Free Catching Genius by Kristy Kiernan

of the pool and in the house. Now.”
    I stalked back to the kitchen and pulled his report card out of my purse, placing it on the counter next to the test results. Gib came through the door with a grin on his face, toweling his hair off, his muscles still taking me by surprise.
    â€œMom, that kid’s never going to learn how to defend—”
    â€œSit down.” I pointed to the stool across the counter from me. His eyes widened, but he sat, his gaze finally falling on the two pieces of evidence before him.
    He started to speak but stopped when I slapped my hand down on his report card and pushed it toward him. “This came on Wednesday. Did you know you were failing algebra?”
    He licked his lips and shook his head, but said, “Yeah, I guess.”
    I pushed the PSAT results toward him. “And this came today. You want to explain it?”
    He looked at the report card first, then inspected the test results. He read them and shrugged. “I guess I’m not good at math.”
    â€œReally? When did this happen? Because you managed to pass every math course before this. You never indicated you were having a problem.”
    His face settled into sullenness.
    â€œExplain this to me, Gib.”
    He rolled his eyes and sighed, but I continued to stare at him and he finally spoke. “Well, I didn’t fail on purpose,” he said.
    â€œThen what’s the problem?”
    â€œI don’t get it,” he said simply, cutting his eyes toward the pool. I felt a sinking in my stomach when I realized that he was looking to make sure Carson didn’t hear him. He was telling the truth. “I mean, I can do all the other stuff, but I don’t get all the unknown numbers. You know, the x’s and y’s to the third power of pi, or whatever.”
    â€œBut Gib, why did you let it get this far? Why didn’t you tell someone? We could have gotten you a tutor.”
    He shrugged again, that maddening teenaged shrug. “I don’t know.”
    â€œWell, now you’re going to have to go to summer school to make up for it. And I don’t know if you’ll be able to play football next year either, Gib.”
    He gnawed his lip. “You going to tell Dad?”
    â€œOf course. He already knows that you failed the class, we were just waiting for the test results.”
    â€œWhy?” he asked.
    â€œHe thought the teacher didn’t like you. He thought your test scores would be good.”
    â€œYou didn’t think that though, right?”
    I said nothing, suddenly feeling naked, suddenly aware that Gib knew more than I realized about our roles when it came to parenting him. “No,” I said quietly, gathering the papers up and folding them together. “I didn’t think that.”
    Gib glanced out the window at Carson playing in the pool, his face sober and older than his years. I saw where his first wrinkles would show up, around his eyes, across his forehead, what he would look like when he was my age and had his own children to worry about, to make mistakes with and feel guilty over. I felt like crying suddenly, tears welling in my eyes and my throat closing, when I saw how much he looked like my father.
    â€œWhat did you think?” he asked.
    I couldn’t tell him that I thought he was doing it just to anger me, just to force my hand somehow. “I don’t know,” I finally said, realizing a second too late that it was the same nothing phrase I hated when it came out of his mouth. I shook my head and pushed my fingers against the back of my neck, working at the crackling knots from my violin practice. “We’ll talk later, after your father gets home.”
    His mouth twisted and he jerked his head, acknowledging the fact that I’d chickened out. “Yeah, well, Jamie’s picking me up in an hour. I’ll be home later.”
    â€œNo. Call Jamie and tell him you’re not going anywhere. You have five