Page 73 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 61

She patted her lap and rose. “We seem to have run out of things
to say.”
“Mmm,” I said.
“Or the right to say them,” Dad said, grinding out his cigarette.
“Mmm,” I said, wondering what they meant. I knew Rector
Karg sometimes sent general letters to parents instructing them how
to act as parents of seminarians.
They stood together near my door, waiting for me to speak or to
rise, I didn’t know which. They so much honored my vocation that
they had surrendered themselves to let go of me even before I was
fourteen, about the same age as Jesus was at twelve when He got lost
at the Temple and Mary and Joseph went crazy searching for their
lost Boy. On my desk, the forest-green blotter lay slightly flecked
with ash. My father held his smudged ashtray in his hand. It was an
awkward scene.
“What movie is this?” I tried to lighten the moment.
Annie Laurie recouped. “Ryan, would you like some banana-
cream pie before we go to the train station?”
“Cut me two pieces. One for the road.”
“Me too.” My father seized upon the offer of pie and coffee
together. He put his hand on my arm, lightly, then his full arm
around my shoulders, and they walked me down the hall. “Good
as school is, Ry, I bet you won’t taste cooking like your mother’s for
the next five months.”
“That’s sure. Not till after graduation. Just think, mom, I won’t
have to eat any of your cooking. In fact, I refuse to, until I graduate
from high school.”
They both laughed. Absurd time jokes were part of our kidding.
We saw each other on occasions that were far apart. I was seventeen
and winter would turn to summer before I would see them again.
My birthday was in June. I had become a stranger to them, maybe
even a mystery to them that they had to take on faith.
“Brownie can’t sit up and beg anymore,” Dad said.
“That dog,” Annie Laurie said, “can beg with her eyes.”
“Those great big beautiful eyes,” I said.
“She’s a good old dog,” Dad said.

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