by Nancy Thayer
Those moments of unified consciousness were rare. Still, most Sundays were better than this one. Today everyone seemed to be so twittery. They sat with their heads cocked dutifully in his direction, but their eyes were glazed. Clearly they were occupied with their own thoughts. Some people stared out the windows or up at the carved moldings. Even Wilbur Wilson, who could always be counted on for almost fierce attentiveness, kept fidgeting about in his pew like a bored child. During the end of the sermon, which was supposed to have been uplifting and even cheering, Suzanna Blair’s face had slowly grown more and more woebegone, as if she had been hearing him preach about some sort of hell—and in the back of the church his own son Michael stared at him with a stony and unremittingly black stare.
The congregation rose to the opening chords of the organ music and raised their hymnals before them; they seemed to sigh and rustle with relief as they stood. They began to sing “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” and as they did, Peter let his eyes and his thoughts rest for a moment on Michael. His greatest fear was that there really was a God who would chastise him for not ministering well enough to his congregation, or for interpreting Him and His words incorrectly. But in this fear was a kind of hope—that if he prayed, thought, read, worked hard enough, he could perhaps do some part of it right. So in a strange way his fear made him optimistic, energetic, eager. So much yet remained to be done and seen.
But his greatest sorrow was of a different quality, for his greatest sorrow was that he had somehow failed his elder son. This seemed a permanent and enduring emotion, for he felt that even God was more forgiving and less judgmental than Michael. And with God there would be—God willing—more chances, days and months and years of new chances, to redeem and distinguish himself as a minister. But Michael was seventeen now, planning to leave home at the first opportunity. Peter’s time of really influencing Michael was almost over. He had only a few more chances, and this knowledge carried with it not relief, but despair.
This was not what he had intended; it was never what he had intended. He had planned to provide for his children a love so broad and vast and sturdy that it would stretch under and around them all their lives, as naturally and endlessly as the earth beneath their feet and the air they breathed and moved through. This had been one of the major efforts of his life. Peter felt he worked every day to build and strengthen this benevolent domain. He wanted his children to be happy and secure. But for some reason his elder son had always refused to make himself at home within the province of Peter’s love. This was most obvious now, when Michael had attained some sort of physical manhood. He was taller, and weighed more than Peter. In the past year Michael had hulked through life like some science fiction hero of adolescent fantasy, with eyes like laser beams that could cut in one searing instant through the parental bonds of love. But this hauteur had not begun in adolescence—it had begun years and years ago, and Peter could remember the exact moment of that first chilling knowledge.
Peter and Patricia had had happy childhoods and intended the same for their own children. They worked hard, read the best child-rearing books, hugged, kissed, cuddled, held their tempers but disciplined firmly. They forgave readily, and spent countless hours biking with or reading to or rocking or making cookies with or somehow being with Michael and his younger brother and sister. Michael had had colic as an infant, temper tantrums as a baby, and nightmares as a child, but by the time he reached school age, he was a handsome and winsome little boy who was respectful to teachers, good at sports, academically bright. His younger brother and sister, Will and Lucy, had adored him in spite of their normal childish spats, and Michael had, in his own rather undemonstrative way, always equally adored them. He had loved and needed his mother with a ceaseless, fierce, shy passion. But his father he had judged from the start.
Michael was six when Peter first began to notice what he later came to call in his own private thoughts Michael’s Stuffed Animal Stare. It was a look Michael favored only his father with. Peter might suggest that Michael eat with his fork instead of his fingers, or insist that he brush his teeth, or hang up his coat, some trivial task, and Michael would turn to look at him with eyes that had gone blank as buttons, remote, aloof, removed, dispassionate. The first time this had happened, Peter had knelt down and taken his unwilling son into his arms.
“Why, Michael, what’s the matter?” he had asked, alarmed.
“Nothing,” Michael said, his beautiful eyes still cold, his tiny body rigid in refusal, and Peter was as deeply hurt at that moment as he ever was in his life.
