Chapter 11 - I Asked Dad Why He Needed Me To Stay At Hawthorne
The question came out uglier than I intended.
“Why did you need me to stay here so badly?”
Dad was packing his cafeteria shirt for Monday.
He folded it carefully.
“I didn't need you to.”
“Then why take the job?”
“To keep the option.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn't.”
“Explain.”
Dad put the shirt down.
“Your mother and I sent you to Hawthorne because we thought it would open doors.”
“Basketball.”
“Not just basketball.”
“You told everybody basketball.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His face tightened.
“Because basketball was easier to talk about than class.”
I sat.
Dad looked around our kitchen.
Not poor.
Not wealthy.
Comfortable enough that I'd spent years never asking what anything cost.
“When you were little, I installed floors in houses where kids your age had tutors, camps, travel teams, college consultants.”
“Okay.”
“I'd come home and think they had something figured out.”
“Money.”
“Access.”
Same word Coach had used in a different way.
Dad continued.
“I wanted you in those rooms.”
“So Hawthorne.”
“Yes.”
“Did it work?”
He laughed.
“Look at you.”
“What's that mean?”
“You wear a two-hundred-dollar school jacket and dump lunch on cafeteria workers.”
I flinched.
He immediately regretted it.
“No. That's cheap.”
“Accurate.”
“Still cheap.”
We sat in it.
Then Dad said:
“I gave you some bad ideas.”
I looked at him.
“About what?”
“About work.”
He rubbed his palms together.
“I talked like using your head meant you'd won and using your hands meant you'd lost.”
I didn't answer.
“I told myself I was motivating you.”
“You were.”
“That doesn't mean the lesson was good.”
I looked at the folded cafeteria uniform.
“Are you embarrassed?”
“Working there?”
“Yes.”
Dad thought.
“First day?”
He smiled slightly.
“A little.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“Because I knew people would know I needed the benefits.”
“So you get it.”
“Yes.”
I stared.
“Then why act like I was horrible for being embarrassed?”
“Because embarrassment isn't the same as cruelty.”
That shut me up.
He continued.
“I know what it feels like to want nobody looking.”
He folded the shirt again.
“I still didn't pour food on Denise Reed when she showed me where orientation was.”
Fair.
I asked:
“Why didn't you tell me the business was in trouble?”
“I thought it would recover.”
“And when it didn't?”
“I had already hidden it too long.”
Same problem everyone in this story had.
Delay makes disclosure more expensive.
Dad continued:
“And I didn't want Hawthorne turning into something you thought I bought with suffering.”
“It kind of did.”
“No.”
He looked at me sharply.
“I took a job. Don't make me a martyr.”
“You gave up your company.”
“I lost work before I took the job.”
“You could've traveled.”
“Yes.”
“You didn't.”
“I didn't want to be gone four nights a week your senior year.”
That landed.
“Because of basketball?”
“Because you're leaving soon.”
College.
I looked away.
Dad said:
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“Maybe leaving.”
“Thanks.”
“You might go fifteen minutes away and eat my food until you're thirty.”
“Possible.”
He smiled.
Then I asked:
“Are you staying at Hawthorne if I transfer?”
He stopped.
“I don't know.”
“Would you?”
He looked toward the uniform.
“I actually like some of the people.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“I know.”
A week ago I'd assumed Dad worked cafeteria only because his life had gone wrong.
Now there was something uncomfortable in the possibility that the job might become his choice.
I said:
“What about the company?”
“I still have smaller jobs.”
“So you're doing both.”
“For now.”
“You're fifty.”
“Forty-nine.”
“Basically historical.”
He threw a dish towel at me.
I laughed.
Then we both stopped.
First normal moment since the cafeteria.
Dad looked at me.
“You don't have to leave Hawthorne because you're ashamed of what you did.”
“I know.”
“You also don't have to stay because I put on an apron.”
“I know.”
“And you don't owe Brody your future.”
“I know.”
He nodded toward the Brookside envelope on the counter.
“What do you want?”
I hated the question.
“I don't know.”
Dad smiled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
May you like
“Useful answer.”
I threw the towel back.
