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Neil was absolutely terrified to speak with his father. He had talked it through with Todd and he knew what he would say. He had practiced it countless times - with Todd, in the bathroom mirror in the middle of the night, in his sleep.
But he knew he didn’t have much time.
He had to speak to his father today, lest he miss the play entirely or go behind his father’s back. And neither of those were an option he could live with.
~•~
It was a crisp Saturday morning. There was that smell about the air that meant snow could be on the way any time now. Neil braced himself against the chill as he walked out of the doors of Welton Academy and slid into the back seat of the car that was to take him home.
The chauffeur drove not a mile above the speed limit and each minute felt like an eternity. Neil was maddened by the slowness of it all, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. As soon as he saw the brick facade of his parents’ home, however, he froze. It was as though the frigid cold of the outdoors had permeated his bones and immobilized him.
“Well, son, this is your stop,” the driver announced, as though Neil did not know the sight of his own home. “What time should I come back around for you?”
Neil shook his head slightly, as though to banish any of the malignant thoughts swarming around his head like gnats. He looked up at the man in the front seat and told him that a few hours ought to be fine, but if he needed a ride sooner he would call over to the Academy.
The man gave him a curt nod and turned back around as Neil exited the vehicle.
As soon as the door shut behind him, the man drove off without a backward glance. Neil mentally reviewed, once more, the speech that he and Todd had written together. He took a steadying breath and walked forward, up the steps to the house, and grasped the brass knocker, rapping it thrice against the wooden door.
~•~
His mother greeted him at the threshold with an air of surprise, declaring how it was just so nice to see him and they weren’t expecting him home until the holidays.
He kissed her on the cheek and told her that he was glad to see her too but had some business to discuss with his father.
“Oh, you know your father. He’s out in the yard making sure that there isn’t a singular leaf disgracing his lawn,” she said with an empty chuckle. She leaned her head out of the back door and called for her husband.
“I’m going to put some cookies in the oven for you,” she told Neil.
He hoped they were snickerdoodles - his favorite, and a recipe that his mother insisted on making only in the cooler months of the year.
“Are snickerdoodles fine?” she had a glint in her eye, knowing this question was a mere formality.
Neil smiled back at her and nodded, moving to go sit in his father’s office.
~•~
He waited in his father’s office, in one of his armchairs, as the smell of spices wafted from the kitchen. He tried not to allow his nerves to take hold, but it was nearly impossible when the only times he had come into this office as a child were for scoldings.
He fidgeted madly, feeling his courage wane by the minute. His cuticles were fit to bleed with how he was picking at them and his leg shook furiously. Just as he was about to get up to wait with his mother, instead of sitting alone with his anxiety, he heard the back door and the sound of his father’s work boots being removed. Just as Tom Perry wouldn’t allow any leaves to mar his lawn, he did not want shoe tracks on his immaculate hardwood flooring.
His father must have known by Neil’s waiting in his office that this was going to be a serious conversation as soon as he walked in, shutting the door behind him.
“Hello, Neil,” his father said curtly as he moved behind his desk and took a seat in the large chair perched behind it. He was wearing a flannel button-up, a pair of worn in Levi’s, and a soured expression.
“Hello, father,” Neil said, hiding his distress behind a smile.
“I understand from your mother that you have something that you would like to discuss with me?”
Neil felt himself stuttering before he could even begin talking. He had never sat his father down to talk to him - only the reverse. He knew everything that he was supposed to say to his father, he had rehearsed it non-stop since yesterday. But just now he couldn’t remember a word of it for his life.
“Neil, I have things to accomplish today. I do not have the time to sit here and watch you open and shut your mouth like a goldfish. Now spit it out so I can get back to my yardwork.”
Neil felt his resolve harden in that moment. He remembered what Todd had said to him.
I’m just so fucking sick of parents saying that they care about us and our futures, but never stopping for a second to ask us what we want with our lives… It’s never ‘what are your goals?’ ‘What do you care about?’
