I told him about my father, and the rent, and the box, and the account kept in the dark.
And then I told him the part my father never got to say in time.
“When you’ve got your feet under you,” I said, “and I promise you will — you do this for the next kid. That’s the rent. That’s all I’ll ever charge you.”
He’s twenty now. He’s got his own apartment, and a savings account he started himself, and a pair of boots that have never let water in.
Because my father spent his whole life believing you had to choose between making a boy strong and letting him know he was loved.
He was wrong.
You can do both.
You just have to say the words while you’re still in the room.
“Put on another pair of socks,” my father once told me.
I have a better answer now, the one he was too frightened to give.
