolled his face toward his dad. “Every time I come out here, I go away realizing why I’m such a good principal.”
Wesley’s eyes held a glint of appreciation, but all he said was, “Want your other beer?”
“No. Go ahead.” Tom sat on, a little healed, watching his father.
Wesley rested his old eyes on the lake, a soft smile on his lips, and thought of how cool and tangy a beer tasted on a gorgeous fall afternoon like this, and how nice it was to have a son like this stop by and confide in him, cull a few bits of wisdom out of such a soft old brain as his, treat an old duffer like him as if he still had something to offer. Yup, it sure was fine, sitting here on the porch chairs with the sun on your legs and your fishing gear all in order and your boy at your elbow and Anne waiting on the other side. Yessiree, Anne, he thought, lifting his eyes to the blue-washed sky above the lake she had loved as much as he, we did a good job with Tom here. He’s turned into one damned fine man.
*****
The Monday morning routine never changed. Tom left home at quarter to seven, Claire a half hour later. They saw each other again in the teachers’ lunchroom at a 7:30 staff meeting, over which Tom presided.
Nothing had changed at home. Claire had slept hugging her edge of the mattress. She had dressed behind the closed bathroom door. The kids had been remote and quiet. Nobody ate breakfast at the table, but took juice to their rooms instead. When Tom had gone to find Claire and say, as usual, “I’m leaving. See you later,” she hadn’t said a word.
The place had felt like a torture chamber. And now he faced another.
As he walked toward the teachers’ lunchroom for the staff meeting, he thought of what a relief it would have been to work anywhere else today, to be able to immerse himself in concerns unrelated to his family life. Instead he already felt drained, preparing to face Claire in front of all their co-workers with the weight of their domestic estrangement between them.
Before the door closed behind him he was scanning the teachers’ lunchroom for his wife. She was sitting at the farthest table among others from her department, drinking coffee, taking no part in the conversation and occasional laughter. The moment he entered, her eyes met his above the cup and she hastily looked away. He turned to the stainless-steel percolator, filled a cup for himself, returned some ‘good mornings,’ and attempted to gather his emotional equilibrium.
&nbs
p; They’d had disagreements before, but he’d never faced Claire as her principal with hostility of this magnitude between them. It was uncomfortable being her superior at a time when his guilt weighed heavily.
The cooks had left a tray of warm caramel rolls. He helped himself to one and took his mug of hot coffee to his usual spot at the near end of the center table. Coach Gorman came in, dressed in sweats and a baseball cap, garnering congratulations on Friday night’s game. When he carried his coffee past Tom’s chair, Tom, too, said, “Nice game, Coach.”
Ed Clifton from the science department said to Gorman, “Looks like you’ve got a new star on your hands, Bob. That running back, Arens, might just be all-state material.” It was no different from any other Monday morning after a game. HHH excelled in sports; remarks like this always drifted across the staff meetings. But when the talk centered on Kent Arens, Tom felt Claire’s eyes click into him and dig. The boy was making impressions—that was obvious already. He was the kind who’d be very noticed by both students and staff, so that when and if Kent’s relationship to Tom became fodder for school gossip, Claire would be exposed to plenty of speculative glances, maybe even outright questions from the curious.
Tom stood and called the meeting to order with his usual informality. “Well, let’s get this thing going. Cecil,” he said to the head janitor, “we’ll start with you, as usual.”
Cecil read off a list of the week’s events that would need special attention. Following that, someone brought up the issue of students without parking permits taking up teachers’ parking spots, an annual complaint that always took a few weeks to straighten out.
The head of the social studies department invited Tom to a citizenship meeting and asked the teaching staff to encourage all students to become involved in visiting senior citizens’ homes, becoming big brothers and big sisters, and other civic-minded pursuits.
One by one, Tom called on the head of each department until he came to Claire.
“English department?” he said.
“We’re still missing textbooks,” she replied. “What’s the status on them?”
He said, “They’re on their way. We’ll take that up in the English department meeting tomorrow. Anything else?”
“Yes. Senior-class play. I’ll be supervising it again this year, so if anyone has time to help, I’d appreciate it. You don’t have to be in the English department to help, you know. We don’t turn anyone away. I won’t start auditioning the cast until late this month, and the performances will be just before Thanksgiving, but it’s never too early to put out an appeal.”
Tom added, “For those of you who are new to our staff, Claire puts on some impressive productions. Last year she did The Wizard of Oz. This year it’ll be ...”
He deferred to Claire, who pointedly refused to glance his way.
“Steel Magnolias,” she supplied.
The tenured staff, who had known them for years, could feel the chill as if a window had been flung open on a subzero day. For the remainder of the meeting their antennae were up, gauging the unusual tension between their principal and his wife, especially the antagonism emanating from Claire.
When the meeting ended, Tom turned his back to speak to someone else while Claire left the room behind him, taking the long way around the tables to avoid going near him.
Several minutes later, still keyed up from the staff meeting, Tom was at his post, monitoring the front hall just inside the entry doors as the school buses began arriving. Through the ceiling-to-floor glass wall he watched the students leap off the bus steps onto the sidewalk, talking and laughing as they funneled toward the building.
