“Hold on,” Emily cut in, “I’m getting another call—it might be her.”
Traffic was heavy, and the cab was at a standstill. Phone pressed to his ear, Sean rolled down the window for some air. He loosened his tie and gazed absently out onto the street. It was then that he had the feeling that he was being watched. Eyes on him. The cabdriver wasn’t looking at him in the rearview, so he glanced out the window again. He saw a man standing on the corner near the security gate at the front of Georgetown’s campus. The man stood facing Sean, arms crossed. He wore sunglasses, so Sean couldn’t see his eyes. But he seemed to be staring defiantly into the cab. He had stringy hair that touched his shoulders and he wore a flannel shirt. What’s with all the flannel in the spring? Sean thought about the guy from the train that morning who— “Sean, it was Ryan’s school.” Emily’s voice jarred his attention away from the man. “I need to go pick him up. He’s in trouble again.”
Sean diverted the cab to take him home. By the time he’d arrived, Emily had already retrieved Ryan from the middle school. She met Sean at the front door of their colonial.
Sean blew out a loud sigh. “Where is he?”
Emily pointed a finger upstairs. Sean could hear the distortion and moody baritone of Alice in Chains drifting from Ryan’s room.
“I thought we were past all this,” Sean said.
“Me too.” Emily handed Sean a sheet of paper. “The principal said a girl’s mother came in. She’d found these Facebook messages Ryan sent to her daughter.”
Sean glanced at the paper:
SirRyan 8:53pm
Sup
Allison Moss 8:53pm
Gtg in a minute. Mom calling 4 me
SirRyan 8:54pm
kk. you still want the weed?
Allison Moss 8:54pm
you got some???
SirRyan 8:54pm
Ya. you still want it?
Allison Moss 8:54pm
U sure u got it? Or is this like last time SirRyan 8:54pm
Got from Chipotle guy, man in red
Allison Moss 8:54pm
Huh?
SirRyan 8:54pm
Guy at Chipotle who sells; wears red clothes and red hat.
Allison Moss 8:54pm
You 4 real?
SirRyan 8:55pm
You want it or not. 20 bks
Allison Moss 8:55pm
Will see if I can get the $. gtg
SirRyan 8:55pm
kk. bring to my locker after gym
“Idiot,” Sean said. After all their talks—the lectures about how things on the Internet stay forever, about drugs, the therapy sessions—here they were again. You still want the weed?
“What does he say about all this?” Sean asked.
“Deny, deny, deny,” Emily said. “I actually didn’t want to get into it until he had a chance to calm down.”
“We need to search his room and go through his phone and Facebook,” Sean said. His instincts, born of his own years as a teenager, were that Ryan was guilty until proven innocent. He may defend the Constitution at work, but that didn’t mean it applied at home.
“No,” Emily said, “we need to talk with him.”
Ryan had no better defense lawyer than his mother. Other than Sean’s workaholic tendencies, the only point of contention in their marriage was Ryan. And the two issues were interrelated. Emily never said so directly, but she blamed Sean for Ryan’s acting out. If he’d just been home more. She also thought that Sean was too hard on their son. Maybe he was.
Sean decided to turn down the temperature a notch. “Talk to him? I haven’t read a lot of parenting books, but I’m pretty sure I was taught to cram it all down inside and then wash away the festering resentment with cheap booze.”
Emily’s eyes turned to slits, but she couldn’t conceal the slightest tight-lipped smile. “Remember,” she said before they opened Ryan’s door, “he’s only fourteen and one mistake isn’t going to ruin his life.”
“It only takes one mistake…” Sean’s voice trailed off. He knew too well how one mistake could change everything. But he also knew it wasn’t worth pursuing the line of argument further.
Emily tapped on Ryan’s door, and they went inside.
Their son’s domain had remnants of Little Boy Ryan—Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, a Pikachu stuffed animal, soccer trophies covered in dust. Those relics gave way to the world of Teenage Ryan: electric guitar, dumbbells, scattered clothes. Axl Rose grimaced at Sean from a vintage Guns N’ Roses poster over the bed. Sean often joked that, when it came to music, his son was born a few decades too late. Ryan was stretched out on the bed, face buried in a pillow. Sean pressed a button on the iPod docking station, and the music went quiet.
Ryan lifted his head. “I’m sorry, okay,” he said. His hair was matted, face blotchy red, tear-streaked, another reminder of Ryan as a little boy. Not the stranger who appeared two years ago when, as the doctors explained it, puberty struck early and kicked his ADHD impulse control problems into overdrive.