Page 129 of Puck the Coach's Son
The boy I… what?
I know what. I have known what for a week. I'm just not ready to name it tonight.
Paul pulls into the driveway. A patrol car is already parked at the curb, lights off. Private security. Callahan's work, probably. A man gets out when we pull in. Polo shirt. Clipboard. He nods at Paul.
“Mr. Laurent.”
“He's home. He stays home.”
“Yes, sir.”
Paul unlocks the front door. Gestures me through. I go through because I don't have the energy to make a scene on the lawn and because Maddox saidgo home, go to your room, lock the door, and wait.
The house smells the same as it always does. Like Paul's cedar shoe polish and the coffee he makes too strong. I haven't been here since the evening Diane told mewe'll figure it out.
Paul drops his keys in the bowl. It's the loudest sound he's made since Callahan walked in. The metal-on-metal lands in the quiet of the house like a verdict. He doesn't turn the lights on in the living room. He doesn't turn on anything. He walks to the kitchen. He knows his own house blindfolded and he expects me to follow.
“Kitchen.”
“I want to go to my room.”
“Kitchen.Now.”
I go to the kitchen.
He makes himself a drink. Whiskey. Two fingers. He doesn't offer me water. He stands at the island with his drink and he looks at me until the ice in the glass clicks twice. I stand across from him with the island between us because if the island weren't between us, I don't know what my body would do. The kitchen light is the overhead, the unforgiving one that makes the skin under his eyes look grey. He's rolled his sleeves. There's asmear of his own blood on the cuff of his dress shirt where he wiped his mouth in the car. He sees me notice and he doesn't roll it under. He just stands there with the bloody cuff and the drink and he looks at me like I'm a stranger he has been housing.
“You know what he was doing.”
“Dad—”
“No. Listen to me.Listen to me.”
I listen.
“He started this, whatever this is,at me.You understand? From day one. He announced it in a locker room. He announced it in front of his teammates. He picked you out because you were mine and he knew it would hurt me. This was never about you, Theo. This was a man waging a grievance and he used you as the weapon. Whatever he told you. Whatever hedidto you...”
My hand comes up.
“Stop.”
“Whatever he did to you, he was doing it tome.You understand that, right? You're a smart kid. You understand.”
My throat hurts.
“Dad.”
“It's not personal. It was never personal. For him.”
I look at him. I feel very calm.
“It was personal.”
“Theo…”
“It was personal, Dad. It is personal. I know what it started as. He told me himself. And I know what it is now. It's not what it started as.”
Paul sets his glass down with a soft thunk.
