Critical Injuries Read Online Free PDF

in the freeways of his arteries, would she have sighed? Would she even, maybe, have felt trapped, or doomed, to have him entirely reliant on her, and her goodwill? Now she can’t look at him. What if she saw in him that kind of despair?
    â€œDr. Grant said you might not remember,” Lyle says. “He said that often happens with shock. I mean, some shocking event, not that you’re in shock. That it goes blank, but might all come suddenly back.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œDid he tell me?”
    â€œYes. What will happen. To me.” Words are exhausting, she is getting worn out.
    â€œWell, nothing really, right away. They want to wait, do more scans and tests, see what happens. They think it might work its own way out, which would be the best thing. If it doesn’t show signs of doing that, or if the tests start to show differently, then surgery. Likely surgery anyway, even if it does work itself free, but in that case it wouldn’t be as difficult. It’s a good thing you’re healthy. Well, healthy, you know what I mean. Strong to begin with. Anyway, they’ll see. We’ll see. They’re really good here, and they have high hopes. They think your chances are good.”
    Has she never noticed before that he leaves out crucial words in just about every sentence, or is this newly acquired, a dodging and weaving response to whatever this is? What is the “it,” would it be the bullet the doctor referred to? And what are the “hopes,” and what are the “chances” they have in mind? She looks for a word she might be able to say, and comes up with “vague.”
    Lyle nods. “Yes, well, it has to be, for a while, anyway. They don’t like committing themselves, too many lawsuits, probably, or warnings from lawyers like me about saying anything’s a sure thing. But you and I know this isn’t permanent, and of course you’ll be moving and walking again. Very soon. This is just an interruption, but we’ll get through it, and you’ll be back to normal in a flash.”
    Her listening stops after “permanent,” when he gets to “moving and walking.” Although she catches the “we” and is grateful.
    His determined optimism sounds not only incomplete, but ominous. And also undependable, which from him is a blow in itself. “Tell me,” she says again. “Now,” she demands, and he bows his head, and takes another deep breath.

A Strange, Faraway Sky
    Roddy came to this town, to his grandmother’s house, kicking and screaming. That was ten years ago. Now, lying flat on his back in the tall grain, watched over by two alert dogs and a thousand stars, he is dumbfounded by loss: that he cannot go home.
    He finds things out too late. His rhythms are clumsy, he’s too often a beat or two off. That would account for today.
    Some of his most momentous, although not always best, moments have been spent just like this: lying on his back, very still, looking upwards.
    It’s how, when he was seven, he spent the first night of his and his dad’s long stay at his grandmother’s house. He never threw tantrums, but the day they moved, his dad’s loaded car leading the small moving truck that was enough for all they had left, Roddy screamed the whole way. When they reached town, he started kicking the dash. When they pulled up in front of his grandmother’s stuccoed grey house, he gripped the steering wheel, then the door frame, as his dad hauled him grimly out of the car. He even kicked at his grandmother, who held her arms around him hard.
    By the time the three of them finally had supper, he was worn out. He was packed off to his new bedroom at the top of the house, while his grandmother and his dad made room downstairs for the things Roddy and his dad had arrived with. Roddy’s grandmother left a blue, teardrop-shaped nightlight plugged in by his bed, and its faintly reflecting