Critical Injuries Read Online Free PDF Page B

light made the ceiling look like some strange, faraway sky.
    He was very angry. About being uprooted from everything that was familiar; but also, if his mother went back to their little house in the city, and they weren’t there any more, how would she find them?
    One morning his mother was there, giving Roddy a hug and a pat on the bum as he went off to school, and then when he got home the front door wasn’t locked and when he let himself in, nobody was there. Well, sometimes she wasn’t home, so that wasn’t strange for a couple of hours, even though she usually said if she was going to be out, maybe off to a movie, or on what she called one of her rambles.
    Usually his dad went away in the mornings and came home at night and ate supper and turned on the TV and, sometime after Roddy did, went to bed. He’d tap Roddy’s shoulder sometimes, or ruffle his hair, call him “pal,” and if Roddy wanted or needed anything, he took care of it, like he brought home Roddy’s first two-wheeler, even though he wasn’t around much to help him learn to ride it. It was Roddy’s mother did that, running up and down the sidewalk holding the seat, keeping him more or less steady. She was fun. Like one time, she put up a pup tent in their tiny back yard so she and Roddy could camp out together, and they stayed up late while she told scary stories and made shadows with her hands on the canvas walls. At the park down the street, she screamed and laughed louder even than he did while she pushed him as high as the swings would go, higher than he could have ever gone on his own.
    But then sometimes she got really tired and sad, and wouldn’t get out of bed, or off the sofa, day after day. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she’d say, “I’m just not myself today.”
    Except if somebody wasn’t herself half the time, wouldn’t that be herself too? It was kind of confusing, but also dependable. He knew she’d be one thing or the other. It sometimes felt, in his friends’ houses, as if the adults were unreliable because even though they could smile or speak sharply, it didn’t always feel true, either one. Like they were wearing Hallowe’en masks. His mother wasn’t like that.
    Sometimes she bugged Roddy’s dad until they went out, to a movie or dancing, even though his dad usually didn’t want to. When they went out, Roddy’s mother got all sort of glittery in the eyes. She looked happy.
    When she still wasn’t back that day by the time his dad got home, and when his dad wasn’t surprised and was carrying pizza and started putting it out on two plates, that was strange too. He put a hand on Roddy’s shoulder and said, “Come into the living room, son, I’ve got something to tell you.”
    Roddy was narrow and everybody said he looked like his mum, who was little and thin and had hair nearly as short as his, except curlier. In the living room, he perched on the edge of the sofa, like he did the days she was lying there with a blanket over her, just watching TV and sleeping, the days she wasn’t whooping around making up things to do.
    â€œI don’t know if you understand,” his dad began finally, “that your mother has had some problems. You know how sometimes she’s happy and sometimes she isn’t?” Roddy nodded. “Well, look.” His dad leaned forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, letting his big hands hang down loose. Look at what? His dad wasn’t even looking at Roddy, he was sort of staring into a corner, or maybe at the blank TV screen.
    â€œLook, what that is, it turns out, is, it’s a kind of sickness she has. Most people don’t feel as good as she does sometimes, and for sure most people don’t feel as bad. It’s been hard on her going one way, then the other. Well, it’s been hard on us all.” Roddy shook his head; not hard on