The Boy Under the Table Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother was happy with Jack. He had succeeded where Tim and Tina had failed. Tim was too sick to do anything and Tina had been raising herself ever since the divorce. Mothers can’t just check in when they feel like it.
    Give her time, Jack , she would hear her mother say when all the bedroom doors were closed.
    Why does she have to be so belligerent, Claire? Why can’t she just get along with us? Why does every discussion have to be an argument?
    I know, she’s very difficult. She and Tim are so close, I don’t know what will happen to her when it’s all over.
    I can see how upset she is, Claire. I know that she feels powerless but if she could just look to God she would know that He is watching over her and she can turn to Him for help.
    I know that, Jack. I can see you’re working hard to help her but when I look at Tim it all seems hopeless.
    We have to believe he’ll be fine, Claire. God needs our faith and our belief or He cannot perform miracles.
    I believe, Jack, I do . . . I’m just a little tired tonight.
    Christina needs to pray with us. She needs to believe as well.
    Oh, Jack, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m not sure what Christina believes anymore.
    There were moments that it all came back and, try as she might, Tina could never control the flow of memories. What surprised her most at the time and what still continued to surprise her was how quickly things could transform. Your world could implode in an instant. When she was ten she had the perfect family. Mum, Dad, Tim and a dog named Buster. It was so boring and predictable it was pathetic. It was a life that belonged in a commercial for the latest family car. But then her father decided he’d had enough of family life. None of the commercials ever used that sort of family. The sort of family where one parent just decides he doesn’t want to deal with it all anymore. Can’t sell a car to that type of family.
    Those were the actual words he used. I’ve had enough of this whole family thing, Claire. Sorry.
    And then he was gone. He never called, he never sent money. He just wiped them out of his life. It seemed impossible to Tina that someone could do that. After that they were no longer boring and predictable. She was taking care of Timmy and her mother was either working or crying. Tina felt like one of those soldiers returned from the war. Shell-shocked.
    Jack had been the one who was going to make it all right again.
    Please, Christina, give him a chance. I need someone in my life, Christina. You don’t know how hard it’s been.
    Tina had laughed at that. You’re right, Mum; I have fuck-all idea how hard it’s been.
    They wanted her to go for counselling, especially after Tim, but it just wasn’t going to happen. No way was she going to change for some arsehole do-gooder. Tim had been eight and he would never be nine. No amount of talking would change that.
    You can’t keep blaming me, Christina; it wasn’t my fault he got sick.
    I’m not blaming you. I know it wasn’t your fault.
    You’re lying, Christina. I see the way you look at me. You think I’m a bad mother. You think I should have noticed sooner. You don’t understand how hard it is to be a mother, a single mother. I’ve held it all together, Christina, and I can’t look at you when you judge me like that. I can’t even look at you.
    So don’t look, Mum. Look somewhere else. Look where you have been looking all the time that he was sick. Look there.
    Well, her mother didn’t have to look at her now.
    There was nothing left for her afterwards. Her mother still worked, only now she came home to cook dinner for him, to talk to him, to fuck him. There was even talk of another child. Her mother was doing exactly what her father had done, wiping the slate clean and starting again. Just because she whined about wanting to be a family again didn’t make it any different.
    There was nothing left for Tina. Her mother didn’t act like someone who had lost a kid. She