Obey

obey

verb, transitive. To comply with the command, direction, or request of a person or a law. To submit to the authority of. To carry out a command or instruction. To behave in accordance with a general principle, natural law, etc.

"I know you don't understand," his mother stated as she hefted the basket of washing onto her hip. "I have work to do. Go talk to your grandfather about it. Maybe he can explain it." She left him there and headed toward the clothesline.

He kicked at the dust at the foot of the back porch steps. He tried to be good. He did. Every year, it seemed, there were more rules he was expected to obey, more restrictions on what he wanted to do. It wasn't fair. A tear emerged from one eye and he let it roll down his cheek and splash onto his shirt unimpeded.

He was alone. Not only had his mother turned her back on him, preferring to do her chores instead of helping him navigate these growing-up thickets, there wasn't a hen or a cat or even a dog in sight. For a moment, even the air was empty of birdsong.

Grandpa's cottage was silent across the pasture beyond their chicken coop. Maybe he should go talk to him. Would Grandpa sympathize? Would he even understand why Kyle felt so defeated and forlorn?

He stood, kicked at the dust one more time, and shoved his hands into his overall pockets. He would try to explain why he had done what he had done to his grandfather. Maybe he would listen. Without much hope, Kyle began to walk slowly toward the cottage.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.