Chapter 52
When I stood aside, Aaron followed Sam inside. “I promised him no yelling.” He looked at Christina. “Please don’t make a liar out of me.”
“Peter, why does he think he has the right to argue with me in front of my own son about the best way to deal with discipline, and then come here and talk to me like that? Am I missing something here? Do you regularly ask for his input?”
“The situation involved Sam, too,” I pointed out. “And trying to use Sam to prompt an apology wasn’t exactly fair.”
“You’re right,” Aaron surprised me by saying to her. “I don’t have the right to tell you how to discipline your son. I do have the right to express my opinion on how that impacts mine, however, and honestly, since I think those boys are the best thing to happen to each other, we owe it to them to figure out a way to resolve this without taking away the one thing each of them needs the most.”
“I didn’t threaten to send him away to boarding school so he and Sam could never see each other again. I said that if he wouldn’t apologize, we were going home. That is when you literally got between me and the exit and started acting like you were the one who had the final say on the issue.”
“Okay, wait.” I could see Christina gearing up for the fight, her blood rising and her eyes glittering dangerously. “I am sure that if Aaron gave you the impression he felt that way, he’s sorry. Right?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw, but he never looked away from Christina. “So I have to apologize for standing up for what I believe in, too, is that it? Fine. I’m sorry you got the impression I have more say in how you discipline your son than you do.”
The belief at the core of this argument was that violence was never the answer. We were supposed to use our words to solve problems, not our fists or our feet. Christina and I had both been bullied in school to varying degrees, and I knew this was something she actually believed in quite strongly, and I supported her. But in that moment, I itched to slap them both across the face, like Clark Gable slapped hysterical women in old movies.
“I’m sorry you think you have anysay.”
“Okay, enough. Seriously, guys? Do you want me to just leave the two of you here to duke it out? I can go play with Sam and Morgan. Right now, they’re probably a lot more reasonable than you two.”
Aaron finally shifted his attention to me. “How am I being unreasonable?”
Christina laughed. “Are you kidding me? You might as well have Neanderthal tattooed across your forehead.”
This was not going well. This was not going well at all, and if I didn’t do something quick, the whole situation was going to blow up in my face.
“Christina, I know Aaron well enough to know that he wasn’t trying to undermine you in front of Morgan. Now, from what I can piece together, it sounded like you started with the threat of taking Morgan home and escalating from there. Right?”
Christina nodded grudgingly.
“Did you really think that what Morgan did deserved restriction from playing with Sam, or were you just trying to show Aaron?”
“That’s not fair, Peter.”
“But you know that’s how you fight. You go right from baseline to the nuclear option. Remember what that relationship counselor said?”
“You’re really going to bring that up now?”
“You agreed with him at the time.”
“Fine, yes. But I still think that Morgan needs to understand that playground fights are not the solution. I don’t want him to be getting in trouble at school because some random guy told him he needs to fight bullies.”
“I am not some random guy,” Aaron argued.
“You’re also not his father.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t care about him. And the last thing I want is for him to be picked on because he doesn’t know how to defend himself.”
“Fighting is not the answer.”
“Neither is running to your mom. Because at that age, it’s embarrassing. Bullies like that kid see it as weakness.”
“Is that personal experience?”
Aaron’s nostrils flared. “This isn’t about me. You don’t want Morgan to fight? Fine. I can respect that. But you should’ve thought about how it was going to look for him. Why didn’t you ask the other kid where his parents were? If we’d involved his mom or dad, we could’ve avoided all of this, because then it’s hisbad behavior—that started all of this in the first place, remember—that’s in the spotlight. Not your son’s.”
“Well, since you have all the answers, why didn’t you make the suggestion when it actually would have mattered?”
“Oh, good God. I’m going to go speak to Morgan and Sam now. Alone. I’d tell you two to stop arguing, but I don’t think you’re capable of it.”
Aaron spoke before I could move. “Because I wasn’t thinking straight. And I’m sorry for that. Genuinely sorry. But I showed up at the park in a bad mood, and it didn’t really get any better once you threatened to separate the boys. Even temporarily.”
“The play date was your idea.”
“I know. Because I still believe they’re the best thing for each other.” Taking a deep breath, he shoved his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumping. “I was pissed because I was going to have to spend time chatting with you instead of Peter.”
“What difference does that make? What’s going on here, Peter?”
“Nothing. Leave it.”
“That’s not what it looks like.”
“Well, that’s what it is,” I snapped, raising my voice for the first time.