Chapter 110: Escalating Conflict
Mary came home to find Sheldon on the couch with a bandage on his knee and Georgie sitting nearby with the specific expression of someone who had been present for an event and was managing the information about it carefully.
"What happened?" Mary said.
"He fell," Georgie said. "On the front walk."
"Cecily was there," Sheldon said immediately, because Sheldon was not going to let that detail be omitted.
Mary looked at Sheldon's knee, then at Georgie, then at Sheldon with the specific, focused attention she gave things that involved her youngest child being hurt.
"Did she push you?" Mary said.
"No," Sheldon said, with the honesty that made Sheldon simultaneously difficult and trustworthy. "She was walking toward me and I attempted a defensive maneuver and lost my footing."
"He tried to trip her and fell down himself," Georgie clarified.
Sheldon looked at his brother.
"That's a reductive description," Sheldon said.
"That's what happened," Georgie said.
Mary looked at the bandage.
George came out of the kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder, read the room accurately, and said: "It's a scrape. I cleaned it and bandaged it. He's fine."
"She was there," Mary said.
"She was walking on a public sidewalk," George said, with the careful, measured tone of a man who had thought about how to frame this before Mary arrived. "Sheldon initiated the physical engagement."
"Because she frightened him," Mary said.
"Mary," George said, "kids on this street have been encountering each other since—"
"She has been systematically terrorizing our son for weeks," Mary said. "And he has a bandage on his knee."
"He fell down," George said.
"Because of her," Mary said.
George looked at his wife with the expression of a man who recognized that he was not going to win this specific argument and was deciding which battles to stop fighting.
"I'll talk to Jeff Patterson this week," he said. "Directly. Man to man."
"When this week?" Mary said.
"Soon," George said.
"When specifically?"
"Mary—"
"When specifically, George."
George looked at the ceiling.
"Thursday," he said.
"Today is Thursday," Mary said.
"Friday," George said.
Mary looked at him for a long moment.
"Dinner's ready," George said. "The roast is going to get cold."
Connie and Mike came through the back door during the dinner cleanup, as they often did on Thursday evenings. Connie took in the bandage on Sheldon's knee with one glance and the specific expression that she'd developed for Sheldon-related incidents over the last two months.
"What's the story?" she said.
Sheldon told her.
Connie listened with her Lone Star, nodded once, and said: "You're going to show her the trains."
"I'm not," Sheldon said.
"You told her she could see them," Connie said.
"I told her not today," Sheldon said.
"'Not today' is an implied later," Connie said.
Sheldon looked at her with the expression of someone who had not intended to create that implication and was now finding it inconvenient.
"The knee's fine," Connie said, to Mary. "Let it be."
Mary was quiet in the specific way she was quiet when she had decided on a course of action and had not yet announced it.
The following day, at noon.
George had taken Missy to her dentist appointment, which had been on the calendar for three weeks and was non-negotiable. Sheldon was at school. Georgie was at school. Mike was at Math Olympiad practice.
Mary came home from the church office, put her bag on the counter, and stood in the kitchen for three minutes thinking about Sheldon's bandaged knee.
Then she took a bottle of tomato juice from the pantry and put it in her purse.
Even she was not entirely clear on what her plan was. She had a general sense of direction and a specific destination.
The Medford Lanes bowling alley was on the commercial strip about six blocks from the church — a mid-sized local establishment that had been there since before Mary had been in Deford, the kind of business that survived on regular customers and league nights. Thursday afternoon was quiet. About a third of the lanes were occupied.
Connie was at the far end of the building, in her usual spot — she came here twice a week, had for years, and had a particular chair near lane twelve that the staff had stopped offering to other customers.
She saw Mary come through the door.
She saw the expression on Mary's face.
She saw the specific way Mary was holding her purse.
She stood up.
Mary had already spotted Brenda Patterson at the front counter — late thirties, efficient, the competent customer-service demeanor of someone who had worked the same job for long enough to be good at it. Brenda served on the same church committee as Mary. Their children were the same age. Under any other set of circumstances they would have described themselves as friendly acquaintances.
Mary pushed through to the counter.
"Brenda," she said.
Brenda looked up with the professional warmth of someone in the middle of their shift. "Mary. What can I—"
"Your daughter has been bullying my son," Mary said.
The professional warmth adjusted.
"I heard something about that," Brenda said, carefully. "Jeff mentioned—"
"Sheldon has a bandage on his knee," Mary said.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Brenda said. "If Cecily—"
"I'd like an apology," Mary said. "And an assurance that it won't continue."
