The Unsuitable Girl

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“You’re not even listening!” Marian said, with indignation that sounded to her husband to be dangerously close to tears.

Thomas Winslow straightened up and racked the fire tongs and went back to his chair. “Of course I’m listening, dear.”

“Tommy is only seventeen. That woman keeps coming here and picking him up in that flashy little car, and phoning him... It seems terribly unhealthy to me, and I think we should do something about it.”

“Now, Marian,” he said soothingly. “The girl’s only twenty, and Tommy does look older than seventeen.”

“But she isn’t the proper sort of girl. A nice girl wouldn’t sit out in front and blow that ridiculous horn for him to come running out.”

“Now, Marian,” he said.

“We must do something. He isn’t himself. He positively slinks about the house. He’s almost surly. He’s just a high-school boy. That woman could ruin his life!”

Thomas Winslow looked at his wife with fondness and helplessness. He knew the futility of trying to explain to Marian his firm belief that it would work out. Once a child had been raised in a sound emotional climate, all you could do was wait and hope and pray he would make an equivalently good emotional relationship. It was one of the calculated risks you took when you had children. If you tried to force and coerce and manipulate, you could very well force a spirited child into a bad relationship.

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