Secrets

Something happened to Brandon today. I could see it in his shoulders and brow as he walked to the car. His brow? Since when does my boy have a brow?

I’ve seen thousands of shades of developing emotions on his forehead: shock, excitement, awe, pain, surprise, delight, joy, horror, admiration, dejection, amusement, frustration, confusion, etc. etc. but never, ever, can I remember thinking of Brandon as having a “brow.” Yet there it was, something heavy weighing on him, some middle-aged office worker’s sense of resignation, settling on my boy’s brow. His attitude looked like it aged 30 years since this morning when it went bounding out of the passenger’s seat. Now, one short school day later, he plopped his backpack in the backseat, slinked into the car, buckled his belt, and looked at his hands in his lap.

No story. No daily report about what happened during lunch, or what jokes Mr. McCullough told during history class. Silence.

“How was school?”

He looked out the passenger window and mumbled fine. An image of my brother staring vacantly out the window of the rolling South Shore Line to Chicago - with his brilliant creativity numbed into oblivion by antidepressants - flashed across my mind.

“Did Mr. McCullough have any good jokes today?”

“Nope.”

“Did it feel like a long day today?”

He shrugged.

I decided not to press, he’d open up to me, he always did.

At home, Swift greeted him with cheerful eyes and a wagging tail, Brandon dropped to one knee and hugged Swift’s neck. We got a Golden Retriever when Brandon was nine, we were reading a children’s version of Gulliver’s Travels at the time and Brandon immediately dubbed him Jonathan Swift. We insisted it was a family dog and we would all choose his name together, but from that moment on, Swift really belonged to Brandon. The family tradition of naming pets together at the dinner table (which required a unanimous vote and could be a laborious process as every family member possessed an absolute veto) was just a rubber stamp. We recognized Brandon had that mysterious and wonderful connection with Swift that people form with some pets but not others.

Brandon hadn’t slipped out a clue about what was wrong on the drive home and maybe, just maybe, Swift's excited, happy greeting was exactly what Brandon needed. He hugged and nuzzled Swift’s neck for extra few seconds that seemed significant.

“Can I take Swifty for a walk? Brandon asked.

“Sure.” I was glad to hear a request. “Ok, go change your clothes and we’ll walk him.”

“No, can I...just me and Swifty?”

The question dropped heavily between my son and I, my surprise added weight. I told him to go change and he began trudging toward the stairs. It struck me that his body language wasn’t the exaggerated dejected posturing designed to get his way, my boy was actually sad, and it wasn’t a fleeting sadness, replaced at a moment with the life’s events, he seemed preoccupied. Two steps up the stairs he turned and said, “Please Dad?”

“Go change, I’ll think about it.”

He went upstairs, I texted my wife:

“Brandon asked to walk Swift by himself”

“Alone?”

“Yeah, just him and Swift”

“Why don’t you follow him?”

“I think we should let him”

“He seems sad”

“It’ll be good for him”

The fact that I had time to send three messages without a reply meant she was hesitating, she must be deliberating, and so was I. Brandon was twelve, he’d never walked the dog alone before. I thought about our walking route; our neighborhood was quite, peaceful, hardly ever had any traffic, but there was the pair of bulldog’s behind the tall brown wooden fence. I tried to imagine Brandon passing the barking bulldogs, he’d be afraid right in that spot, but he’d be fine, they never got out, and Swift was well behaved on walks. Brandon already held the leash everyday so would it really be that different? How would Swift react without my presence?

She messaged back:

“How far?”

“Just the regular route, and I’ll time him”

“It’s up to you”

“And, I’ll lecture him about what to do”

“Are you worried about it?”

“Not at all, but I wanted to check with you first”

“Ok”

“I’ll let you know when he’s back”

I was slightly surprised to find myself excited for Brandon. He came downstairs and I proceeded with instructions: regular route, 20 minutes, no delays, cross the street if there are any unknown dogs, be firm with Swift, you walk him he doesn’t walk you. He nodded, he wasn’t excited, or wasn’t showing it, just ready.

I won't describe my anxiety while my son walked the dog. I won’t tell you the worst thing I imagined happening, and I won’t tell you how many times I checked my watch. I won’t tell you about the beer I drank, or the whiskey I poured and then hesitated to drink, thinking what if he doesn’t return on time and I have to drive around the neighborhood, but finished anyway and poured a second. I won’t say how many times I looked out the window or if I opened the front door, listening intently for dogs barking in the distance. I’ll only say that Brandon returned safely, within the allotted time frame, with a small smile on his face. His sadness hadn’t exactly lifted, but he wasn’t preoccupied either, it was lighter, as if Swift shared part of the burden.

That night when I put him to bed I was ready to quiz him about his day, to prod him until he delivered the bad news, or whatever it was that had been bothering him before he walked Swift, but he beat me to the punch.

“Dad.” It was that opening statement I had been hoping for all afternoon.

“Yeah?”

“Is it ok if I have some secrets I only tell Swifty?”