Chapter 2

It was only a couple of days after Jenny and Mel departed that Leslie took the space on Brock’s porch that usually contained her daughter.

“Kinda quiet with the kids gone, isn’t it,” Brock said. Leslie just nodded.

“It’s this way every summer,” she told her neighbor of six weeks. “I have two months of peace. Jenny spends four months bitching about having to go and four months bitching about having gone. I get a couple of months quiet in the winter and a couple of months in the summer. That’s it.”

Brock joined her laughter.

“I only got six weeks of it,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad I don’t have to worry about things like that.”

This brought Leslie to one of the reasons she was sitting on his porch.

“You don’t seem to have many friends,” she told the boy. “You don’t seem to be going to any effort to make them, either.”

Brock sighed.

“Contrary to what I might have led you to believe, I am not the most sociable person around,” he said with a disarming smile. “I didn’t really plan to make friends with your family, either. But I guess I messed up on that one.”

Leslie wanted to know the reason behind Brock’s reticence toward spending time with others yet she didn’t really know how to ask. But she had other another purpose to her visit. Maybe that would give her the answer she sought.

“I want to talk to you about that,” she said simply. “You’ve been here almost two months and I haven’t seen an adult stop in to check on you.

“If you speak to your father at all it must be rarely or in the middle of the night. Which brings me to this...”

She handed an envelope to Brock. It was the electric bill. His electric bill.

“This was delivered to my house by mistake,” she said. “The bill is in your name. I can’t even get a phone line in Jenny’s name and it took me almost a year to get the electric changed to my name when I divorced.

“How does a 16-year-old boy get this accomplished?”

Brock had skated around questions for the last few weeks. He didn’t lie outright, but he didn’t really give the truth either. Questions like these were the main reason he’d vowed to avoid people and keep them at a distance.

“You are dating my daughter,” Leslie reminded him. “I think I’m entitled to a little information about the boy she’s spending half her time with.”

She watched as Brock rubbed his cold, dark eyes. He knew he had a decision to make. But he wasn’t ready to put his trust in anyone, let alone someone he’d just met six weeks before and someone who would sell him out if her daughter were in the slightest danger of being hurt. He’d already gone through that once. But he couldn’t see much of a choice. If he didn’t tell her she’d dig for the information and it’s hard to tell what she’d manage to find.

He’d known for the last couple of weeks that he’d have to let the Miles family in on his past but he wanted to keep full control over the flow of information lest fact get confused with gossip.

“I’m an emancipated minor,” he said. “I’m sure I have a father somewhere but I’ve never met him. My mother died last year. My idea of home died along with her, so I set out on my own. I own this house. I own the car. I’m responsible for the paying the utilities and the taxes and everything else.”

Brock could tell that the information startled his visitor.

“Could you explain a little more?” she asked. “I know what the word ‘emancipated’ means. But how does it apply to you?”

Brock filled Leslie in on his legal situation.

“In all matters, I am considered an adult,” he said. “There are a couple of contracts I’m not able to sign and I can’t vote or drink or anything like that. But a judge has determined that I possess the means to support myself and the intelligence to make decisions for myself. So I am permitted to live by myself.”

“Don’t you think that information should have been provided before you started to date Jenny?” Leslie asked quickly.

“Jenny has never stepped foot inside the house,” Brock replied. “She has not been, nor will she be, placed in any situation where my legal status is an issue. For example, while I don’t require a parent’s signature to marry, Jenny still does if that’s what you’re worried about.

“You’ve been aware of my living situation since the day I moved in. The only thing that’s changed is the adult you thought would be supervising me occasionally has been proven legally redundant. I am the adult who supervises me.”

Leslie was taken aback and found her anger rising.

“What’s changed is the fact that although I have suspected you’ve been lying to me, now I know you were,” she said hotly.

“That’s crap,” Brock spat back. “I’ve answered any question you posed as honestly as I could. You asked the wrong questions and I didn’t correct your misinterpretation. You assumed facts that I never offered. That’s your own damn fault.”

Leslie thought back to the conversations she had with the boy. He’d never mentioned his father, Jenny had. He’d been careful when answering questions and he had left out significant details, but he hadn’t lied. At least he hadn’t lied to her.

“What about Jenny?” she asked. “How much of this does she know?”

Brock shook his head. “None,” he answered.

“Don’t you think she has a right to know this?” Leslie asked, dumbfounded.

“I think,” Brock answered, “that my living situation is none of her--or your--business so long as I’m willing to limit my visits with your family to supervised or public locations. If you believe differently, Jenny and I will need to re-evaluate the situation when she returns.”

Leslie didn’t think it possible, but Brock’s cold stare actually got blacker as he spoke.

It was a few days later when Leslie stopped back at Brock’s house as he was mowing his lawn.

“You were right about the other day,” she said. “You’ve obviously convinced a judge that you’re able to attend to yourself and you seem to be doing fine. But I’m not sure I’m ready for my daughter to be dating an adult. I’d like for you to come over for dinner a couple of nights a week.

“I want to get to know you before I make any final decision. You won’t have to eat Ramen noodles three times a week and I won’t eat in front of the TV every evening.”

Brock smiled. He certainly did miss his nightly dinner with the Miles family.

“You have to understand that there are certain things I’m not willing to talk about,” he said. “If you are hoping to glean every detail of my life from me, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I didn’t mean to get involved with Jenny.

“I came here to spend a couple of years until I can go to a college where no one knows me and no one is interested in where I came from or why I live alone. I had hoped to avoid making any friends here for that reason.”

“So you’re happy about being alone?” Leslie asked quietly. “Most kids your age crave acceptance and camaraderie. Most would do just about anything to have friends and you’re unwilling to put forth the least effort. It doesn’t make sense.”

If she knew him, Brock thought, it would make perfect sense.

“It makes sense to me,” he said. “I’m not happy about it, but it’s just the way I want things for now. Obviously I’d prefer to be living with my mother. I tried to graduate last spring but I didn’t have the required credits. I could quit school and get my GED but that limits where I can go to college.

“I simply don’t enjoy people very much,” he concluded. He left out “any more.”

Leslie looked hard at him.

“If everything else you’ve told me is true then that is the first lie you’ve uttered,” she said. “You have a great wit and can contribute to almost any conversation I’ve seen you around. You enjoy people just fine, but you don’t want to be around them for some reason.

“That’s your choice. But one of the reasons I was happy, initially, about Jenny’s relationship with you is because it expanded her horizons. She stopped sitting around the house reading. She started going out in public. I truly don’t want Jenny to limit herself to someone who is as socially ambivalent as she herself is.”