His father didn’t really give a damn about what he wanted. He only cared about the reputation wrapped in it all. And he knew his father thought of that as caring. He knew that his pushing Neil to have a well-earning, well-respected career was his own way of saying “I want the best for you in life.” But it didn’t change the fact that it left his opinions out of the conversation of what was to be done with his own life. And Neil realized that he was sick of it too.
“Yes, father. It’s about our conversation last night. I have a few things I’d like to tell you,”
~•~
Neil laid it all out in front of his father. He didn’t allow for interruption and he didn’t let his father’s piercing stare inhibit him. When he felt that he couldn’t choke out another word, he thought of Todd, and how he had been plagued by a frozen tongue but had found the courage to make his voice heard regardless.
His father had shouted him down. He’d called him words unbecoming of a supposedly Christian man.
And Neil just stared back, a hardness behind his eyes indicating that whatever punches were thrown, they would not land.
When his father saw that none of his raging was having any effect, he looked firmly at his son.
“All that I do for you and you don’t give one damn about anything I have to say. How am I supposed to be proud of you and listen to all of this nonsense when you meet me with this level of disregard and disrespect?”
“Father, I feel nothing but admiration for you,” Neil pleaded. “I want to make you proud. More than almost anything. But not more than I want to be happy in this life.”
Neil’s father looked at him, exasperated, as though he couldn’t possibly believe that someone could think their happiness was more important than the right future.
Neil continued.
“I’m not saying I won’t be a doctor. I’m not saying that I’m throwing away the plans that have been laid out for me,” he clarified in hopes of improving the situation. “I’m not ungrateful for the sacrifices you’ve made so I can have better opportunities. I am grateful. I’m not saying any of this to disappoint you. I just have things in my heart that I can’t ignore. I can’t - I won’t sit here and allow you to think that acting isn’t as important to me as it is. It makes me happy, father.
“Besides that, I’ve made a commitment to this play. I know that I lied to you about it. And I’m not saying that was right to do. But the fact is, it’s still a commitment. And you always raised me to be an honorable man who sticks to his word. I gave my word. Please, father, just come see me in this play tonight. If after tonight you can tell me that I honestly lack any talent for it, I will give it up without argument or question.”
His father continued pacing the office in complete silence. A minute or so passed this way before Neil couldn’t take it any more.
“You can look at my grades and other extracurriculars and see that I haven’t let this affect my schoolwork. I’m at the top of my class. I’m still positioned to become a doctor. Please, father, just let me see this through. Even if it’s just for one night.”
His father ceased his pacing and looked up at him with an expression Neil had never seen on his face before.
“Since nothing I say or do seems to get through to you in the slightest - fine. Just this one night. I’ll bring your mother to the play - she’s always banging on about going out on the town - but past this I don’t want to hear anything about this acting business. Do you hear me?”
Neil looked back at his father, astonished.
“I said -” he took on a more threatening tone now. “- do you hear me?”
Neil scowled at him, fire still burning behind his eyes, and nodded.
~•~
He stood backstage before the show and tried to forget about the conversation with his father. It had gone about as well as could be expected, but he couldn’t shake the disquiet he felt at his fathers words.
Past this, I don’t want to hear anything about this acting business.
No matter how Neil performed, his father wanted nothing more to do with it, and wouldn’t suffer Neil having anything more to do with it.
Todd would tell him to cling to the fact that his father was letting him perform at all. And especially given that he had lied to him about all of it, and was lucky not to have been beaten for it, Neil decided to do exactly that.
If he wasn’t able to act again after tonight, he was going to make sure that it was the best performance of his life.
~•~
When he had peeked out from behind the curtains before the show, he saw his father and mother seated toward the back of the auditorium. His mother had the biggest smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye that may have been tears. His father’s expression was entirely unreadable.
He only focused on what was in his control and put his father out of his head. It wasn’t his father, after all. He was Puck. And his only father was the forest.
~•~
He went out on stage and gave it his all. He could truly say that he had never performed with such fervor before. Every word he spoke was imbued with his love for the stage, the love for those he was acting beside, the love for the hard work that had led to this point.
At the end of the play, the audience erupted in praise. The roar of applause was deafening and Neil had never felt such a rush in his entire life. He heard his classmates, his fellow Dead Poets, sound a barbaric yawp from where they were stationed, smack in the middle of the auditorium.
