Answering to Him (Old-Fashioned Husband) Read Online Free PDF Page B

see the error of her ways. One could only hope, anyway. Besides, I really did need to cool off.
    “Are you punishing me?” she asked, still in a little-girl whimper.
    The question caught me off guard. Was I what ? I started to say that of course I wasn’t, but I hesitated. Wasn’t I, in a way? “I’ll bring you something back,” I told her, trying to ease the sting. She didn’t turn her head even when I pecked her cheek. I waited for a moment, but she didn’t respond, and I wasn’t going to push her.
    Grabbing my keys, I went to the stairs and called for my son. When he heard we were making a fast food run he came bounding down the stairs two at a time, looking more like the happy little boy I’d known and loved. I’d begun to think that this video game obsessed, sullen teenager had taken over his body and that I’d never see him again.
    Jonah and I rarely spent time alone together, which was my fault, I knew. I hated to admit it, but we didn’t have much in common . We didn’t share any interests. I wasn’t quite sure when the gap had formed between us, when we’d started seeing each other only at dinner and not saying more than a handful of words to each other. I didn’t know what had caused it, or what to do to stop it, I only knew that it was there—an invisible line that separated us— that at times, seemed insurmountable.
    To my surprise, we kept up a steady stream of chatter while I drove to his favorite burger joint, “Whataburger”. I listened as he talked about his art class, which he liked, and his history class that he didn’t.
    “Mr. Feltmore is such a dumb ass,” he was explaining. “I mean, everyone knows that the Free Masons started out as a fraternity.”
    I wanted to laugh, but I checked myself and said, “Watch your language, son,” instead.
    Jonah mumbled assent, and I mentally kicked myself. There went our male bonding. After we parked, we walked into the burger joint. I caught a whiff of hot peanut oil the moment we hit the door, and as we were standing in line to order, Jonah began talking again as though nothing had happened. I gathered that there was a girl, Heather, whom he was interested in, although what he said was how “old” her clothes were.
    “Tell you what, change of plans. You want to eat here?”
    “Just the two of us?” Jonah asked in the deliberately neutral voice he used whenever he didn’t want to show emotion—which was often.
    “Yep.”
    He turned his head, but not before I saw his brown eyes light up. “OK. That would be cool.”
    When our meals arrived, brought to the table by our cashier, I watched Jonah dredge his fries through ketchup and talk about the latest game he was playing, Oblivion.
    “It’s RPG, and it’s really awesome, Dad.”
    I recognized the excitement in his face as the same look I got when I caught an error in a return, saving our department money that might have otherwise been spent needlessly. I thought that it was a pity that I couldn’t talk to him about the things that excited me, but there might be time for that later, when he was older. For now, it was my duty to listen to his interests, however far they might be from my own.
    “What’s RPG?” I asked, interrupting a tangent he’d been on about doing quests.
    “Role play game,” he answered, sounding like he might follow it by saying “ duh ”. “You didn’t have video games when you were my age, did you, Dad?”
    “We certainly did!” I exclaimed, affronted. “How old do you think I am , Jonah?”
    He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized my face, and seeing this level of concentration on his face as he tried to guess my age worried me. “Fifty,” he guessed.
    Close enough , I thought wryly. “I am not fifty, son, I’m forty-two. I’m not ancient, I’m still alive and kicking,” I joked.
    Jonah didn’t crack a smile, but instead eyed me skeptically. “Yeah, OK,” he said finally, his tone reeking of skepticism. He promptly launched into a new tale