Chapter 3 - The Scar Came From the Last Summer Leonard Still Thought I Could Fix Everything
Leonard was eight when the stove burned him.
His father, Peter Hale, blamed himself for years.
Peter had been cleaning fish twenty feet away.
I had been reading.
Leonard ignored instructions and reached for the stove.
No adult caused:
the accident.
Peter still carried guilt.
That was Peter.
He thought fathers were supposed to prevent:
gravity.
I thought mothers were supposed to prevent:
everything else.
Leonard was our only child.
Not by plan.
By:
biology.
After him, I had two miscarriages.
Then surgery.
Then:
no more pregnancies.
So Leonard became:
our child,
our future,
our entire parental imagination concentrated into one boy.
We loved him.
That did not mean we always loved:
well.
I supervised:
grades,
friends,
sports,
college applications.
Peter was softer.
He used to tell me:
“Let the kid skin his knees.”
I answered:
“He already burned half his arm.”
Peter laughed.
Leonard hated when we joked about:
the scar.
At sixteen he once shouted:
“That happened eight years ago. Can we stop acting like I’m made of glass?”
I was offended.
Later I understood.
Maybe.
Not enough.
Leonard went to Berkeley.
Studied structural engineering.
Started in large commercial construction.
Then became obsessed with historic buildings.
Old theaters.
Victorian houses.
Industrial structures nobody knew whether to:
restore,
reinforce,
or demolish.
By thirty-one, he launched Hale Structural Preservation, a boutique engineering and restoration firm.
Peter invested:
$300,000.
I objected.
Not because I thought Leonard would fail.
Because parents lending that much money to one child’s business can destroy:
both.
Peter said:
“He’s our only child.”
Exactly my concern.
The company survived.
Then grew.
Leonard repaid most of the note within:
five years.
Peter became unbearably proud.
He died of an aortic aneurysm at sixty-eight.
Sudden.
That loss changed all of us.
I became:
more controlling.
Leonard became:
less patient.
And one year later, he met:
May you like
Veronica.
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