A Member of the Family

Whit is bursting with excitement as he waits at the airport with his friend Tom Riley: his nine-year-old grandson Monty is coming from Pasadena to spend eight weeks in Odyssey, and Whit hasn't seen him in three years. Monty's parents, Jana and Phil, have split up, which took the whole family by surprise. On the way home, Tom invites Monty to join his Little League team, the Coyotes, who need an outfielder for the playoffs. But after listening to Tom grumble about the league awards show, where his player Heather Bullock lost Rookie of the Year to kids with more ability, Monty decides to pass on baseball. Tom means it kindly when he calls Heather "the finest little loser I have ever seen," but it doesn't exactly sell the sport.

Monty turns out to be a handful. He travels with a bag full of movies and is disappointed that Grandpa has no VCR and no cable. He turns up his nose at supper, argues when Whit tells him he's had enough brownies, and blasts the television while Whit is on the phone. That phone call brings more bad news: Monty left his jacket in a restroom at the Los Angeles airport with a hundred dollars in the pocket, and the money is long gone. When Monty demands to know whether he'll get an allowance and talks back, Whit lovingly but firmly lays down the rules of the house, warning that breaking them will bring consequences. Monty answers by throwing a shoe at his bedroom door, which promptly becomes rule number two.

The next day at Whit's End, Whit offers Monty a chance to earn spending money by flattening boxes and sweeping the storeroom for three dollars. Monty is insulted that he has to work for it, and as soon as Whit goes upstairs, he uses the storeroom phone to call his mother. He tells her that Grandpa is terrible, "the meanest man I ever met," that he took all his money away and is forcing him to work, and he begs her to come get him. Jana can't come until after her seminar, a whole week away. Furious, Monty abandons the sweeping, tricks Whit's young employee Jimmy into opening the cash register by claiming Grandpa said he could take five dollars for the movies, and helps himself.

Whit doesn't let that pass. He gives Monty a spanking, the first the boy has ever received, and afterward sits with him and tells a story about a little boy who got a puppy for his birthday. The boy promised to keep the puppy on its leash, but decided the leash was unfair and let the puppy run free. The puppy joyfully chased a squirrel, scattered some pigeons, and then dashed into the street after a delivery truck, where it was killed. Whit asks whose fault it was, and together they work out that it wasn't the truck driver's or the puppy's, but the boy's, because real love means giving someone what they need, not just what they want, and protecting them from dangers they can't understand. That, Whit explains, is exactly what he has to do for Monty.

A week later, everything has changed. Monty has joined the Coyotes after all, and the team has won the league championship. Whit's living room is full of celebrating ballplayers while he and Tom patch up a victory cake that got flipped over in Tom's car. Tom marvels at how Whit turned an ornery brat into a fine young man, but Whit insists Monty was always a nice boy who "just needed to get some of the dust blown off of him."

Then the doorbell rings, and Monty answers it to find his mother. Jana has driven 250 miles out of her way, just as he begged her to, and she wants to leave right away. But Monty no longer wants to go. He pleads to stay with Grandpa Whit, and in the heat of the moment says something that cuts his mother deeply: that Grandpa loves him more than she does. Ashamed, Monty runs to find Whit and confesses everything, telling him, "I think you need to spank me again." Whit gently refuses, sends him back to his cake, and goes to talk with Jana himself.

Their talk does not go well. Jana is horrified to learn that Whit spanked her son, no matter how Whit explains the difference between spanking and hitting, or that Monty was testing his limits and needed an answer. When Whit adds that whatever she has been doing clearly hasn't been working, Jana hears him calling her an unfit mother. Whit apologizes for his careless words, but the hurt is done. Jana agrees to let Monty finish his party and says she'll pick him up in the morning; she is going to spend the night in a hotel downtown. Whit protests that this is her home, but Jana quietly tells him, "It's not mine. Not anymore," and asks him to tell Monty goodnight.