The two children, both blond and dusted with Mom’s freckles, knew their mealtime tasks — pouring water and soda and milk and bringing out the serving dishes of cold cuts, potato chips, pickles, salad, sliced watermelon. Ron sat down in his customary chair, the one with arms. He didn’t do this because he was the head of the family. It was because it was the most uncomfortable chair of the dining set. He could buy a new one. Another thing he now had time to get around to.
They dished up, they ate, they talked.
The conversation jogged and flowed everywhere — except to the subject of why Dad would be staying home for a while. Children are ever curious and fiercely perceptive. Much of their life was their soccer teams, their virtual worlds, their hanging with friends, their texting — but they also had news feeds and forums and they were as conversant on the topic of their father’s suspension as anyone. Probably more than ninety percent of NYPD personnel.
And so, when the eating dwindled and plates were clean, Ron decided it was time.
“All right. Family meeting.”
A concept not regularly exercised in this household. His own father had convened get-togethers once or twice a year, and Ron and Tony, his twin brother, would sit down on the carpeted floor while their mother took her rocker and Dad would talk about downsizing and what a move to Queens from Brooklyn would mean or that Grandad Bill had passed or that the doctor had found something and he needed to be in the hospital for a while...
So Ron had understandably come to associate the idea of an official family conference with unhappiness and had never convened one.
Until now.
They moved to the living room.
He took an armchair so that Jenny couldn’t sit beside him, which, for some reason, he felt would magnify the gravity and upset the children more.
“You know a little about what’s going on. But I’m going to tell you everything.”
He explained to them about the crash, how he was going to be ticketed and maybe even charged for running a red light and hurting somebody. The person he’d hit was going to live. Because of the police department rules he had to take some time off.
He and their mother would make sure they’d be fine. This was just a temporary thing. Their lives would hardly change at all.
And there was no way to hide or buff it:
The drugs.
About which the children were, sadly, conversant, given the school’s health curriculum.
He’d explained about the sticky, potent nature of fentanyl. How he and their mother had never done anything recreationally except a little pot (tell them everything, just not too much of everything).
That part was a mistake. That part would get straightened out.
They nodded that they understood.
But did they wholly?
And, for that matter, how convincing could he be when he wasn’t sure that it
The one part of everything that did not make it into the final version: that he might be arrested and go to jail.
A bridge to be crossed later, if required.
He asked if they had any questions.
Brad asked: “Are we going to have to move?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
Martine wanted to ask something, but didn’t. Ron — like all parents, a psychic — said, “There’s no talk of me losing my job. And if I did, I’d get a new one. Easy-peasey.”
Relief flowed into the girl’s face.
A sensation that her father absolutely did not feel.
At the thought of leaving the only job he had ever wanted, or keeping the badge but being desked, Ron’s gut tightened, his heart stuttered. He controlled the urge to cry. Barely.
Brad, the more reserved of the two, said, “Maybe we should, like, stay home.”
Ron reached out and gripped the boy’s forearm. “No, we go on with our life. We live it normally. We don’t let things like this affect us. We rise above it. You ever hear that expression?”
They nodded.
“Now, are you okay with this?”
They said, “Sure” and “Okay.”
But the words were flimsy. They were confused and shaken and, possibly, afraid.
This broke Ron Pulaski’s heart.
But he fired up a smoke screen of his own: “Clear the table, finish your homework. Then Monopoly with dessert.”
