Educated

Shawn’s eyes bulged. He was supposed to be taking it easy, but he looked
apoplectic.
“It’s going to take her head off!” he screamed. He turned to me and waved
toward the ironworker in the shop. “Go make clips to fit those purlins. I don’t
want you coming near this thing again.”
Dad moved forward. “This is my crew. You work for me and so does Tara.
I told her to run the Shear, and she will run it.”
They shouted at each other for fifteen minutes. It was different from the
fights they’d had before—this was unrestrained somehow, hateful. I’d never
seen anyone yell at my father like that, and I was astonished by, then afraid
of, the change it wrought in his features. His face transformed, becoming
rigid, desperate. Shawn had awoken something in Dad, some primal need.
Dad could not lose this argument and save face. If I didn’t run the Shear, Dad
would no longer be Dad.
Shawn leapt forward and shoved Dad hard in the chest. Dad stumbled
backward, tripped and fell. He lay in the mud, shocked, for a moment, then
he climbed to his feet and lunged toward his son. Shawn raised his arms to
block the punch, but when Dad saw this he lowered his fists, perhaps
remembering that Shawn had only recently regained the ability to walk.
“I told her to do it, and she will do it,” Dad said, low and angry. “Or she
won’t live under my roof.”
Shawn looked at me. For a moment, he seemed to consider helping me
pack—after all, he had run away from Dad at my age—but I shook my head.
I wasn’t leaving, not like that. I would work the Shear first, and Shawn knew
it. He looked at the Shear, then at the pile next to it, about fifty thousand
pounds of iron. “She’ll do it,” he said.
Dad seemed to grow five inches. Shawn bent unsteadily and lifted a piece
of heavy iron, then heaved it toward the Shear.
“Don’t be stupid,” Dad said.
“If she’s doing it, I’m doing it,” Shawn said. The fight had left his voice.
I’d never seen Shawn give way to Dad, not once, but he’d decided to lose this
argument. He understood that if he didn’t submit, I surely would.
“You’re my foreman!” Dad shouted. “I need you in Oneida, not mucking
with scrap!”
“Then shut down the Shear.”
Dad walked away cursing, exasperated, but probably thinking that Shawn
would get tired and go back to being foreman before supper. Shawn watched