Free The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow by Quinn Sinclair

heart a fist that hammered to break loose from her chest.
    "Dammit, dammit, dammit," she kept muttering to herself as she fought her way up the street and then turned east for the subway downtown.
    ***
    At her office, she sat behind her desk and then moved to her art board and then went back to her desk again, too exasperated with herself to work. As she sat raging at herself, her anger began to flare in a new direction. It was the school that was at fault. Who the hell did they think they were, not letting her see her own son's teacher! The very idea! It was preposterous, treating a parent that way. Still, it was St. Martin's Academy, and wasn't that sort of structure and discipline one of the things it was famous for? No, she decided, calming down somewhat, it was her own fault, after all. She was the one who'd messed things up, handled everything so goddamned clumsily. How preposterous really to just barge into the office like that and expect an instant appointment. She'd have to think of a better way—that was all there was to it.
    Hal! She suddenly remembered that in her agitation she'd completely forgotten to call the apartment to wake him up. She snapped up the phone and dialed. She let it ring. He was a heavy sleeper, and sometimes it took a cannon to jolt him out of sleep. When there was no answer, she hung up, waited five minutes, then called back.
    She could hear the receiver fall to the floor and Hal fumbling to snatch at it and juggle it to his ear.
    "I'm up, I'm up," she heard him say.
    "Prove it," Peggy said.
    "I'm up, I swear," he said. "You at work?"
    "I'm here, but I'm not getting much done. What time did you get in last night?"
    "I don't know," he said. "Late."
    She pulled a note pad into reach and began doodling on it, drawing cubes of all sizes whose corners interlocked.
    "Where were you? Were you at the office?"
    She heard him yawn as if he was taking the time to cook up a story.
    "You were asleep when I got home," he said. "Otherwise, I would have explained."
    "You might have called," Peggy said.
    "Yeah," he said. "I should have, I know."
    "Well?"
    "Well what?"
    She heard him yawn again.
    "Where were you?"
    "It sounds bad," he began, "but it's really not. The fact is, The Six came by while I was working there in the office and they just wouldn't let me alone, kept saying come—"
    "Who's The Six?" Peggy interrupted.
    "The Six? You're kidding."
    She had no patience with this anymore.
    "I'm not kidding, Harold," she snapped. "Who's The Six?"
    She heard him make a sound as if to suggest her question was beyond belief.
    "They're this group , honey—punk-rockers, our biggest item this season. You telling me you don't remember my talking about—?"
    Again she interrupted him. She didn't want to hear his protestations anymore.
    "The point is," she said, her voice hard now, "you were not in your office and you were not working. You were out with some idiot kids , and you did not call me to tell me or even think to talk to your own son, who, if I might remind you, had a very important day in his life yesterday. Now that's the point, isn't it, Harold?"
    "But I was working," he insisted. "You think it's not work for me when I have to run around with these lunatics? Let me remind you of something, Peggy—let me just remind you that it happens to be my goddamn job to hang out with Manhattan's recording artists—"
    "You could have called!"
    "All right, all right!" He was shouting now. She couldn't remember when she'd heard him do that before. "I didn't call—and I'm goddamn sorry I didn't. But I gave you a goddamn necklace as a peace offering and I still haven't heard you say one fucking word of thanks!"
    She didn't get a chance to answer. He slammed down the phone before she could say another word.
    ***
    That night, at supper, they did not talk to each other. They talked to Sam. And when they ran out of things to say to him, silence closed over the table like a shroud. It was stifling, a thing that choked them