Chương 12
“What?”
“You’re shaking my hand?”
“I don’t know what the protocol is.”
Ethan laughed.
“There’s no protocol.”
Richard looked irritated.
Daniel took his hand.
Richard’s grip was firm.
Then, unexpectedly, he pulled Daniel forward and hugged him.
It was brief and awkward.
Richard patted him twice between the shoulder blades as if Daniel were a coworker retiring after thirty years.
Daniel nearly laughed.
When they separated, Richard cleared his throat.
“I’m proud of you.”
The sentence hurt.
Not because it was cruel.
Because Daniel had wanted it for so long that hearing it now exposed the size of the empty space before it.
He looked down.
“Thanks.”
Richard seemed to understand that something in the answer was unfinished.
He did not push.
Dinner that night was spaghetti.
Nothing about it was ceremonial.
Elaine burned the garlic bread because she forgot it in the oven.
Ethan ate three pieces anyway.
Richard asked whether Annapolis had football.
Daniel said yes.
Richard asked whether Daniel planned to play.
Everyone stared at him.
“What?”
Ethan pointed his fork at Daniel.
“He runs like somebody escaping a minor crime.”
“I’m faster now.”
“You are less slow.”
Elaine laughed.
Daniel did too.
The appointment changed the household in ways Daniel had not expected.
Richard became obsessed with logistics.
He researched travel routes to Annapolis, hotel prices, reporting dates, baggage requirements, and whether Daniel needed a particular kind of watch.
Daniel finally told him to stop buying things.
“I’m comparing.”
“You made a spreadsheet.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m buying.”
“You color-coded it.”
“That means I care about clarity.”
Daniel looked at Ethan.
“Now I know where I get it.”
Ethan shook his head.
“You two are the same person.”
Both Daniel and Richard said, “No, we’re not,” at exactly the same time.
Elaine laughed so hard she had to sit down.
The resemblance made Daniel uncomfortable.
He had spent years defining himself against Richard.
Now he began noticing smaller similarities.
They both checked doors twice before bed.
They both hated arriving late.
They both read instruction manuals even when they pretended not to.
The discoveries did not erase what Richard had done.
They complicated it.
Spring arrived slowly.
Daniel finished high school requirements, completed Academy paperwork, worked fewer shifts, and trained more.
The appointment certificate arrived in a large envelope.
Elaine framed it.
Daniel found it hanging in the living room one afternoon and immediately took it down.
“Why?”
“It’s weird.”
“It’s an accomplishment.”
“It’s mine.”
Elaine froze.
Daniel heard the sharpness too late.
He set the frame on the table.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did.”
She turned away.
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
“I just don’t want the house turning into what it did with Ethan.”
Elaine looked toward the hallway.
The trophy shelf was still there.
Some of Ethan’s medals had been moved to make room for family photographs again.
“I can take it upstairs.”
Daniel picked up the frame.
Then he stopped.
“Leave it.”
Elaine looked at him.
“One thing.”
“One thing,” she agreed.
The frame stayed.
In April, Ethan entered spring football healthy.
His knee had not bothered him for months.
College interest remained real but less dramatic than Richard had once imagined.
There were emails.
Camp invitations.
A couple of serious conversations with smaller programs.
No scholarship offer had materialized.
Richard worried about it openly now.
Ethan pretended not to.
Daniel saw him checking recruiting messages after midnight.
One Saturday, Daniel found him sitting on the back steps with his phone beside him.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
Daniel sat.
The fire pit stood twenty feet away.
Nobody had used it since the previous May.
Rust had formed around the rim.
Ethan followed Daniel’s eyes.
“We should throw that thing away.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because it’s creepy now.”
“It’s a fire pit.”
“It has lore.”
Daniel laughed.
Ethan kicked at a loose stone.
“Coach thinks I should consider Division III.”
Daniel said nothing.
“That’s the part where you tell me it’s still college football.”
“You know that.”
“Yeah.”
Ethan picked up his phone, then put it down again.
“Dad doesn’t.”
“He probably does.”
“He acts like anything below Division I means I failed.”
Daniel looked toward the yard.
A lawn mower started somewhere behind the neighboring fence.
The sound settled into a steady drone.
“You know he was wrong about me.”
Ethan nodded.
“He can be wrong about you too.”
Ethan looked at him.
“That sounded motivational.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Disgusting.”
They sat there until Elaine called them inside for lunch.
May brought graduation.
Daniel’s cap sat crooked because Ethan had slapped it from behind two minutes before the ceremony.
Mrs. Patel found Daniel afterward near the football field.
She wore sunglasses and carried a paper cup of lemonade.
“I assume you intend to survive Plebe Summer out of professional courtesy.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“Good.”
Daniel looked at her.
The crowd moved around them in clusters of families holding flowers and phones.
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Patel lifted one eyebrow.
“For what specifically?”
“All of it.”
“That is too vague for someone who writes competent essays.”
Daniel smiled.
“For not deciding what I could handle before I did.”
Her expression softened.
“You handled more than you should have had to.”
Daniel looked down.
Mrs. Patel touched his shoulder once.
“Don’t make suffering into evidence that you deserve things.”
He looked at her again.
She took a sip of lemonade.
“That’s free advice.”
“Should I write it down?”
“I assume you have a spreadsheet.”
“Apparently that’s genetic.”
She laughed.
Across the field, Richard raised his arm.
“Your family is looking for you.”
Daniel turned.
Elaine was holding his diploma cover even though there was nothing inside it yet.
Ethan was wearing Daniel’s graduation tassel around his wrist.
Richard had a camera he did not know how to operate.
Daniel walked toward them.
For one afternoon, nobody discussed money.
Nobody discussed Annapolis.
Nobody discussed Ethan’s recruiting.
They ate barbecue in the backyard.
Richard overcooked the burgers.
May you like
Elaine complained.
Ethan threw a dinner roll at Daniel.