Later that night, as they lay holding each other in bed, Peter told Patricia about this, but she had only smiled.
“Well, darling,” she said, “he’s a boy. He’s starting to rebel. I guess he’ll be rebelling against you now for the rest of his life.” She had actually seemed to find this somehow rather sweet, and in turn Peter was reassured.
But when Michael was seven, a more dramatic and somehow prophetic event had occurred for what seemed very little reason. Michael and Will and Lucy had been in their basement playroom playing house one night after dinner. Peter had gone down to inform all three children that it was time for bed. Will and Lucy had immediately set up their normal whine. “Oh, no, Daddy, just let us play a few more minutes, we’ve got a good game going, please, Daddy—”
But Michael had instantly gone red with rage, burst into tears, and yelled, “I hate you! I hate you! You think you can boss everything! I wish you were dead! I wish you were killed in a car accident!”
Peter had stared at his son, stunned, for one long moment, then he had crossed the room and yanked Michael around and swatted him good and hard on his jeans-covered bottom.
“Don’t you ever say that to me again!” Peter had screamed. He had turned Michael around then, placed a hand on each small shoulder, and gripped him tight. “Do you hear me? Don’t you ever say such a thing again. That’s a terrible thing to say to anybody. That’s the worst thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Will and Lucy, then five and three, had burst into tears at the sight of their father in such a rage, but Michael only went very still. He did not cry out when he was spanked, nor did his father’s words bring the sign of a tear into his dark and secretive eyes. This had sent Peter into an even wilder fury, a truly desperate state, for he wanted some acknowledgment from this child of his that he had not meant what he said, that he did love his father—that he did not wish him dead.
“Well, I’ll move away if that’s what you want!” Peter had shouted, knowing even as he spoke that this could be too irrational and incredible a threat for even the young ones to take seriously. He flung himself from Michael and stomped across the room to the bottom of the basement steps. “I’ll pack my suitcase and move far away and you’ll never see me again!” he cried.
“No, Daddy, no,” both younger children had wailed, and run to him, faces strained with real panic. Peter felt a surge of shame as his younger children grasped his legs, attempting to keep him from going, but his eyes were riveted on his elder son, who had started this insane scene, and who stood now so stony-eyed, unmoving, and adamantly mute that Peter knew in one chill moment that this son would never beg him to stay, and that there really was some substance to his seven-year-old hate.
But Peter did not deserve this hate, he felt, and he did not hate his son, although at that moment he was so furious that his hands clenched at his sides and he longed to cross the room once more, to slap that sullen, blank-eyed look from Michael’s face. Lucy and Will continued to scream. Patricia came rushing down from the second floor, where she’d been taking a bath. She had not even taken time to wrap her wet hair up in a towel, and water dripped in rivulets down her blue bathrobe, making dark streaks from her shoulder to her breast. She stopped at the top of the basement steps, hand grasping the banister, eyes wide with fright, searching the room for some awful sight.
“What happened? Is someone hurt?” she asked.
“Daddy�
�s running away from home!” Lucy wailed.
“Michael wishes I were dead,” Peter said.
He realized immediately how immature he sounded, standing at the base of the steps, tossing his complaint of wounded pride up at Patricia like that. But he could think of nothing he could say that would make it better. He felt temporarily helpless, Michael’s words had hurt so much.
“Everyone’s tired,” Patricia said. “Come on, Michael, Lucy, Will, it’s time for bed. No more messing around.”
Her normal, patient, irritated voice calmed them all, and the children, relieved that the scene was over, went with unusual silence up the stairs to get ready for bed. Still, Peter stood at the foot of the basement steps, caught in his confusion and misery.
“You must come say good night to them, you know,” Patricia said softly before she shut the basement door.
Peter sat down on the steps for a few moments and tried to think the scene through. What had happened? Why? How could his son say such a violent thing to him with so little provocation? Good God; he was thirty-eight years old, and a minister, and in an instant he had let his own seven-year-old son reduce him to a rage of insecurity and doubts. What should he do now? What would a perfect father do? What would God want him to do?
