Page 20 of What Boys Learn

You won’t be able to keep an eye on him forever.

Today’s letter was a short one.

You’re not being fair, keeping me from getting to know my nephew. There’s a punishment for that.

I shoved the single small sheet into the envelope and started to rip them both when I stopped. That envelope, missing something. A forwarding sticker.

I looked again, heart sinking. Our current address was on the envelope. Impossible. Unless someone had told him we’d moved.

Benjamin was back on the living room couch, wearing cutoff sweatpants and an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt, already working on his second pizza slice.

“It’s really hot in here, Mom,” he said between mouthfuls.

“You already told me. Long summer ahead. You didn’t bother with a plate?”

“Would you get me one?”

Reluctantly, I did, to give my mind another moment to settle. The letter from Ewan—that was bad enough. Benjamin stealing a diary? That was worse. Robert was withholding information—and he had a right to, but it made me nervous. Izzy. Sidney.Bad things come in threes, Willa liked to say, but we were way past three.

From the kitchen, I heard the couch creak, like Benjamin was getting up to get his own pop or a glass of water, something he did a dozen times every evening, less because of thirst than because of an innate restlessness. Sometimes I told myself it was the reason he had no friends. Not because of the things he said or did or didn’t do. Not because of the stony look on his face when he was annoyed with anyone he deemed inferior. Not because of incidents like the time when he was eight years old and went sledding behind the local elementary school with a neighbor kid named Jacob. Benjamin came back an hour later, took off his coat and boots, and started reading a book. Jacob’s mom called two hours later to say Jacob had broken his arm on the sledding hill. He’d been crying and screaming, but Benjamin just walked away.

His mom said the bone was practically sticking out of his coat sleeve. You didn’t notice?

He wouldn’t stop making noise. It was giving me a headache.

I had Benjamin screened for autism at his next appointment with a pediatrician, who found nothing worth noting and didn’t recommend extended testing. The story of the sledding day had already changed by then, anyway. Later, Benjamin insisted he’d gone home before Jacob got hurt.

I wasn’t going to let a story get warped this time.

“So, Benjamin. Why did you steal Izzy’s diary?”

He had his eyeglasses off. The planes of his changing face were clearer to me that way. Cheekbones where there used to be only round, soft flesh. A few stubbly, light-colored missed hairs along his jawline. I tried to ignore the resemblance. I hoped that by looking and telling myself,This is Benjamin, this is my son, I could overwrite other associations. At some point, in three or five or ten years, the thoughts would go away.

“You knew Izzy well, after all?” I asked, when he didn’t answer me. “Obviously, you knew that she kept a diary.” I laughed. “Who evenkeepsdiaries anymore?”

“Girls.”

“Okay. But what wereyouexpecting to find in her diary? Why was it important enough to risk breaking into her house?”

“I didn’t break in. The back door was open.”

“But youknewin advance the house would be open, or you wouldn’t have bothered to run to their house. How?”

“I told you tonight, when you left! No one here locks their doors!”

“Okay,” I said, checking my own memory, confirming. “Noted. But it must have been hard to find her diary unless you’ve been in her house before.” The improbabilities were multiplying. “Have you been in her house before? Were you friends? Did you hang out with her?”

“Not friends. She pretended to like me.”

“Pretended?”

“When we weren’t in school.”

“Then, when? Where?”

“At the pool. Dartmoor. She wrote me notes. I wrote her notes.”

“Like, texts?”