He saw Kent the moment he stepped from the bus. Watching him approach, Tom felt his heart start clubbing. It required no lifetime of father-son intimacy to recognize that the boy was troubled, stern-faced, speaking to no one. He walked with a portfolio riding his right thigh, shoulders back and head straight: an athlete’s stride. His hair caught the morning sun, dark, gelled into a popular style that showed the coarse furrows of some stout styling tool. He wore jeans and a nylon windbreaker over a paisley shirt with an open collar. As usual, his clothing was clean and crisply ironed. His appearance spoke volumes about the quality of care provided by his mother. Among the students issuing from the bus he stood out not only for his neatness, but for his dark good looks and superior physique as well. It caught Tom like a barbed-wire fence across the gut, the swift clutch of pride tinged with awe that this impressive young man could be his son.
Anxiety gripped him, born of the complexity of their relationship, their past that needed discussing, and their future that remained a question mark. Tom’s last encounter with Kent came back in vivid detail as he watched his son stalk toward the door. You just screwed her and left, the boy had shouted.
A student came by and said, “Hi, Mr. G.”
Tom swung around and said, “Hi, Cindy.” When he faced the door again Kent was coming through it and heading his way. Their eyes met and Kent’s forward motion flagged. Tom could feel his pulse pound high in his throat, bulging veins as if he’d knotted his tie too tightly. The encounter was inevitable; Tom stood at the intersection of two halls, and Kent had to take one of them. He sped ahead as if to move past without speaking.
Tom wouldn’t let him. “Good morning, Kent,” he said.
“Good morning, sir,” Kent replied obediently, without pausing.
Tom’s voice stopped him. “I’d like to talk to you today if you have a few minutes.”
Kent fixed his gaze on the backs of the students flowing past him. “I have a heavy schedule, sir, and after school I have football practice.”
Tom felt embarrassment creep up his face. He, the principal, was being rebuffed by one of his own students.
“Of course. Well, someday soon then.” Stepping back, he allowed the boy to pass, sending from behind a silent message of apology and appeal.
*****
Robby had gone to school early to work out in the weight room, so Chelsea rode the bus, speaking to no one, staring out the window for minutes at a time, registering nothing but sad memories of home while the seat jiggled and bounced beneath her. When the bus stopped, she filed off and headed for the building, buffeted along by a surge of students, seeking out her father even through the plate-glass wall. She swam through the wide front doorway and there he stood, same as always, at the junction of the two halls. For a moment she was reassured by his presence in the place where she was accustomed to finding him every morning. But over the weekend everything had changed. A pall hung over every simple movement that used to make her happy. Terror lodged in her chest.
“Hi, Dad,” she said quietly, stopping before him, hugging a yellow portfolio.
“Hi, honey.” The words were familiar, but his smile was forced. She felt like a stranger in a foreign land where customs were different than those she knew. Already she hated picking her way so carefully through the tangled family tensions for which no protocol was available to guide her. She, who had always been so blithe in the exchange of conversation and affection with her parents, no longer knew how to approach them, what to say or do.
“Dad, what’s ... I mean ...” Tears spurted into her eyes. “When are you and Mom going to make up?”
Tom put his arm around her and drew her away from traffic. He turned them to face a wall and bent his head to her.
“Chelsea, honey, I’m really sorry you have to be caught in the middle of this. I know it’s asking a lot, but could you please just go on as you were? Just concentrate on school the way you always have, and enjoy it without spending your worries on us. We’ll work it out, I swear we will, but I don’t know when. In the meantime, if Mom doesn’t act the same, please forgive her. If I don’t act the same, forgive me, too.”
“But, Daddy, it’s so hard. I didn’t even want to come to school today.”
“I know, honey, but the danger of something like this is that it draws all the vigor out of us as a family, but I want us
to be the way we were just as badly as you do.”
She put her head down, trying to keep her tears from spilling and ruining her makeup. “But we’ve never had anything like this happen before. Our family was always so perfect.”
“I know, Chelsea, and we will be again. Not perfect. No family is perfect. I guess we’re finding that out. But happy, like we used to be. I’ll try really hard, okay?”
She nodded and her tears fell onto the yellow portfolio. They still faced the wall, Tom with his arm around her shoulders, both of them aware that curious students were passing behind them, probably gawking.
Chelsea tried to scrape her tears away unobtrusively. “Dad, can I use the mirror in your office?”
“Sure. I’ll come with you.”
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to.”
“Honey, I want to. You’re the first one who’s talked to me in two days, and it feels good.”
They went into his office and Chelsea took a sharp right, opened his cupboard door, and hid behind it where the secretaries couldn’t see. She looked in the mirror and tried rubbing away her smeared mascara while Tom went on to his desk and picked up some telephone messages. After flipping through half of them, he dropped them and came to stand behind her.
She gave up trying to fix her makeup as their eyes met in the mirror. Two sadder reflections she had never seen in her life. “Dad, what should I do about Kent? I don’t know what to say to him.”
He turned her around gently by the shoulders. “Be his friend. He’ll need one.”
“I don’t know if I can be.” She had worried herself sick about facing him again after that kiss.
“Give it time, then. He probably doesn’t know how to treat you either.”
“I don’t even know what I’ll say to Erin. She’s going to be able to tell that something is wrong. I said I couldn’t talk to her on the phone when she called yesterday.”
“Honey, I don’t know either. Maybe we’d all better give it a day or two. A lot of feelings are involved here, not the least of which are Kent’s. Whether or not he’ll want the general population of this school to know he’s my son is his call.”