Redhead by the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler Page 0,56

going forward, he said. Like maybe I might be kicked out. For a first offense! For one measly term paper! So I went home, but then I couldn’t quite tell them. I knew how my mom would turn all sorrowful and my dad would take it personally. He’d be, like, ‘How could you do this to us, son? What possible excuse could you have? The most elementary assignment,’ he’d say, ‘a standard freshman essay on the simplest possible topic!’?”

“What was the topic?” Micah asked.

“Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance.’?”

Micah turned away hastily and flipped a hamburger patty.

“Every morning I’d get up and I’d think today was the day I would tell them. I figured I would tell Mom first and then she could tell my dad. But it seemed I couldn’t do it, somehow, so in the end I left. I went to shack up with this friend who goes to GW now, except he turned out to be all involved in his, like, life, and so I came here because I couldn’t think of anyplace else.”

“When I was in third grade I forgot how to spell ‘seize,’?” Micah told him. “We were taking a test on the i-before-e rule, including the exceptions, but I don’t know; ‘s-e-i-z-e’ just didn’t look right to me. So I sort of looked up at the clock and yawned and then just happened to turn my head a ways, and I saw how the kid next to me spelled it. Tuckie Smith: I’ll never forget him.”

“See?” Brink said. “Now you know why I had the idea you were my dad.”

“No, wait; my point is, I bet every single one of us has done something like that. You think your parents didn’t?”

“My mom sure never did,” Brink said.

“Well, um…”

“And probably not my dad, either, or if he did he wouldn’t admit it. ‘Adamses do not cheat,’ he’d say. ‘You’ve really let us down, son.’?”

“So, fine,” Micah said. “You tell him, ‘I know that, and also I let myself down, but I’ll never do it again.’ Then you all sit in the dean’s office listening to his lecture, and after that you’re done with it. Because I swear they won’t expel you. Not for a first offense.”

“They might give me an F for the course, though,” Brink said.

“So? You flunk a course. Worse things have been known to happen.”

Micah dished out one of the burgers, medium rare for himself, and returned the other to the stove.

“Listen,” Brink said, “could I just live here with you?”

“Sorry, buddy.”

Tossing the salad with bottled dressing, Micah waited for Brink to argue. But he didn’t. He was quiet. He’d probably known before he asked what Micah’s answer would be.

* * *

—

Lunch was finished and the dishes were washed (Brink ineptly drying) before the upstairs buzzer finally rang. By then Micah was sitting on the living-room couch with the Sunday paper, pretending to read about last night’s World Series game even though he had no interest in either team, and Brink was back in the office watching what sounded like a gangster movie.

Zzzt, the buzzer went—more of a snarl than a ring, like an angry, insistent wasp. It was loud enough to be heard in the office, but no sign of stirring came from there. Micah called, “Brink?”

No sound but machine guns.

“Brink!”

Micah rose, finally, and went out to the basement and climbed the stairs to the foyer. When he opened the outside door he found not only Lorna but a thin, bearded man who was standing just behind her. “Is he here?” Lorna asked. She was looking past Micah, searchingly. “Do you still have him?”

“I do,” Micah said.

She was in casual clothes today, slacks and a cable-knit sweater, and her husband wore a cardigan over his button-front shirt. He seemed milder and less big-wheelish than Micah had envisioned. His eyes sagged at the outer corners and his beard was streaked with gray. “Roger Adams,” he said quietly, offering his hand to Micah, and Lorna said, “Oh! I’m