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uttered them. How did he know Matty wasn't on drugs? How did he know what was going around? Drugs had been found in Carleton High, why not the elementary schools? It happened elsewhere. Butler wasn't immune. Nor was his son, goaded by peers to try a little something the way they dared each other to jump off trees and snow-tube down steep hills or swim too far in Spy Pond. |
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Suddenly Calvin felt a rush of guilt. Maybe this was his punishment for not spending more time with Matty, for being too busy with his writing . . . He left the kitchen and headed upstairs. As he approached the top steps, Matty ran out of the bathroom and into his room, clutching the towel to himself. |
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"Hey, buddy," Calvin said, but the boy closed the door behind him. Had the door been fitted with a lock, Calvin was certain it would have been bolted in his face. |
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Matty was no more modest than the next twelve-year-old, especially in front of his dad. Probably embarrassment over the bruises. Even so young, Matty had enormous pride. |
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On the wall outside his door hung a large colored photo Terry had taken of him when he was three. He was sitting at the kitchen table naked except for the empty milk cup on his head, his fat little round face grinning proudly over the milk moustache under his nose. He looked like a cherub being raised by clowns. Suddenly Calvin felt a sadness. His little boy had passed from a chubby tot smelling of milk to a boy, angled out and hardened with musclealmost as if he had missed the process. Conveniently he had absented himself from his only child, leaving for Terry the full weight of parenting so that he could write precious articles on subjects nobody cared about. For the first time since Matty's birth, Calvin became acutely aware that he had been a pretty lousy father. |
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He tapped on the door. "Can I come in?" |
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He turned the handle. He pushed it open no more than a few inches when Matty yelled, "NO. DON'T COME IN!" |
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The next instant Matty flew across the room and body-slammed the door shut. |
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The impact against the jamb was like a gunshot. |
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