”This is awful hard.“
”It’s okay.“
”You’re helping me put the screws to your father and mother.“
”I know.“
”You know it’s for you?“
”Yes.“
”Can you do it?“
”Help you?“
”All of it. Be autonomous, be free of them, depend on yourself. Grow up at fifteen.“
”I’ll be sixteen in September.“
”You’ll be older than that,“ I said. ”Let’s get something to eat and go to bed.“
CHAPTER 28
It was raining hard in the morning when Paul and I ran along the Charles River. It rained all day. I sat in my office and called insurance companies. Paul had finished his book on ballet. He went out and, at my suggestion, walked up to the Boston Public Library and used my card to take out a copy of Catcher in the Rye. Five minutes after he was back, Susan called.
”The line’s been busy for an hour,“ she said.
”Broads,“ I said. ”Word’s out that I’m back in town and the broads have been calling since yesterday.“
”Paul with you?“
”Yes.“
”Let me speak to him, please.“
I held the phone out to Paul. ”For you,“ I said. ”Susan.“
Paul took the phone and said, ”Hello.“
Then he was quiet.
Then he said, ”Okay.“
Then he was quiet.
Then he said, ”Okay,“ and hung up.
”She says there’s a prep school out in Grafton that specializes in drama, music, and dance,“ he said. ”She says she’ll take me out to look at it this afternoon if I want to go.“
”You want to go?“
”I guess so.“
”Good. You should. Is it a boarding school?“
”You mean live there?“
”Yes.“
”She didn’t say. Would I have to live there?“
”Maybe.“
”You don’t want me to live with you?“
”Eventually you’ll have to move on. Autonomy means self-reliance, not changing your reliance from your mother and father to me. I’m what they call in politics a transition coordinator.“
”I don’t think I want to go away to school.“
”Wait, see, take a look at the place. We’ll talk. I won’t make you do what you genuinely can’t stand to do. But keep open. Keep in mind that sometimes I go to unpleasant places and people shoot at me. There are drawbacks to living with me.“
”I don’t mind.“
”Some of the drawbacks might be mine,“ I said.
”Oh.“
”Don’t make more of that than it is. If one of us starts fearing that honesty will hurt the other’s feelings, we’ve slid back some. I’m trying to work this out so it’s best for all of us, me as well as you. Susan too.“
He nodded.
”I’ve taken you this far. I won’t push you out of the nest until we both know you can fly. You understand that?“
”Yes.“
”You can trust me to do what I say. Do you know that?“
