2059

"But you never said anything, not to me anyway." "It didn't seem appropriate.  Plus, Jim was getting worried about the influence I was having on you.  In fact, the following day, while you were in school and he was supposed to be enjoying his day off, we lingered at the breakfast table.  I brought it up, said that I saw and heard everything.  Your dad got up, poured us both coffee refills, looked at me with those questioning blue eyes of his and asked me straightforward if I had taught you to do this.  I wasn't going to answer but felt nervous and cornered...you know how good your dad was at doing that... so I just said, Busted. He doesn't need to learn any more, was all he said, and I simply said, yeah, you're right.  so...by mutual consent, I decided not to tell you. "But you were still proud of me.  I mean, Griffin simply would not stop trying to turn me into his own personal boy and that seemed the best way of stopping him, right there, in the coffee hour following solemn mass, right in front of everyone, and I told him that if he wanted to see me that badly then he would have to start paying me, one hundred bucks, or I would squeal to everyone that he was sexually harassing me," "Which he was." "Did Dad know that you were proud of me?" "I knew better than to do anything further to jeopardize our friendship...Wow, look at those deer ferns, they are so abundant this year..."