Page 141 of Puck the Coach's Son
“Kitchen, Paul.”
“Di—”
“Kitchen.”
She takes the stool I was on this morning. I take the one beside her. Paul stays standing at the sink. His arms cross and uncross. His arms don't know where to be.
Diane sets her tote on the island.
“Paul. I'm going to talk. You're going to listen. When I'm done, you can speak. If you interrupt me, I'm going to walk Theoout that door and he is going to live with me and you will spend every day wondering if he picks up your call. Do you understand me?”
Paul's mouth opens.
“Do youunderstand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She folds her hands on the marble.
“Your son is in love.”
Paul flinches. She keeps going.
“I'm not asking you to like it. I'm telling you the fact of it. Your son is in love with a man. Your son is in love with a man who took four punches to the face from you last night and did not hit you back because your son was in the room.”
Paul's face goes gray under the tan.
“You have spent your son's whole life telling him—with your mouth, with your silences, with the men you brought around, with the jokes you didn't stop at the dinner table—that whoever he might love would disgust you. You have told him that since he was eight years old. I was there. I watched you do it. I made excuses for you because you were grieving and because Ellen asked me to go easy on you and I have regretted every one of those excuses for eleven years.”
“Diane—”
“Don't.I am not done.”
He shuts up.
“Your son has kept himself small his whole life so you wouldn't be ashamed of him. Your son has played a sport he isn't even sure he likes because you wanted a hockey son. Your son has dated girls he didn't want to date because you wanted to meet them. Your son has hidden himself in his own house. And finally, he met a man, a grown, difficult, stupid, decent man, bythe sound of him, and for the first time in twenty years he has beenseenby somebody, and you…”
Her voice cracks.
“…you have treated it like a personal injury.”
She lets the sentence sit on the marble between them. The kettle clicks off behind Paul's shoulder. Nobody moves to pour it.
Paul's eyes are wet. He isn't looking at her. He's looking at the taped knuckles of his right hand on the edge of the sink.
“He is leaving your house, Paul. You can pretend he's staying. You can put security on the lawn and monitor his phone. He will leave. He might leave tonight. He might leave in a year. He might go quiet about it first and turn his face away from you for ten years and only call on Christmas. But he is leaving, because you have made it impossible for him to stay and be whole. And if you want any version of him back, any single version, the Christmas version, the every-other-year version, you are going to sit on that stool and you are going to hear me say this next part.”
She waits.
He sits on the stool.
“You have a choice. You can be his father or you can be right. You cannot be both.”
The kitchen is quiet.
His shoulders go down, a quarter inch. Then a half.