His new friends and compatriots pushed him forward, indicating that he was the one who was deserving of all of this praise, more than any of them. The curtain was drawn in front of them as they bowed and he felt himself swept into the arms of those around him. He shouted his elation and thought to himself that even if this was the last time he would ever perform, he would at least have this moment to hang onto forever in his memory. This moment where he was so indescribably happy that he was the tallest man in the room.
~•~
He told the rest of the cast that he had to go find his family and that he would see them when he was able.
When he walked back out onto the stage, he saw his father standing at the back of the auditorium with his coat slung over one arm and gave him a smile. His father did not return the expression and Neil’s grin died on his face. He walked down the steps at the side of the stage and traversed the aisle, past the seats that had been filled with cheers such a short time ago.
“Hello, father,” he said as he approached the man in front of him.
His father did not respond and instead opened the door for him, ushering him through.
Neil knew nothing had changed. He knew he had done an amazing job. He felt it in his bones, and all of his fellow actors had confirmed it. And for a moment he had been foolish enough to hope that maybe, just maybe , his father’s mind may have been changed after seeing him on stage. He should have known better than to hope.
When he walked through the doors and out into the world, he immediately had hands clapped on his back, fingers ruffling his hair, and smiling faces meeting his own grim expression.
The first voice he heard was Mr. Keating’s. “Neil! Neil, you have the gift. What a performance! You left even me speechless. You have to stay with it.”
Neil suddenly felt himself beaming. Praise from Mr. Keating had always been of the highest order and it made him feel like he was floating on air.
He also saw the faces of his friends gathered around him, each of them smiling bigger than that last. But there was none who seemed so elated as Todd, who stared at him with a smile so bright Neil thought it was like to put the sun to shame.
He had hardly remembered his father’s existence until he felt a more firm grasp on his shoulder and he turned around to view the face that he knew would squeeze the joy from his grasp.
But when he turned around, his father’s face had softened.
“Neil - I -” his father seemed to stumble over his words, a sight Neil had never seen. His father was never imprecise with his words. “Neil, I’m sorry.”
Neil was absolutely stunned. He had never heard the word sorry out of his father all his life. Not directed toward his mother. Not toward a business partner. Not even when he had accidentally kicked the dog that they had had when he was a child.
He felt pricking in the end of his nose and his eyes becoming wetter. He quickly snuffed up any tears, not wanting anything to taint this moment.
His father continued on. “You were - well, you were the best one up there, Neil. Your mother was crying from the time you first came on stage. And I saw how the others in the play with you looked at you. Your mother even said as much. That they looked at you like you were special. You - you are special, Neil. That’s why I’ve always been so hard on you. I don’t want you to reach anything less than your highest potential.”
Neil was speechless. The roar of the crowd they were engulfed in had died around him.
“Make no mistake, you will become a doctor, Neil. This has not changed that I want you to reach the potential I know you’re capable of. I need that to be very clear before anything else. But - if acting is something that you want to do in your free time, I will allow it.
“I’m not promising to come to your performances, because frankly, I don’t understand it. Not to mention my work still regularly sends me out of town. But I won’t prevent you from doing it.”
Neil remained speechless. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Of course, his father was still being the hardass as he always had been, even in the midst of an apology. But the fact that he was giving even an inch, was something Neil wouldn’t have ever hoped for. At the start, the best he had hoped would come from this situation was that he would be able to perform in the play tonight, and even that felt unimaginable.
He thanked whatever higher power for Mr. Keating, for pushing him to talk to his father. For Todd, for helping him find the words to say and for giving him the courage to actually follow through. And then, he thanked his father, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.
His father clasped him on the shoulder - the greatest sign of affection that he ever showed toward his son. “If your grades slip so much as a percentage, you will be forced to withdraw immediately from whatever distraction you find yourself wrapped up in. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Neil choked out a laugh.
~•~
That night, he stayed in his old bedroom at his parents house, belly filled with snickerdoodles and heart feeling lighter than it had in his entire life.