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“How was I supposed to know the drill was on? You said to hand it to you. You didn’t warn me it would start shooting nails out of it like a machine gun.”
“You could have hurt someone.” Rob brings the conversation back to an elevated level.
“I didn’t.”
“The point is, you could have, and then you had the nerve to ask to drive my car home. What did you think I’d say to that?”
Jesse’s hands fly in the air, as if the answer were crystal clear. “I thought you’d say,Yes, son, because you need to learn how to drive and I’d like to be the one to show you.”
All week, the father-son duo have been at each other’s throat. Molly is used to it, and I’ll admit, it took me a few days to get into the normal that is the Bronson family. It usually ends with a dinner, where Molly and I ramble while the men say nothing, and then everyone departs to their respective rooms for the night.
I drop my cards on the table and rise. “Not to interrupt this powwow, but you two need to take a breather from one another right now. Looks like ten hours on the jobsite is a little too much of a good thing.”
“Great idea.” Jesse storms upstairs toward his room.
“Fan-fuckin’-tastic,” Rob states as he heads toward the kitchen.
Molly and I leave the living room and follow Rob. He opens the fridge, grabs steaks, and slams the door, walking outside onto the back porch. We are left now standing in the quiet kitchen.
“That was exciting,” I state.
“That was a typical Wednesday.”
“I’m figuring that out.” I give her a pat on the shoulder. “Why don’t you watch some TV before dinner, and I’ll check on your dad?”
“Good luck,” she says with raised brows.
I grab two cold beers from the refrigerator, twist off the tops, and walk onto the back porch. Rob is on the lower landing, standing by the grill and staring at the grates as they warm up.
I head down the stairs and hand him a beer. He takes it appreciatively.
“Sorry about that in there,” he says.
“You parent very well. Stern. Effective. I can see you’re really getting through to him.”
He gives me a deadpan stare.
“I get it. I don’t have kids, so I don’t know anything about raising one.”
“I didn’t say that, but”—he takes a swig of his beer—“you’re right. You have no idea how hard it is to raise a teenage boy. There’s no instruction guide on how to do this.”
Leaning against the stair railing, I take a drink from my own bottle and stare at the sky. The moon is out tonight, covered slightly by clouds yet glowing and showing itself in any way it can. I sigh as I glance up at it.
“Do you ever feel like you’re still growing up? One minute, you’re fifteen, and the next, you’re an adult with bills, responsibilities, and, in your case, kids. While we’re aging, you can still remember clear as day what it felt like to be a kid.”
“I wish I had the luxury of still feeling young. Men don’t get to linger in their youth. We grow up, take on responsibilities. We provide, protect. When you have children, there’s no time to play.”
Rob and I have two very different mentalities. I can still feel and sense every moment of my youth like it was yesterday.
“When I was fifteen, I snuck out of the house,” I say, and Rob snickers, as if that seems like an obvious thing for me to have done. “There was a keg party in the woods in Newbury, and I wasn’t allowed to go. I told my parents I was sleeping at Melissa’s house. I never went to her house. Instead, I went deep into the forest, drank my face off, and was left there at three o’clock in the morning with nowhere to go. It began to rain. I was wet, freezing, and starting to get sick to my stomach.
“I went to Melissa’s house. She was a sweeter kid than me. She didn’t lie to her parents, and she stayed home that night. Her neighbors had a tree house we hung out in. The ladder rungs were too slippery, and my head was spinning, so I couldn’t climb up. I went to her window and threw these tiny rocks at the glass. Luckily, she woke up and let my drunk ass in. I wasn’t quiet at all and woke her mom.
“Mrs. Jones was pissed at me for being such an idiot, but she brought me to the kitchen, gave me a cup of tea and some of Melissa’s pajamas, and set me up on the couch with a pot next to me in case I got sick. The woman slept on the love seat all night to take care of me.
“When I got up the next morning, I was hungover and embarrassed. I was also nervous she was going to tell my mother. My parents were cool, but they wouldn’t have dealt well with that level of betrayal. So, Mrs. Jones made me a deal. She wouldn’t tell my parents what happened, as long as I promised that if anything like that ever happened again, I wouldn’t throw rocks at the window. Instead, I’d go to the door and ring the doorbell because if Melissa hadn’t heard the stones, I might have been left outside in the cold, and worse could have happened.
“I never had to ring the bell. I learned my lesson and never did that again, but it was good to know there was an adult out there who trusted me to make the right decision next time.”
