Free The Fearsome Particles by Trevor Cole Page B

chose to disdain. Certain tile borders, for instance, or a particular kind of cabinetry, or a seldom-seen relative he might have fretted over regarding an invitation to Easter dinner (because his cousin Sonia and her husband were coming and therefore shouldn’t he include Sonia’s husband’s sister Gini?). What Gerald experienced as small, gripping agonies of decision troubled Vicki not at all. (No, was the answer on Gini, because the last time theyhad invited her to a family event, she’d brought a man who opened their fridge and helped himself to pickles, then laughed about it in the aftermath. So, no.)
    And yet now, Vicki no longer seemed as fixed in her world view. She seemed, instead, hazy. It wasn’t just the toenail trouble or her skewed grasp of time; she lacked clarity in other ways. Was Rosary, their cleaning lady, doing enough to remove the cat hair from the furniture? Vicki was undecided about this. How long should they allow Kyle to stay closed up in his room? She was unsure. Reports of bombing in the Middle East no longer elicited a crisp
tsk
from Vicki; nor did catching televised antique experts in absurd errors bring her bitter joy. It was as if she had stopped paying close attention to her own sensibility. Gerald happened to have his own views on some of these questions (Rosary was
failing
with the cat hair), but he was able to relax more when Vicki did too.
    As for Kyle, since he’d come home, he had spent most of his days and nights sequestered behind his bedroom door. In the context of a recent “off-camp event,” this constancy had seemed right enough, and certainly better than the alternative suggested by Oberly’s use of the word
erratic
. For much of the week, Gerald had embraced Kyle’s quiet isolation as the antithesis of
erratic
and therefore proof of his son’s good mental health and Oberly’s suspect judgment. He looked on it as a kind of quarantine period, during which whatever infection of anguish Kyle had picked up in Afghanistan could be cleansed out of his system.
    He wanted to talk to his son, of course. He wanted to hug him, wanted to hold his ear to Kyle’s mouth and hear all the waysthe world had become harder for him, less accessible, more vicious. On the drive back from the airport, he’d tried to get Kyle to tell him what happened. Overseas, on the plane, wherever he wanted to start. “What went on, Kyle?” he’d said, glancing away from the road to look at his son, his wrists freed but his body hemmed in by the seatbelt. “They wouldn’t tell me,” he said over the tire hum, “but you can.” Kyle, though, had only smiled. And it had frightened Gerald. Because all his life Kyle had seemed to Gerald to be a boy you could reach, a boy who was more than usually receptive to the appeals of logic. Did it make sense to scream and throw food in a nice restaurant, Kyle? he would ask as Vicki took Kyle into her lap. Did it make sense to scare the waiters away so they wouldn’t bring us nice dessert? No, it didn’t. What a smart boy. Very good.
    Yes, Kyle had had his childhood moments of extreme focus, when it seemed as though he experienced the world through a long, narrow tube. But that was nothing unmanageable, that was almost a skill. And when Gerald witnessed the trouble other parents had with small children – the tantrums, the recklessness, the uncontrollable will – he had known that he had the keys to something special. And it remained his, through Kyle’s toddling years, his rambunctious years, into his teens.
    Did it make sense to throw the cordless telephone and break Mommy’s nice things?
    Did it make sense not to take notes in class?
    Did it make sense to call a girl’s house seven times and repeatedly hang up before anyone could answer? Or join after-school clubs that you never attend, or drive Mom’s car until it runs out of gas?
    No, it didn’t, Kyle. Now you’re thinking. Very good.
    All the years of Kyle’s growing up Gerald had managed to take