Are You Alone on Purpose? Read Online Free PDF Page B

wouldn’t want to offend his father. It would be touchy.
    Hypocrites. He would have to think of a nice surprise for the camp director. Just to make sure the rabbi wouldn’t be able to pull any strings next year. He wouldn’t put it past his father, just to get Harry out of the house.
    He wondered, briefly, if his mother would have made him do all this religious crap. Probably. She’d married a rabbi, hadn’t she?
    Well, that was another thing against her. The list had been building up since she died. No, since she’d gotten sick, and turned into someone else.
    â€œHarry?” Rachel said as they reached the small beach. “I was wondering if maybe you’d want to take out a canoe? Instead of going swimming?”
    â€œHey, sounds good,” Mark sang out. He elbowed Harry. “Let’s go!”
    â€œNot you,” said Rachel to Mark. She giggled. “Go away.” Her giggle was a shrill, witchy heh-heh-heh, and Harry flinched, unexpectedly unnerved by it.
    â€œI’m going to practice diving,” he said.
    â€œWhy?” said Mark. “I thought you were kicked off the team last week.”
    â€œI don’t need a team,” said Harry, distinctly. He dropped his towel and headed for the water. Rachel scurried along beside him.
    â€œI’ll sit on the raft and watch,” she said, as they splashed through the shallows. “Okay?”
    Harry didn’t reply. When the water reached waist level, he dove in and began a rapid crawl to the raft. He didn’t wait to see if Rachel could keep up.
    The raft was about an eighth of a mile out in the lake, where the water finally became deep enough for real diving. There weren’t a lot of campers out there right now; most of them generally stuck to the inner raft area, where the water depth was only about six or seven feet.
    Harry had just begun serious diving this year, and he wasn’t very good. “Not enough discipline,” Pam, the diving coach, had said. He’d fooled around too much, too, which had led, eventually, to Pam kicking him out, for distracting everyone else. Harry didn’t really care. He wasn’t in it for discipline. He didn’t care about developing perfect form. Hell, he wasn’t going for the Olympics.
    Harry knew exactly why he liked diving. He liked the kick you got in the split second after you dove, before you hit the water. When you knew everything was out of your control, everything already decided, and you could do only one thing: fall.
    That was great. Beyond anything.

ALISON
    August and September
    I t was Mrs. Shandling’s new friend from the synagogue, Gloria Kravitz, who called and told the Shandlings about Harry’s accident.
    â€œDiving,” Mrs. Shandling said over Sunday lunch to her husband, Alison, and an inattentive Adam. “A few days ago. Apparently he’s in the hospital now. Somewhere in New Hampshire.” She flicked a little glance at Alison. “Gloria . . .uh, Gloria says he broke his back. He won’t walk again, she says.”
    â€œWell,” said the professor, “that might not be true.” He also looked at Alison, and then looked away. “Spinal injuries are funny things. I’ve read stuff lately about new drugs . . . .” He looked at Alison again. He seemed to expect a response.
    â€œUh-huh,” said Alison.
    â€œJake,” Alison’s mother said, “Gloria seemed pretty certain Harry wasn’t going to recover. Something about the exact spot on his spinal cord that was affected. She said he’s lucky that he’ll have sensation above the waist.”
    â€œOh,” said Alison’s father. “I see.”
    Alison felt the beginnings of a headache. She wished they would stop looking at her. Harry. Paralyzed. She felt numb herself. She tried to collect her thoughts. “When did you say this happened ?” she asked.
    â€œI didn’t,” her mother said.