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raise its split tip off the carpet. He swung it wavering through the air, and let it bounce off the top of the monitor. The screen jiggled, but stayed where it was, not a mark on its sturdy plastic casing. It was Jamie who felt shattered. He couldn’t do this.
    â€œNo!” he cried involuntarily, letting the poker thump to the floor. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to write what I did, I’m sorry! I need it, I can’t work without it, you can take it out on me, but not my computer!”
    It was a mistake, he knew that even as he heard the words pouring from his throat. You never, ever, disobeyed a direct order, not if you expected to remain standing. But underneath this acknowledged rule was a hidden truth, deeper and ultimately far more devastating: You didn’t love something if you wanted to keep it. He saw the stern disapproval arranged on Father’s face, but he also saw the flare of satisfaction, saw Father realize that he had succeeded in getting inside his son’s shield.
    He was not surprised when Father bent to retrieve the loathsome object, nor when Father placed the handle back into his hand. This time Father wrapped his own grip around his son’s, crunching the thin fingers between ivory and implacable flesh and bone; this time the boy’s arm came up hard, tugging its socket at the height of the swing; this time the monitor cracked through with the harsh thud of a skull breaking, glass spurting like blood across the desk and the boy’s chest. The second blow was easier. Jamie’s arm went up again, and again, pounded into shreds the monitor, hard drive, keyboard, printer—all the beautiful parts of the machine he loved.
    After a while, Jamie became aware that his hands alone were wrapped around the warm ivory, that Father had stood back to watch him smash and pound without assistance on the brittle plastic and the glass, reducing the motherboard to a miniature junkyard of metal and plastic, splintering holes in the wooden desk beneath. Smashing blindly, hearing the sound (a small voice asked sarcastically if he was going to put this, too, into one of his English assignments) of crunch and splinter and spatter, horrible yet horribly satisfying, and behind it a furious, high-pitched scream that he knew was inside his own brain. He pulverized the chunks, beating at the machine until nothing but the mangled shell remained. Only then did Jamie stumble back, trembling and panting, his eyes red but dry, looking down from some far distance at the pieces of worthlessness flung across the room. He wanted to smash something else; anything.
    Father’s hand came down onto his again; this time it was gentle. Strong fingers pried the ivory grip from his son’s tingling fingers, laying the rod on top of the debris-covered desk. He picked up the chair, and Jamie winced, but Father merely flipped it over to free it from glass before restoring it to its place. He sat down on it. The trembling boy felt one hand on his shoulder and another against the back of his knees, and then Father was lifting his son up and settling him onto his lap, so that the boy came to rest surrounded by Father’s strong arms.
    Jamie sat rigid inside the embrace, bubbling with rage, fighting to remain oblivious to the strength and the warmth:
Not this time,
the boy swore to himself;
I will
not
give in this time.
As if he’d spoken the vow aloud, the man’s embrace tightened a fraction, a gesture of both threat and affection, but Jamie held his body taut and aloof and whole, right up to the moment the strong right hand came up to rest gently—oh, so gently—on the boy’s sweat-soaked hair, pressing the child’s face against his heavily muscled shoulder. “Oh, son,” Father murmured into his ear; Jamie’s determination wavered, rallied briefly, then collapsed. He curled into Father’s chest and sobbed, in submission and confusion and hatred and love and