16
ing his touch in the ease of those orange leaves, like kites ›ying against the gray trees. What had she given Mr. Olivet? Nothing. She had thought to bring him something to eat, but it didn’t turn out that way. The giving ›owed only one way. Find some footprints and follow them, when you’re really lost. If only someone who knew him better had been around to say that one more time to Chris. Bread pudding—she would take Mr. Olivet some bread pudding, Miriam Huley’s recipe. Soft food for an old man whose teeth were bad. She would take it next week. She would remember. 16 For his ‹fteenth birthday Sean wanted his driver’s permit. He got behind the wheel that ‹rst day and did so well from the start she knew he’d been driving already—maybe up on Wilgosch’s farm. He drove her out to Mr. Olivet’s place in Pleasant Valley one afternoon , with a gift of bread pudding. A rare moment together for the two of them. Maybe this would be a good time for a certain parentchild talk she had been puzzling over. It would have been Jim’s role, not hers, but there you are, once again. Sean’s broad hands were brown and scarred from a summer’s adventures and as relaxed on the wheel at ten o’clock and two o’clock as if he’d been driving for years. His hands, feet, and knees were outsized at the moment. His knees were sometimes in›amed from growing so fast. The man he would become was making an appearance, a glimpse at a time. “Something I need to tell you,” she said. “Yeah?” Sean said after a silence, watching the road. “With you driving and everything and in high school, life can get complicated.” “Sure, Mom,” he said, as if she had suggested they stop for apples at the next roadside stand. She soldiered on. “You see, it’s important that I tell you this, what your dad would have told you—you can’t go wrong when you respect 152 other people. Ever. You can’t ever go wrong when you respect people, male or female. Especially female.” He gave her a quick look. There’s more, she thought, I’m not done yet. Don’t touch that dial! “Even when they don’t seem to respect themselves, you have to respect them. That’s your responsibility,” she said. “So, I expect you to do that. God expects you to do that. Young women, they need that. Respect.” “Yeah, okay,” he said, but with mildness, not dismissal. Trying to imply, I know this is real, with his tone. “Do you have any questions?” He smiled, looking ahead. “No, not really.” She couldn’t think of anything else to lob into the silence between them. At that very moment a deer leaped out from the left, practically onto the hood of the car, and Sean did exactly the right thing, braked and wrenched the car onto the right shoulder. The station wagon skidded across the shoulder and tipped slightly into the pine trees. It needed to be pushed from the front end, back up onto the shoulder . At his insistence she took the wheel, and he leaned against the hood, trying himself to shove it back while she gunned the engine in reverse. Within a few minutes a truck pulled over. Wordlessly the driver joined Sean, and this time Mary reversed the station wagon back onto the road. They went on to other subjects, deer collisions and near misses they had known. Sean’s left leg vibrated with adrenalin all the way to Paradise Valley. Since the episode of the stolen tools he had never, so far as she knew, crossed the line again. Sean was helpful around the place, smart, strong, and sometimes funny. He was going to be good-looking, too. Some things would come easy to him. Good looks and mild humor were great favors in life. But he kept too much to himself. The books on adolescent psychology that she read frightened her; things could go wrong so quickly. Boys had a unique delicacy. He needed more patience than she could provide. Mary felt that she always reacted too soon and too strongly when something came up between them—and his sisters gave him no mercy! At Pleasant Valley, Mr. Olivet insisted they sit down for some bread pudding together. Then, as...
OR
