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watching tears well in Bo’s eyes.
    â€œRemember the door, Dad?”
    â€œWhat door?”
    â€œThe door that needed to be opened and closed twenty times before I could have my life back.”
    Luke bristles. “I remember the door. And if I’d had a brain in my head I would never have let you—”
    Bo talks through his father’s protest. “You don’t teach a kid not to slam doors by humiliating him. I knew never to do that again the second I saw you standing there. Done. Lesson learned. But I lost respect when you were willing to let me live with that awful feeling inside me for seven months. How could I respect a guy that would steal a kid’s Christmas over a stupid door?”
    â€œIf you’re ever going to grow up, you’re going to have to learn to deal with that awful feeling in a different way. Why don’t you just get your brother and go? I don’t need this aggravation today. Someday you’ll see what I’m talking about and you’ll thank me. Right now you’re young, and you clearly have no sense of responsibility.”
    â€œRight, Dad,” Bo says, feeling the heat rise again, crowding out the pain as the two of them drift toward that unresolvable point that reigns in each of their classic power struggles. “No responsibility. I work two jobs, go to school, transport the darling of the Brewster universe to and from day care each day and back andforth between his mom’s and dad’s places twice a week, and work out three hours a day.”
    â€œOther than school and transporting your brother, most of those things are choices,” Luke says. “You do them because you want to. Responsibility is about doing things you don’t want to do.”
    Bo takes a deep breath. “Well, I don’t want to have this conversation anymore, so I’ll take responsibility for ending it.” He turns toward the back bedroom. “I’ll get the turdburger and pedal him on home. Thanks for the lecture, Dad.”
    Luke picks up the remote control and waves his son away. “Get out of here,” he says. “You always have to learn things the hard way.”
    OCTOBER 25
    Dear Larry,
    Remember that twelve-year-old kid who made national news suing his mother for divorce? I’ll bet you do; every third caller had an opinion about it while it was going on. There was no sexual discrimination involved in that decision, right, Lar? I mean, there’s no reason a guy couldn’t do that with his dad? I think my father and I would get along much better if he didn’t think he holds the pink slip on me. In her kinder moments, Mom says he meanswell, but I tell her it doesn’t matter what he means if there’s no way to please him and I have to feel like his rectal suppository every time we’re together. He never once asked why Redmond and I got into it, what was going on inside me when I unloaded on him. It’s probably a good thing, because if I’d been honest I’d have said I was feeling the same way toward Redmond as I feel toward him when he won’t back off.
    When I was eleven, just before my parents split up, my dad paid me a hundred dollars to help his employees unload two truckloads of equipment overnight at his sporting-goods store, then set up displays for this big Halloween sale. My mother raised Siberian huskies back then—she still does—and I earned my allowance running the sire and the dam several miles a day. I should tell you, Lar, running Siberians is not an easy task for an eleven-year-old kid so skinny he carries rolls of quarters in his pockets in high winds to keep from being whipped off to Oz. The second you slip a harness on a Siberian, he assumes you’re a sled and bolts for Nome. Commands like “Heel!” and “Wait a minute, goddamn it!” go unheeded by Siberians. To save time and mileage, I hooked the leash to a chain running between their