Daddy

Benjamin suddenly wheeled on them then as his father finished speaking. “What he's saying is that he wants to keep an eye on me at close range, and he wants to keep me away from Sandra. What about weekends, Dad? Is she off-limits then too?” His voice was bitter and angry.

“She's off-limits until your grades improve. I told you, I'm not fooling around with you. All your chances for a decent college are about to go right out the window.”

“I don't care about that. It doesn't mean anything.”

“It meant a lot to you when you sent in your applications, or had you forgotten?”

“Things have changed a lot since then,” he muttered darkly, and walked back to the window.

“Well, has everyone seen as much as they want to?” Oliver managed in spite of all of it to sound cheerful, but only Sam was willing to go along with it.

“Is there a backyard?”

Oliver smiled at him. “Not exactly. There's Central Park two blocks away. That ought to do in a pinch.” Sam nodded in agreement. “Shall we go?” Melissa hurried to the door, and Benjamin followed more slowly, looking pensive. And it was a quiet drive back to Purchase, all of them lost in their own thoughts, and only Sam occasionally asking questions.

Agnes had dinner waiting for them at home, and Sam told her all about the apartment. “I can play ball in Central Park … and I've got a pretty big room … and we're coming back here as soon as school gets out, for the summer. What's my school called, Dad?”

“Collegiate.”

“Collegiate,” he repeated, as Aggie listened intently, and kept an eye on the two others. Neither Benjamin nor Mel had said a word since they'd sat down at the table. “When are we moving again?”

“Next weekend.” As he said the words, Melissa collapsed into a flood of tears again, and a few minutes later, Benjamin left the table. He quietly took the car keys from the hall table, and without saying a word, a moment later, he drove away, as Oliver watched him.

Mel never emerged from her room again that night, and the door was locked when he tried it. Only Sam was pleased about the move. To him it was something new and exciting. And after putting him to bed, Oliver went back downstairs to wait for Benjamin to come home. They were going to have a serious talk about his acts of defiance.

He didn't come home until 2:00 A.M., and Ollie was still waiting for him, getting more and more worried. And at last, he heard the crunch of the gravel in the driveway and the car stop outside. The door opened quietly, and Oliver walked out into the hall to meet him.

“Do you want to come out to the kitchen and talk?” It was a purely rhetorical question.

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“There seems to be a lot, enough to keep you out till two A.M., or is that another kind of conversation?” He led the way to the kitchen without waiting for an answer, and pulled out two chairs, but it was a moment before Benjamin sat down, and it was obvious he didn't want to. “What's going on, Benjamin?”

“Nothing I want to talk about with you.” Suddenly they were enemies. It had happened overnight, but it was no less disappointing or painful.

“Why are you so angry with me? Because of Mom? Do you still blame that on me?”

“That's your business. What I do is mine. I don't like you telling me what to do. I'm too old for that.”

“You're seventeen years old, you're not a grown-up yet, even if you'd like to be. And you can't go on breaking all the rules, sooner or later you're going to pay a hell of a price for it. There are always rules in life, whether you like them or not. Right now, you may not even get into college.”

“Fuck college.” His words startled Ollie.

“What's that all about?”

“I have more important things to think about.” For a moment, Oliver wondered if he was drunk, but he didn't appear to be, and Ollie suspected he wasn't.

“Like what? That girl? … Sandra Carter? At your age, that's a passing thing, Benjamin. And if it isn't, you're going to have to wait a long time before you can do anything about it. You've got to finish school, go to college, get a job, make a living to support a wife and kids. You've got a long road ahead of you, and you'd better stay on track now or you're going to be in deep shit before you know it.” Benjamin seemed to sag a little as he listened, and then he looked up at his father.

“I'm not moving to New York with you. I won't.”

“You have no choice. You have to. I'm closing the house here, except for weekends. And I won't let you live here alone, it's as simple as that. And if you want to know the truth, we're moving there partly because of you, so you can get your act together before it's too late, and I can spend more time with all of you in the evenings.”

“It's too late for that now. And I'm not going.”

“Why not?” There was an endless silence in the room while Oliver waited. And then, finally, the boy answered.

“I can't leave Sandra.”

“Why not? What if I let you see her on weekends?”

“Her mom's moving to California, and she won't have anywhere to stay.” Oliver almost groaned at the picture he was painting.