Dolphins

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Dolphins Catherine Uroff (bio) Shane comes home from school and tells me all about it. He can't look at me as he talks. He was at a party. He drank too much. He slept with some girl. And now. The first thing I focus on is the fact that he was drinking. It's easy to concentrate on that. He knows he's not supposed to drink. Dennis and I talk to him about that all the time. With his family history, it's something he should stay away from. "It's in your blood," Dennis says to him because Shane's mother, Karen, was a drunk. A sweet woman in many ways, from all I've heard—just the other day Jeannie Rafferty from across the street was telling me how Karen kept such beautiful flowers, and I had to look down at the mums I'd just planted, already dead looking with their tight brown buds, wilted leaves gone pale—but still, a drunk. After Shane is finished with his story, I call Dennis. "No, Gina, wait," Shane says but I hold up my hand to silence him. It's a trick I learned when I taught school. One hand movement and an entire class of wiggly second graders can become completely silent, solemnly still. Dennis comes home from work immediately. As soon as he enters the house, he takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves, as if he's about to do something, like lift something heavy. "What in the world? What happened?" "I already told Gina," Shane says. "Well, I'll want to hear it from you." "I didn't do anything. The girl? She's just embarrassed. And she's got to blame someone so she's blaming me." "Blaming you for what exactly?" So Shane tells his story again. He was at a party last weekend at Jimmy Malone's house. They were celebrating the beginning of their senior year. Lots of parties going on. No, Jimmy's parents weren't there. They were at the Cape or something. Anyway, at the party, they were drinking beer, [End Page 106] pulling out everything from Jimmy's parents' liquor cabinet. Then some girl came up to Shane and wanted to talk to him. She said she needed privacy so they went into a back bedroom. He could tell she liked him. There was one thing and then another and before he knew it they were doing it. It. You know. It. "Please don't make me spell it out. This is embarrassing enough. Really, it is. Fuck. Sorry for swearing. I know, I know. But I'm in trouble now and I didn't mean for anything bad to happen. You gotta believe me. I was just—I didn't know there was anything wrong. Honest, I didn't. It's not like I've got a ton of experience with this. But some kids from the party came into the room in the middle of it and they were taking photos and laughing about how they were going to post them online. Snapchat. Instagram. That kind of thing." By this time, Shane's voice has gotten so low and soft that I can barely hear him. I think about what Dennis and I were doing last weekend. How did we not know this was going on? I remember Shane going out on Saturday. He said he was meeting up with his friends. He came home before curfew. I'm sure of it. I was lying in bed and I heard the front door slam shut and I turned to Dennis and said, "Our boy's home." "I thought everything was ok but then today at school Mr. MacDonnell pulled me out of Chem, and when I went into his office there was the guidance counselor there and a police officer too and they were just standing around glaring at me, and Mr. MacDonnell said there's been some complaint issued about me and it was the girl, she's saying now that she doesn't remember any of it. She's claiming that I forced myself on her, slept with...