He waited until the children had brushed their teeth, put on their pajamas, and been tucked in bed by Patricia. Then he went up to the bedrooms. He spoke first with the younger ones, telling them he was sorry he had frightened them, that he loved them and would never leave them, never run away, that he wouldn’t say such foolish things again. Both Will and Lucy, in the privacy of their own rooms, went teary-eyed, and wrapped their arms around him, and snuggled up against him, and Peter felt the blessed bliss of mutual love.
So when he went into Michael’s room, he was calm. He had decided that Michael could not have meant what he said, and he was ashamed that he had reacted so angrily. He did not want Michael to be frightened of his own anger, his own words. He wanted to hold his son, to reassure him.
“Well, son, let’s make up,” he said, approaching the side of Michael’s bed, smiling down at him. At that moment Peter had nothing but goodwill and love for his son in his heart.
But Michael lay rigid in the bed, eyes cold. “Not yet.”
Not yet? What in hell did that mean, and how in the world had Michael come to possess such arrogance?
“All right, then,” Peter said, suddenly berserk with despair, “let’s fight. Are you ready? Come on, tough guy, get out of bed and let’s fight.” He rolled up his shirtsleeves and yanked the covers off his son, exposing the slight severe body in the blue-and-white-striped pajamas. “Come on, come on, you little creep, you don’t want to make up? You want to fight? You want to hold a grudge because I sent you to bed? Get up and put your money where your mouth is!”
Michael sat up in bed, his skin bloodless, white as chalk, his face set.
“Peter?” Patricia said, coming to stand in the doorway.
“Please,” Peter said, nearly choking in desperation, “let me handle this.” He turned back to Michael. “Well, kid, ready to fight?” He made a fist and advanced on his little boy.
Michael’s face flushed then, and he burst into tears. “No, Daddy,” he said. “Please.” He hid his face behind his arm.
“Oh, God,” Peter said, tears coming into his own eyes. He collapsed on the bed next to his son and just sat there a moment, stunned. Then he pulled Michael toward him, and Michael did not resist, but lay there in his arms, a heavy, awkward, ungenerous bundle. “Michael, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have hit you. I love you. I love you. I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. I love you.” He talked on and on, rocking Michael, rubbing his back, until the little boy’s sobs abated. Finally he said, “Are you all right now? Can you go to sleep?”
“Yes,” Michael said.
“Do you want a drink of water? Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“No,” Michael said. “I’m all right. I’m just tired.”
“All right, then, son. Go to sleep. Good night. I love you.”
“I love you, Daddy,” Michael said.
Peter tucked the covers around his son, kissed his cheek, and left the room. He felt like a monster. He felt he had wrung the words “I love you” out of his son. He had needed terribly to hear those words, but he wondered what it had cost Michael to say them—and why, dear God, it had cost him anything at all.
From then on it was never clear and easy. Michael remained a good, smart, likable child, popular with friends and teachers, quick to learn, good at sports, a fine son. There were even times when Peter could see Michael working to break through whatever barrier it was that kept him from giving to his father the spontaneous love he gave to everyone else. At those times Peter felt deep pity for his son. He went along, doing the best he could, showing his love for Michael in every possible way, refusing to give up, hoping that someday it would change.
Peter took the duties of his ministry very seriously, and he believed that one of his major responsibilities was a symbolic one: he should present before the community an exemplary life. He should try to be wise, serene, and benevolently judicious—whether he was or not. And he was very good at helping others with their personal problems; he had a gift for it. It was only his own family, and more precisely just his elder son, whom he could not handle. So because he felt it would be a failure on his part to ask for advice from anyone, he tried to learn the secrets of fathers surreptitiously.
