Free Thank You for the Music by Jane Mccafferty Page B

was, the keener Griffin’s need became; Jude claimed there was something manipulative in this, but my heart broke for my child, and I think I rightly feared his very soul was being shaped by the intensity of his longing. Maybe that can be said of all children.
    I’d beg Jude to give the boy a little attention, and he did, but it was the wrong kind. He’d take Griffin to the art museum. He’d try to make him memorize paintings, learn perspective, listen to facts about the artists. Griffin tried his best, and told Jude he wanted to walk into Pierre Bonnard’s paintings and live there, but you shouldn’t do this with a seven-year-old unless the kid is oddly brilliant, a prodigy, which Griffin never was, and I know this disappointed his father, and I know, also, that his father blamed my genes. I come from a long line of Midwestern farmers. If I said any big words in my mother’s presence, she cocked her eyebrow, which meant for me to get down off my damn high horse. Intelligence was a force to be tamed into utility.
    After years of rejection, Griffin finally gave up. He was twelve, then. He got a dog for his birthday that year. It seemed to me that all his love for his father got transferred onto the dog, a mutt from the shelter Griff named Roberto, for the great ballplayer Roberto Clemente. Roberto was a bit mangy and looked heartsick, but loved Griffin the way dogs love boys. A simple solution, I thought. Roberto went everywhere with Griffin—they even let that dog into the grocery store. Things were easier for Griffin after that. He became a teenager who said very little to either of us. In high school he found an enormous friend named Jack J. Pree, who wore thick glasses and who managed to attract certain girls despite his obesity. Jack lived with his aunt and uncle, drove a monstrous, ancient gold Buick, called himself the Fatso Existentialist and called Griff Brother Soul. It was the sort of mythology Griff needed. Brother Soul and the Fatso Existentialist spent days just driving around with aging Roberto hanging out the window, the three of them listening to old blues and new punk. Nights they read philosophy books aloud, or had water-balloon fights in Jack J. Pree’s tiny hedged backyard, which was five doors down from us. Through a hole in the bushes, I spied on them. I loved my son, and I’d become a spy in his life.
    Jude walked into the kitchen that evening, and I saw, for a moment, how handsome he was, which still happened when I was aware that someone else would be looking at him for the first time. Griffin, Berna and I had taken seats at the oak table by the glass wall that looked out onto a little patio. Berna had first stood at the window and admired that space. “Lovely,” she’d said.
    â€œHey, Griffin,” Jude said, and looked at Berna. “Where’s your girlfriend?” he said.
    Berna got up from the table.
    â€œHello,” she said. “I’m Berna Kateson.” She walked over and shook his hand. She was nearly as tall as Jude.
    Griffin watched them with utmost seriousness, waiting for his father to do something wrong.
    â€œGriffin and I have been together for quite a while now, so we thought it was time to meet you,” Berna said, again with her distinct, almost imperceptible chin-raising pride.
    â€œUh-huh,” said my husband. “I see.” He shot a look at Griffin, then his eyes settled on my own, and I looked down, away from him, so that he was stranded in his shock. Berna sat back down.
    â€œI realize this isn’t a typical scenario,” she said. “I realize one might feel a little baffled when faced with the possibility of their son marrying an older woman, even a very successful one.”
    Jude opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine, poured himself a glass, and sat down with us at the table.
    â€œSo,” he said to Berna, and looked at her with coldly urgent eyes. “Why