The Goodbye Time Read Online Free PDF

Mrs. Paoli didn’t know how to explain it to her, so she got Dr. Pinsher to do it instead. Not that it mattered all that much; it was awful no matter who told who.
    “Bloody hell,” Katy said, suddenly in her Johnny voice. “I’m not letting them send me nephew off. He doesn’t belong in no boarding school.” I looked straight ahead down Eightieth Street to the border of trees in Riverside Park. Some of the trees had pink flowers all over them, and they looked so bright on the green of the other trees and grass. I don’t know why, but the petals and trees looking so pretty the way they did made everything seem even sadder.
    “I can take care of ’im,” Johnny said. “I’ll spend more time at home.”
    “Your dad’d be proud of you, lad,” I said. And while I was saying that about Johnny’s dead dad, I was suddenly thinking of Michael’s dad, and for the first time ever, playing felt sort of weird. I mean, sad things that we used to pretend were happening had started to happen in our actual life, and it gave me a scary feeling, like a big hole was opening underneath us and Katy and I—and Bug Eye and Sam and Michael and maybe even everyone—were falling into it.

    That night was the first time Katy’s mom agreed to come in for a drink. She looked even worse than usual; the huge pink bandage above her eye stretched across her whole forehead. She and my parents went into the living room and stayed there for a long time. Katy and I didn’t even try to eavesdrop on them.
    “I know what they’re saying,” Katy said. I figured I knew what Katy’s mom was probably saying, but I wasn’t so sure about what
my
parents were saying. I got this awful thought about my brother. Like, what if Tom got into some terrible accident or something and got brain-damaged and turned into a person like Sam who was sweet sometimes but also wild and out of control? What if he knocked my mom down and she had to get stitches, and he broke his own wrist doing it? And what if he was never going to get better? Would my parents keep him at home with us? Or would they think it was “taking a toll” on me and put him away in some mental institution, like Katy’s mom wanted to do with Sam?
    I really wondered about this. It was different with my parents, of course, because there are two of them, and maybe with two people, especially if one’s a dad, it would be easier to keep a brain-damaged kid at home. It was awful to think about something like that. Long after Katy and her mom had left, I lay there in bed, clutching my old stuffed elephant, wondering what my parents would do. And not just about Tom. What if something that terrible happened to
me
?

Chapter Eight
    The night after Mrs. Paoli had a glass of wine with my parents, I was reading in bed and my mom came into my room to talk. You can always tell when parents have something serious to say. They sort of move differently—slower, more carefully, like they’re walking on tiptoe.
    My mom sat on the edge of my bed. That’s another sure sign it’s serious.
    “So,” she said, “how is everything at school? I hear that Michael Trefaro’s back.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Michael she wanted to talk about, even though she likes him a lot and thinks it’s a big tragedy that he lost his dad.
    “Sweetie,” she said, the most major sign that something bad was coming, “do you know about Katy’s brother? Do you know, I mean, that he hurt their mom the other night?”
    “Yes,” I said, “though I’m sure he didn’t mean to. Sometimes he can’t help himself. He gets out of control and—”
    “Of course he didn’t mean to. Sam is very ill.”
    “Everybody knows that, Mom.”
    “Anna, what’s wrong with Sam won’t get any better. In fact, it may get worse. That’s because his body will keep growing while his brain will remain the same. He’ll grow into a man, but his brain will stay a baby’s brain. Already his mother has to shave his