He volunteered to help with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, soccer, and baseball Little League. He covertly watched and listened to the other men as they dealt with their sons. He was surprised at the range and varieties of fathering. Some men were brusque and even officious. Some were warmly affectionate, given to gentle cuffing of their sons now and then because it was the only way they had to touch their sons’ bodies. Some were so absentminded about it all that the sons in response danced attendance on their fathers. Well, Peter thought, there’s an idea, and for the next few months he tried to be distant and aloof—in a kindhearted way.
But Michael didn’t even seem to notice. His attitude certainly did not change. Finally Peter went back to his old ways, because it was too much of a strain otherwise. He hugged Michael when he could and tried not to mind that he was not hugged back. He visited Michael’s room at night, just as he visited Lucy’s and Will’s, to tuck them in, kiss them on the forehead, ask casually, “Everything okay?” in case there was a problem that could be discussed best in the quiet of the night. Will and Lucy would sometimes confide in him their secret fears and worries, and sometimes they would simply blither on about the happenings of the day or ask how space shuttles worked—anything to keep from having the light turned out and sleep imposed. But Michael always, always answered, “Yes, everything’s okay.” There were nights when Peter had wanted to grab his son, shake him furiously, and cry, “No, everything is not okay! You’re a secretive, ungenerous, unloving child, and that is NOT okay!”
Peter read books on child rearing. He memorized entire passages from Dr. Spock: “The child after six goes on loving his parents deeply underneath, but he usually doesn’t show it much on the surface.… From his need to be less dependent on his parents, he turns more to trusted adults outside the family for ideas and knowledge. If he mistakenly gets the idea from his admired science teacher that red blood cells are larger than white blood cells, there’s nothing his father can say that will change his mind.”
Peter recited this passage to himself like a mantra the year that Michael began to hero-worship Chet Elliott, the man who coached the soccer league Michael played in. Chet was a handsome young man and a great coach, and that was all that Michael could see. Only Peter and the other adults in Londonton knew about Chet’s adult life—he was a garage mechanic who at thirty showed no signs of marrying. He spent every evening in local bars, drinking to a loud-mouthed, happy-hearted excess and eventually taking to his apartment whatever local girl wanted to go—and there we
re plenty who wanted to go, because Chet was handsome. He was easygoing, sauntering, quick to laugh, unambitious, unconcerned. He was also a wonderful, hardworking coach, because he loved games, and without even meaning to, without really thinking about it, he instilled all the best values into the boys he coached. He taught them how to play hard and fair, how to balance competition with sportsmanship, how to demand the most from their growing bodies. Then he went off at night to get drunk and slaphappy, and once about every six months he ended up in the doctor’s office with a venereal disease. But the boys he coached didn’t know what Chet did with his nights, and the fathers could see no sign that Chet’s nights ever affected his coaching, and so they kept him on—it was, after all, a voluntary, non-salaried job. They were grateful to have him. The boys adored him, and Peter liked him very much; everybody did, it was impossible not to. But it was a hard year when Michael had Chet for a soccer coach, because no one had ever before aroused in Michael such openhearted exuberant adoration.
He sang Chet Elliott’s praise morning, noon, and night. When he had free time, he went to the Gulf station and hung around watching Chet fill cars with gas or tinker under the hoods. One night at dinner, Michael stated that when he grew up, he was going to be just like Chet Elliott.
“Good, dear,” Patricia had replied, smiling. “I hope you’ll still live in Londonton. Then I won’t have to worry about my car ever again. I’ll just let you take care of it.”
Peter just stared at Michael, then asked Lucy a question about her school field trip. He was trying to put Michael’s claim into perspective. Michael was a child, and his crush was a child’s crush, and it was all part of growing up. But Peter was wounded, for Michael had never once said that he wanted to grow up to be like his father. And Chet Elliott—he wasn’t the sort of man Peter would ever want his son to be. He didn’t even have children of his own. He had no education, no sense of personal destiny and responsibility. Other than his sex, Chet Elliott had nothing in common with Peter.