Don't Worry About the Kids Read Online Free PDF Page A

wondered about that too—why you didn’t want me to meet your brother last time, us going right past his place. Your wife says that after visiting him you throw fits sometimes, you hurl things around the house.”
    â€œIt’s not so.”
    â€œThe kids say it is. Your wife says that you used to wake her in the middle of the night to go on crazy tirades.”
    â€œIt’s not so.” Michael looked down, head in hands, hoping Langiello would think he was fighting back tears.
    â€œAre you ashamed of him?”
    â€œOf who?”
    â€œOf your brother.”
    â€œNo.” Michael looked up. “Did she say that too ?”
    â€œYou should see your face, Mike. You should go look in a mirror. I have to say I agree with her, that there’s something off-center there when you get angry. And you did have a breakdown once.”
    â€œIt’s not so.”
    â€œBut you told me you had once put yourself under psychiatric care.”
    â€œI was in analysis for six years. When Jerry was—”
    Michael considered saying more—considered talking about the analysis: why he entered it, how difficult and rewarding the work had been. He smiled. “Can I ask you a question—a few questions?”
    â€œShoot,” Langiello said.
    â€œI take it you’re going to recommend that my ex-wife get primary custody of the children and I assume nothing I say now will change your mind. But tell me, Mr. Langiello—is a good parent one who lies to her children about the other parent? Is a good parent one who threatens to put her children in a foster home when they don’t do what she wants? Does a good parent deny counseling for her children? Does she threaten to kill them and maim them? Does she encourage her children to lie for her, to spy on their father, to steal things for her, to join in her war against him?”
    â€œWho knows?” Langiello said. “Wouldn’t you tell lies to protect your kid?” Michael said nothing. “I mean, who knows what a good parent is, Mike? Who really knows?”
    At the corner, Michael went into a telephone booth, called the hospital. He spoke to a nurse who said that because of the weather the vans had not gone to Brooklyn. Would Michael be coming out to Staten Island? Michael said he had office hours midaftemoon, but he promised he would visit Jerry later in the week. The nurse said that Jerry had been telling everybody in the ward he was going to a fancy restaurant with his brother; he had spent most of the morning preparing—washing, shaving, deciding which clothes to wear. She had never seen him dressed so handsomely.
    â€œI’ll be there,” Michael said. “Tell him it may take me a while—I’ll go by ferry—but I’ll be there.”
    Michael called his office and arranged for one of his partners to cover for him, then took the subway to Manhattan, exited at South Ferry. When he arrived on the Staten Island side he would take a taxi to the hospital.
    The rain had stopped. Michael stayed at the back of the ferry, on deck. Despite what had happened with Langiello, he was looking forward to seeing Jerry. A group of schoolchildren were on tour, and a middle-aged ferry-boat captain was telling them that cows had once walked across the Bay, near where the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel was, from Brooklyn to Manhattan; if the cows did not get back before the tide came in, they would often drown. Michael watched Manhattan grow smaller. Gulls followed the boat, the captain said, not for garbage, as most people thought, but because the warm water churned up by the boat’s propellers brought fish to the surface.
    When the schoolchildren went inside, Michael stayed on deck, looking not toward Brooklyn, but toward the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, New Jersey. The water seemed pockmarked, a murky brown spotted with filmy stars of blue and black and green. The ship rolled gently through row after row of