Consenting Adult by Laura Z. Hobson

nothing. It was Ken who finally called Pete’s parents to ask if they had had any word, Ken who had then phoned the Coast Guard to ask about sailboats in trouble during the storm. And when the response was yes, that two boats had capsized in the open Sound, with a search still going on, it was Ken who had asked the impossible question, “Any deaths reported?”
    Three more hours had gone, the question still officially unanswered, and then in the waning afternoon Finch had appeared at the little dock, and Jeff and Pete, happy and untroubled, had greeted the crowd gathered at the small marina, the four parents and others in the two families, as well as neighbors and friends.
    She had flown to Jeff and hugged him, as Pete’s parents had gone to Pete. There were the explanations, so simple that the anxious crowd ashore felt like simpletons: That morning at the marina, they’d been warned of a possible squall, had changed their route and sailed south, along the shore, down to the Norwalk Yacht Club, thinking they’d meet up with two fellows from school there and have a swim and their lunch until the storm situation showed more definitely.
    “And when it did hit, you never thought of phoning home?” Ken asked. His voice was unemphatic.
    “It just never occurred to me,” Jeff said.
    “Me either,” Pete put in.
    Ken had remained silent, perfectly polite, drifting into the background while others took over the questioning. Tessa had seen that Ken was no longer listening to the rest of their recital, how they had sat out the storm in the luxury of the club, their boat safely moored, the huge storm a theatrical scene staged for their amusement. Then Ken had departed alone, had gone home alone, had gone to his room, and remained there. He had appeared for dinner, but at the table he was detached and quiet. “I have a headache,” he had soon said, and had gone back to his room.
    His silence finally became more punitive than a shouted scolding could have been. She could see that Jeff was not only uncomfortable but furious. In the end, there had been a raging fight, not between Jeff and his father but between Jeff and her, she defending Ken, Jeff attacking.
    “It’s his way, Jeff,” she had cried out. “He does go silent when he is upset. He was brought up that way.”
    “It’s the oldest cheapest trick in the world—‘giving somebody the business’ is what it’s called.”
    “It’s not cheap. And it’s better than giving way to temper the way I do and you do.”
    “My God, I feel like some old criminal.”
    “It was a pretty bad time you gave us. You might be a little more contrite about how he took it.”
    “You didn’t take it that way.”
    “Jeff, people are different.”
    “I’ll say they’re different.”
    He had stared at her pugnaciously, and now again he was staring at her as if whatever guilt there was lay with her. “That’s why he was out last night,” he repeated, “and that’s why he’s taken a powder today. Give him the business. The silent treatment. Well, just let him.”
    “He needs a little time, that’s all. You ought to see that and give him a little room.”
    “What the hell for? What business is it of his anyway? It’s not his life, it’s mine. It’s not his trouble, it’s mine.”
    “But, Jeff, it’s also his. It’s also mine.”
    “Parents think they’re just naturally into everything. They think they own your whole life and everything you do is to their credit or not to their credit. It gets me sick.”
    “That’s unfair. Neither Dad or I have ever gone in for that stuff about living through our children, and you know it.”
    “That’s a good one.” He laughed, an artificial raucous laugh. “Every damn time one of us got a prize at school, you’d glow like a lamp, as if it was you getting the prize. Every time one of us got in a jam, you’d look like it was you in trouble, as if we’d stabbed you in the back. All my life I’ve had both of you on my back