Read Online Don't Worry About the Kids by Jay Neugeboren - Free Book Online Page A

chocolate.
    â€œSome other time, Eddie. Okay?” He put his hand on my head and he stared at me for what seemed like ages, his mouth slightly open and a cigarette stuck to his lower lip. His eyes didn’t shift or blink at all. Then he seemed to wake up. He looked at his hand as if he were puzzled to find it resting on my head. “Christ!” he said, ruffling my hair. “You’re a sweet kid, Eddie. Now get inside, take a nice hot shower, and stay warm.”
    â€œThanks for the ride home, sir,” I said, when I was out of the car.
    â€œSure,” he said. He backed the car out of the driveway and I started toward the house. Then he honked and I turned toward him. He looked out of the window and waved to me. “You played a good game, Eddie,” he called.
    On Monday I looked for him at school but he wasn’t there. He didn’t show up all week, and in assembly on Friday morning, Dr. Hunter announced that owing to illness in his immediate family, Mr. Marcus had been forced to leave the school for the remainder of the term. He said he hoped Mr. Marcus would be returning for the spring semester. When the spring semester began, Mr. Marcus didn’t return. No announcements were made, and I was probably the only student in the school who even remembered what Dr. Hunter had said. I was feeling pretty upset, and when, on the evening after the first day of classes for the new term, Mother told me that Dr. Hunter was calling for her and that she’d have to leave me alone in the house for the evening, something inside me went click.
    I stalked off, but while she was dressing, I walked straight into her room and asked her if she was going to marry Dr. Hunter.
    â€œYou should knock before you come in, Eddie. I might have been undressed.” She looked into her mirror and fastened an earring.
    â€œAre you?” I asked again. “I’m serious. I have a right to know!”
    She kept working at her earring, as if I hadn’t said a thing, but when I saw her mouth open slightly, I didn’t give her a chance and I spoke before I even thought about what I was going to say. “How—how could you ever marry a man with a gimpy arm?” I demanded. “How could you—?”
    She turned toward me and looked at me sternly for a second or two. Then her face broke into a big smile. “Oh, Eddie,” she laughed. “Of course I’m not getting married.” She stood and came to me and hugged me. Her perfume was strong, and I struggled to get loose. “You know you’re the only man in my life.”
    â€œI’m not,” I said, freeing myself. “I’m your son. You should get a husband while you’re still young and pretty.”
    She backed off and looked at me for a long time after I said that, and I kept having these alternate feelings—that I shouldn’t have said it and that I should have. I think she wanted to kiss me and hug me again, but for some reason she seemed afraid to do it now. She simply closed her eyes, nodded once, and then opened them. She turned back to her mirror. “Will you finish the dishes while I’m gone?” she asked.
    â€œSure,” I said. And then: “How come Mr. Marcus didn’t come back this term?”
    â€œYou’re full of questions, aren’t you?”
    â€œCan I ask Dr. Hunter why Mr. Marcus didn’t come back?”
    She sighed, then smiled again, but in a much easier way than she had a few minutes before. “I don’t think that would get us anywhere, do you?”
    â€œNo,” I admitted.
    â€œWell, then?”
    â€œI guess I ask too many questions.”
    When Dr. Hunter called for her, I didn’t go out to say hello to him. After they left, though, still feeling worried about what I’d said to Mother, I kept walking around our house, going from room to room, upstairs and downstairs. It seemed terribly large to me, and I wondered if Mother