Free Found by Tatum O'neal

ability to talk openly about our thoughts or feelings. We certainly didn’t talk about the past or attempt to resolve any of our issues. We were both much older than the last time we’d had any kind of relationship, and it felt as though, with Sean as a connector, we were slowly, carefully forging a new family dynamic.
    In August, Sean left the beach house to spend six weeks in Ireland as part of a theater group. One day, he was walking along a moor, and he climbed into a tree—presumably, to have a poetic moment, my whimsical child. Somehow, he fell out of the tree and tore a tendon. When he returned to Malibu, he was still recuperating and could no longer play Frisbee on the beach with Ryan. It should have been only a minor shift in the beach-house routine, but it seemed to throw my father off in a bigger way.
    It became hard to tell what exactly was going on with Ryan and Sean. They started teasing each other in a not-quite-friendly fashion. Ryan chided Sean for forgetting to close up the Jacuzzi. “Why can’t he shut the lid?” he would mutter. Then he’d complain that Sean stayed in the bath or Jacuzzi for too long. Sean imitated my dad saying “Goddammit” in a gruff, angry voice. And Ryan caricatured Sean’s long arms, dangling them from his shoulders as he walked. Then Ryan started being curt with Sean, yelling, “Don’t do that!” Or, when Sean was wearing his headphones, Ryan would say, “What’s he doing in there alone listening to music all day?”
    Then my father closed his door. His upstairs bedroom is the gathering place in that house, where we all hung out to watch TV and eat dinner off trays. Now Ryan shut the door. If Sean knocked, he shouted “yes” from behind the door in a tone that said, Don’t bother me . When they crossed paths, Ryan looked at Sean in a way that wasn’t exactly loving. I can’t really explain the shift. Was it frustration? Was it simply challenging for a man set in his ways to have a young man around? Was he irritated that his Frisbee partner couldn’t pal around with him like he used to? The sun was setting on our Malibu summer.
    Ryan probably wasn’t even aware that his behavior toward his grandson had changed. I only know that Sean and I felt it severely.
    Sean is a pure soul, a sensitive boy. I saw that even when he was little. Before Emily was born, when it was just the two boys, I decided that my second son needed a little one-on-one time with his parents. Kevin, the oldest, was an easy child, and always seemed settled and comfortable wherever he was. Sean was throwing tantrums, fighting to be heard and seen, as second children sometimes do.
    We usually took both, and later all the children, when we traveled for John’s tournaments, but when Sean was four, I decided it might help him if we took just him to Wimbledon in the summer of 1991. He would have alone time with both parents—well, mostly me while John practiced and played the tournament. So five-year-old Kevin stayed at our Malibu house with the nanny, attending a summer program, while Sean and I wandered around London, going to Hyde Park to feed the ducks, building sand castles, counting double-decker buses. I had been right—all Sean wanted was to be numero uno for a little while. In that environment, without his older brother, he was a perfect joy. There were no tantrums. He was a cheerful little engine of a kid, ready for any and every adventure. This was exactly what he needed.
    One day, when we were in a pharmacy, the bobbies came in chasing a burglar, nightsticks drawn. Sean screamed, “Mommy, Mommy! They’re going to hurt the guy.” I comforted him and tried to distract him as they carried the man out of the pharmacy, but he was deeply worried about the burglar. He was the same way about homeless people in New York. He always wanted to stop and give them money. He couldn’t understand why their