Chapter 6 - PATRICIA’S RULE
Patricia came from a generation that treated emotional language like contagious illness.
Her rule was:
Children do not become the center of adult rooms.
Sometimes useful.
A screaming child cannot always dictate dinner.
Then she expanded it.
A hurt child should not stop an event.
A frightened child should not embarrass family.
A crying boy needed privacy so he did not learn attention.
At five, I fell from a bicycle at her house.
Blood down both knees.
She gave me a towel.
"No performance."
At thirteen, Trent broke his wrist during football practice.
Dominic told him:
"Finish the drill."
Patricia applauded when he did.
The family retold that story for twenty-six years.
Trent finished with a broken wrist.
What courage.
Nobody retold:
The fracture displaced further and required surgery.
I had forgotten that part until my aunt Celia reminded me.
"He was in a cast up to his elbow."
"Why did everyone let him continue?"
Celia looked at me.
"Because Dominic said so."
"And Patricia?"
"She said boys recover."
There.
The same sentence with different words.
Boys get hurt.
Stop embarrassing the family.
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The philosophy had existed before Mason.
The question was whether it had become organized again.
