Oscar gets easily defensive, always quick to deny wrongdoing-even when he’s told he didn’t do any wrong-and so I expected his reflexive protest of, “No I wasn’t!” I quickly reassured him he wasn’t in trouble, he didn’t do anything wrong, but there was this thing that I knew and it had to be out in the open. He shrank in the passenger seat, bracing for the worst. “So, I have to talk to you,” I told him, once we were inside the car and away from other ears.
You had to really look at his face-with its lingering bits of chub and soft, trusting eyes-to remember how young he actually was. I wondered what his expression was then.Īt 9 years old, Oscar could have easily passed for 12 or 13: He stood 5’2” and weighed 125 pounds. The week before, he ran face-first into a wall of his own curiosity, saw things he shouldn’t have, things that he certainly would’ve kept to himself if I chose to let it go. Watching my boy bound out the doors of his school, all smiles and sprints-I’m free!-I wished he’d slow down. I’d been steeling myself for it all day I knew neither of us was ready. This was the conversation I was dreading-the one probably every father dreads-and it was happening much earlier than I’d expected.
