The Headmaster's Wife(22)

“No,” I say. “He’s done now. Today would be fine.”

“All right, then. Why do things have to be so hard with you people?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and I mean it. I hang up the phone.

It is done now; Russell is done now, and I am not the one who sees him off. I do get a look at him moving across the quad with Mr. Marx, on his way back to gather his belongings. The two of them walking through the falling snow to the boys’ dorm. It is an old ritual, one that has been around as long as there has been a Lancaster, and I do not suppose it gets any easier, especially when the boy in question is not at fault, which is not unprecedented, but is not an everyday thing, either.

The truth is Russell Hurley had a way out, and he could have fulfilled his promise here and averaged his 27.5 points a game and maybe taken us to the New England championships for the first time in a decade, and in the process have carved his own path south to Hanover and to greatness at Dartmouth College.

But he stood on principle, and so did we. And when two parties stand on principle, the weaker of the two, the one without the backing of history and institution, gives. It always does. It is the way of the world, and I do not make the rules, only follow them.

In the middle of this—and perhaps to avoid Betsy Pappas, since I know her wrath is coming, since she will see Russell’s expulsion as a violation of our agreement—I go to see my father.

He lives, as he has since his retirement, in an old house just down the street from campus. It is where, you could say, old headmasters go to die. The house is owned by the school, and it is modest, hardly as grand as the house I call my own. Nevertheless, it is a classic New England white clapboard home with green shutters, and around it are the gardens that have become his work since my mother died. It occurs to me that I have been so desperate, and for so long, to be my own man that I have not sought his counsel perhaps as often as I should. He has sat where I sit, and there are not many of us who can say that. One thing that is unassailably true about being head of school is that until you actually occupy the office, you cannot understand its challenges. You think you do, but, trust me, you do not. This is one of the reasons our fraternity, despite our competition, is one of peership and understanding.

My father greets me at the door. He is not expecting me, and it has been awhile since I was over. Too long, in fact, though that is my issue more than his. What can you say about fathers and sons that has not already been said? What can you say that Turgenev, for instance, has not said better?

“Arthur,” my father says. “Come in.”

He walks with a cane now, and his silver hair is thinner than it used to be, and he is stooped from age. But even not expecting visitors on some random Wednesday night in November, he is put together as if the board itself might show up at the door. His clothes are pressed as always, a crease down the center of each leg of his tan chinos, his gig line perfect, buttons lined with buttons.

He leads me into his study, where he has a fire going. My father insists on fires most of the year. Even in June. The room is overheated, though my father does not notice. He wears a sweater under his blue sport coat.

“Scotch?” he says.

I nod, and he pours us each a couple of fingers from the carafe on the table next to his desk. His hand shakes as he brings me the glass. We sit in wingback chairs in front of the fire, and I do not tell him why I am here, and I do not have to. I do not just visit, and he knows this.

“You been having a bit of a hard time of late,” my father says.

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I keep my ear to the ground,” he says.

“The board is a little tricky right now.”

“Penny Wilton?”

“Yes. Dick is doing good work. But she’s a problem.”

My father nods. He looks thoughtfully into the fire. I follow his eyes. It can be a beautiful thing to watch a fire. He says, “Arthur, how much of this is about Betsy?”

I turn to look at him. He continues to look straight ahead. Who has he been talking to? Mrs. LaForge? Have some of my conversations been too loud?

I say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t be daft, Arthur, really.”

“Who have you been talking to?”

“Arthur, listen to me, okay? I want you to listen to me. No one expects you to be perfect. You get that? You do not have to be so controlled all the time. You need outlets.”

“Outlets?”

“Yes, ways of coping. We all do. You know the old saw: ‘Bottle it up and it will explode.’”

I look at my father as if I am seeing a different man. This is an uncomfortable conversation. I find myself wishing I had not come here. He wants to talk more about this, but in truth I am suddenly not feeling particularly well. I stare at the fire, and his words bounce off me and back to him, and now and again I offer him platitudes as if I were listening.

That night I have a very strange dream. I dream that my heart has come outside my body. It is on the outside of my chest, first as a nub and then fully formed. Though it doesn’t really look like a heart; it looks more like a jellyfish. It is a clear, oblong thing that hangs like a limp balloon with works inside it, like you see in clocks. Small machinery that moves up and down, up and down. I am very afraid to have my heart outside my chest like this. I feel like I need to talk to someone about it. I try to find Elizabeth but cannot, so instead I go over to my father’s house and show this to him. I expect sympathy and remorse and alarm. Clearly, I am dying. This could happen only to a dying person. But my father simply looks at my hanging heart and says, “That is going to be expensive.” It is the worst thing he could say. It shows he doesn’t understand the scope of the problem. Similar to when he brought up Betsy, as if he could possibly understand what it means to love her, as if he could possibly understand the danger I am in. He never did a wrong thing in his life. When did he become so cavalier? Perhaps age is getting to him finally. Maybe he is losing his mind.