We don’t talk much in the car, partially because Ada is there. Enzo is the one driving, and his knuckles are bloodless on the steering wheel. Every time I glance over my shoulder, Nico is staring out the window. He doesn’t even seem upset over getting kicked off the team just a few weeks before the end of the season. It’s like it doesn’t even matter.
What is wrong with my son?
When we get into the house, Enzo instructs Nico to stay in the living room. Nico drops onto the sofa and reaches for the remote, but Enzo shakes his head. “No TV,” he says. “You sit there and be quiet. I will talk to your mother.”
I follow my husband to the kitchen, and when we get inside, he turns to face me. He takes a shaky breath. “Okay, that was not so good.”
“You think?” I sputter.
“He is good kid,” Enzo insists. “He just ”
“He just punched another boy in the gut for no reason.” “Not for no reason. That was unfair call! He was not out!”
I grit my teeth. “That doesn’t matter, and you know it. You don’t punch another kid just because you don’t like what the umpire said.”
“He was upset ”
“He’s nine years old—not three. It’s unacceptable.”
“Boys are aggressive.” He runs a hand through his thick black hair. “That is normal boy behavior. Is good for him to fight.”
I stare at my husband in astonishment. Given his reaction at the game, I had hoped we were finally on the same page about Nico’s
fighting, but clearly we are not. The fact that Nico’s behavior has gotten him both suspended and kicked off the Little League team is a sign that things are out of control. Yet Enzo is still defending what Nico did.
“This is not normal behavior for a boy,” I say firmly.
Enzo is quiet for a minute. I want him to agree with me that punching other kids is not okay for a boy to do, and it bothers me that he won’t do that. He always seems very controlled in his behavior, especially compared with me. I’ve never seen him throw a punch, even when someone deserved it.
But he’s done it—that’s a fact. His fists are the reason he’s in this country to begin with.
“Tell me,” I say, “is this how you behaved when you were nine?”
Again, he hesitates. “Yes, I had fights with fists back when I was a kid. Sometimes I did. It was not a bad thing. Makes you tough.”
That is not the right answer.
“Okay, okay.” He shakes his head. “Is different here in America. I see this now.”
I’m not a hundred percent sure we are a united front, but we go back out of the kitchen to where Nico is sitting on the couch in the living room. He is leaning back on the pillows, staring at a crack on the ceiling. He rolls his head to the side when we walk into the room.
“Am I grounded again?” he asks.
He’s already been grounded. He was just grounded, like, five minutes ago. It didn’t seem to make the slightest difference. I sit beside him on the sofa, and Enzo takes the chair next to the sofa.
“Nico,” I say, “you have to learn to control yourself. What you did today was really wrong. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, although he truthfully doesn’t sound very sorry. “Grayson was being a jerk.”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s the biggest jerk in the world. You can’t hit him.”
“Fine.”
It disturbs me that Nico doesn’t seem more upset over all this. Why isn’t he crying? Why isn’t he begging for forgiveness? Isn’t that normal behavior for a nine-year-old boy who’s done something wrong?
I look over at Enzo, trying to gauge if he thinks this seems normal. But I’m sure if I asked him, he would say something like, Boys aren’t supposed to cry.
But there’s something wrong. Lately, Nico has just become so Cold.
“What’s my punishment?” he asks, like he’s impatient to get it over with.
“Well, you are off the team,” Enzo says. “So no more baseball.” Nico shrugs. “Okay.”
Enzo seems thrown by how casual Nico’s response is to being barred from baseball. The two of them used to practice every day. Nico used to beg for it. When is Dad going to get home? We gotta practice!
“And no devices for a month,” Enzo adds.
Nico nods. He clearly expected that. “Is that it? Can I go?” “Yes,” Enzo says.
Nico doesn’t waste a second. He leaps off the couch and runs up the steps to his room. He slams the door behind him—a very angsty move for a nine-year-old boy.
Enzo is staring at the steps after him. His expression is unreadable.
But he doesn’t look happy.
“I think,” I say, “we might want to consider getting him in for therapy.”
He looks at me blankly. “Therapy?” “A talking therapist,” I clarify.
His eyes widen like I’ve suggested we toss our son off the roof to see if he could fly. “No. No. That is ridiculous. He does not need that.”
“It might help.”
“For what?” Enzo throws up his arms. “He is just acting like a normal boy. It is all your uptight American rules. Nico is fine. He is fine.”
I can’t argue with him when he’s acting like this, but he’s wrong. I’m afraid there’s something wrong with Nico that won’t get better without professional help. I’m afraid that between me and my husband, Nico has inherited a combination of genes that has given him a propensity for violence much stronger than other kids his age.
So when dinner is over and the kids have gone upstairs for the night and I’ve got a moment to myself, the first thing I google is: Is my child a psychopath?
Amazingly, there are quite a few posts about it. Apparently I’m not the only woman whose child is having issues. One website has a list of common characteristics found in kids with psychopathic tendencies. I skim the list, growing increasingly concerned.
A lack of guilt after misbehaving. Nico barely apologized after punching either of those two boys. He didn’t seem at all upset over what he did.
Constant lying. He used to tell us when he broke something around the house. But he didn’t say a word about breaking that vase until we confronted him. And I get the feeling there’s more he’s not telling us.
Cruelty to animals. What happened to that praying mantis? After claiming he loved that pet, all of a sudden, he flushed it down the toilet.
Selfish and aggressive behavior. Well, what’s more aggressive than punching a kid in the gut because you weren’t called safe on first base?
Enzo might not be worried, but I am. And it makes me feel even worse to imagine there’s a chance he might have inherited some of these tendencies from me. I mean, I don’t think I’m a psychopath, but I didn’t go to prison for picking daisies.
I’ll give the dust a chance to settle, but I refuse to do nothing. If my son needs saving from himself, I’m going to save him.
