It was John’s turn.
Dad had taken me out for a walk on the pier and told me all about it. Now it was John’s turn. Charlie was too little to really understand it, so I guessed that Dad wouldn’t even bother telling him. But now he was telling John.
It had been a really hard talk. Dad had tried to tell me that, well, that things were going to be OK even afterwards. But I didn’t really believe him. That our family would still go on, pretty much like before. But I didn’t see how that could be. Not with this happening.
I don’t think grownups really know how it is when you are a kid. How these things affect us. I know this had happened to to other families; and I guess, well, maybe they were still Ok. But I couldn’t see how we were going to be OK.
I sat down and waited, watching Dad tell John. I couldn’t really tell, from here, from the back, how John took the news. I saw Dad put his arm around him once, but Dad did that a lot. I didn’t mean that John was crying or nothing. John didn’t cry easy. Although this was pretty big news.
Pretty soon they were coming back. Dad went off to the house, but John came over to me, his eyes wide and staring.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“I don’t know what to think!” He said. “It’s awful!”
“Dad says it will be OK.”
“OK? He told me the same thing, but, how can it be OK?”
I can’t believe Mom is doing it!” He said, after a while. “Well, Dad and Mom, I guess. Dad said it was as much his fault as anyone’s.”
“Dad told me it isn’t really anyone’s fault. That these things just sort of happen. He said he really couldn’t explain now, that I would learn when I got older.”
“Well, I think they should have done something. If they had tried real hard they could have worked it out better, and not ruined our family like this.”
“Do you think it will ruin our family?” I asked. “We know other families that have this problem. The Johnsons, it’s worse with them.”
There was a long, long silence, and John stared back toward the house before looking back at me.
“I don’t know, Fred, I just don’t know. We’ve never had a sister before.”
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