The counter had the specific atmosphere of a public space where a private conversation was happening, and the customers nearby had done the unconscious geometry of people who wanted to see what was happening while appearing not to.
Brenda looked at Mary.
"Mary," she said, with the patient, slightly strained tone of someone managing a situation at their workplace. "Cecily is six. She brought him a drawing yesterday. I don't think—"
"She frightened him badly enough that he fell and hurt himself," Mary said.
"From what Jeff told me, he—" Brenda stopped. She took a breath. "This really isn't the right place—"
"Then where?" Mary said. "I've been waiting for George to talk to Jeff for a week. No one is taking this seriously."
"I'm taking it seriously," Brenda said. "I'm just trying to have this conversation like two adults—"
"My son has a bandage on his knee," Mary said again.
Something shifted in Brenda's expression — the patience reaching a specific limit.
"Mary," she said, "I know you love Sheldon. Everyone knows you love Sheldon. But Cecily drew the child a picture. She's been trying to be friendly. Whatever happened yesterday—"
"She approached him when he was alone and frightened him," Mary said.
"She walked toward him," Brenda said. "She's six."
"Are you going to apologize or not?" Mary said.
The customers at the counter were not pretending anymore.
Connie arrived.
She put her hand on Mary's arm with the specific, firm gentleness of someone who had done this before.
"Mary," she said. Quiet. Direct. The voice she used when she meant it.
Mary's jaw was set.
"Brenda," Connie said, over Mary's shoulder. "I'm sorry for the disruption. Sheldon had a minor scrape yesterday and Mary's been running on worry since then. Give us a minute."
Brenda looked at the two of them.
"Of course," she said, with the strained professionalism of someone accepting an exit that was being offered.
Connie steered Mary toward the far side of the bowling alley, away from the counter, away from the audience.
"Mary," she said.
"Don't," Mary said.
"You came here with tomato juice in your purse," Connie said.
Mary looked at her.
"I can see the shape of it," Connie said.
Mary looked at her purse.
She sat down in one of the molded plastic chairs along the wall with the specific, deflating quality of someone whose righteous momentum had encountered something reasonable.
"His knee," Mary said.
"I know," Connie said. She sat down beside her.
"He fell down because he was trying to protect himself from a six-year-old," Mary said. The air had gone out of the anger and what was underneath it was visible. "He shouldn't have to do that."
"No," Connie said. "He shouldn't."
Mary pressed her lips together.
"The drawing," Mary said.
"I know about the drawing," Connie said.
"Mike told her to bring a drawing," Mary said. "He engineered the whole thing."
"He did," Connie said.
"And then Sheldon saw her coming with the drawing and tried to defend himself and fell," Mary said.
"Yes," Connie said.
"So in a way," Mary said, "the drawing made it worse."
"In the very short term," Connie said.
They sat there.
Down the alley, Brenda had gone back to work with the careful, slightly elevated attention of someone who had been in an almost-confrontation and was still tracking the territory.
"She's not a bad mother," Mary said, reluctantly. "Brenda."
"No," Connie said. "She's not."
"Cecily's not a bad child," Mary said, even more reluctantly.
"No," Connie said.
"Sheldon is terrified of her," Mary said.
"He is," Connie said. "He's also going to show her his trains within the week. That's my prediction."
Mary looked at her.
"He told her she could see them," Connie said. "'Not today' is an implied later, and Sheldon honors implied commitments even when he doesn't want to."
Mary was quiet for a moment.
"I have tomato juice in my purse," she said.
"I know," Connie said.
"I don't actually know what I was planning to do with it," Mary said.
"I know that too," Connie said. "That's why I got up when you came through the door."
Mary sat in the plastic chair at the Medford Lanes bowling alley and let the last forty minutes settle into some kind of perspective.
"I should apologize to Brenda," she said.
"Yes," Connie said.
"Today, before I leave," Mary said.
"That would be best," Connie said.
Mary stood up.
She put the tomato juice back in her purse.
She walked back to the counter with the specific, composed dignity of Mary Cooper approaching a difficult thing correctly, which was the only way she knew how to approach difficult things.
Connie watched her go.
She sat in the plastic chair for another moment.
She thought about raising Mary, and about what Mary was like at nine years old, and about the specific way love made people unreasonable sometimes.
She finished her Lone Star.
She went to lane twelve to bowl.
(End of Chapter 110)
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