“Yes, sir. She did.” I took it from a pants pocket and dangled it, sunlight winking off the bright brass.
“Do you know why the locks were changed?”
“Tilton.”
“You shouldn’t call your father by his first name. Say, ‘My father.’ ”
“Well, but it doesn’t feel that way.”
“What way doesn’t it feel?”
“I mean, it doesn’t feel like he’s my father.”
“But he is, and you owe him some respect.”
“You feel more like my father.”
“That’s sweet, Jonah. And I give thanks every day that you’re in my life.”
“Me, too. I mean, that you’re my grandfather.”
“Your father isn’t the easiest man to keep your equilibrium with. You know equilibrium?”
“Yes, sir. Like balance.”
“It isn’t easy to keep your balance with him, but you always have to walk a line of respect because he’s your father.”
As we progressed, we passed people sitting on their porches, and they all called out to Grandpa Teddy, and he called back to them and waved. Sometimes drivers of passing cars tooted their horns or passengers shouted his name, and he waved to them, and we met a few people walking their dogs or just out for some fresh air, and they had to talk with him and he with them. In spite of all that, he kept coming back to the subject at hand.
“You have to walk a line of respect, Jonah, but you also have to be cautious. What I’m going to say to you isn’t meant to make you think any less of your father. I would feel terrible if it did. But I would feel even worse if I didn’t say this—and then had reason to regret holding my tongue.”
I understood that whatever he told me would be something I must take as seriously as anything that I heard in church. That’s what it felt like—as if Grandpa was churching me not on the meaning of a psalm or the story of Bethlehem, but on the subject of my father.
“Your mother is a wonderful woman, Jonah.”
“She’s perfect.”
“She just about is. None of us is absolutely perfect in this world, but she’s but a breath away from it. She and I were once miles apart in our estimation of your father, but now it’s an inch or two. But it’s an important inch or two.”
He stopped and looked up into a tree for a long moment, and I looked up, too, but I couldn’t see what interested him. There wasn’t a squirrel up there or any bird, or anything.
When we started walking again, he said, “I hope this is the right way to say it. Your mother’s current assessment of your father is that he’s basically a good man, means well, wants to do what’s right, but he’s damaged by some bad things that happened to him as a child, and he’s weak. I agree with the weak part. There’s no way to know if what he says happened to him as a boy actually happened. But even if it did, bad things happen to all of us, and that doesn’t mean we can hurt others just because we ourselves have been hurt. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Your father’s go
ing to divorce your mother.”
I almost broke into a dance. “Good. That’s good.”
“No, son. Divorce is never good. It’s sad. Sometimes it might be necessary, but never good.”
“Well, if you say so.”
“I do. And these days it’s no-fault. If there’s no property to split—and there isn’t—and if he doesn’t want custody of you or even visitation rights—which he doesn’t—then it’s not even necessary for your mother to agree.”
“She should agree.”