The Keeper Read Online Free PDF Page B

while walking to the front door.
    “Matthew, stop messing around,” Georgia called out as she turned the lock to find her son still playing on the icy steps, her irritation no longer just for show. “Come inside.”
    Just then, a woman appeared from behind the wall of snow piled against the front walk. It was Susan Marley, dressed as if about to attend a Fourth of July barbecue. She wore high-heeled sandals, a blue dress, and no coat. Her curly blond hair had been straightened by the gales of rain, and it spilled down her shoulders to her hips. Her head, weighed down by the water, was tilted back just a little so that Georgia could see the smooth underside of her chin and her long, graceful neck.
    Susan turned. Her gaze settled on Matthew and she grinned in a way that made Georgia uncomfortable. Then she walked on, heading south and out of view. A lump formed in Georgia’s throat, and she thought she was going to cry. What a strange world in which to raise a child, where snow angels and monsters lived side by side.
    “Mom?” Matthew asked, having missed Susan’s appearance.
    Georgia pretended to have some dust in her eyes. “Yeah honey?”
    “Look what I can do!” He jumped down all the steps and landed gracefully on the ground. Then he took a bow and she clapped.
    “Wow. That’s something. Now come on inside. I’m freezing.”
    He looked up at her from the bottom of the steps. His lips spread into a small smile, the trouble smile. She realized what he was about to do. Things suddenly got very slow. She noticed the rain on his nose, his yellow jacket that seemed too bright, the six or so feet of air between her son and the top cement step. “Wait—” she started to say, but there wasn’t time. He took a running leap.
    She reached out to catch him as he propelled himself up over the icy steps. But her hand hit his shoulder in mid-air and knocked him off balance. She lunged again but her fingers only brushed the slick nylon of his jacket. He tumbled down. The back of his head pounded against the last step in a loud thwack.
    The sound reverberated inside her, carving holes into her organs and making them hollow. She ran to the landing just as he sat up. He curled his lip at the offending step like it was his mortal enemy, and then slapped it. She let out a sigh of relief so forceful it sounded like a sob.
    What was he thinking? Who jumps up icy steps? “Come here right now, Matthew O’Brian,” she said. She was thinking about grounding him, spanking him, sending him to his room without television for the rest of his natural life.
    He stood. His winter coat was browned by mud from the rain and puddles. “You pooshed me!” he slurred. His pupils were wide and out of focus.
    The hollow feeling inside her returned: Something was very wrong. “Come here,” she said.
    He tried to walk but stumbled drunkenly. She caught him in her arms. There was something warm and wet on her fingers, and in her mind she said a silent prayer to the Virgin Mary that the obvious had not happened. But when she turned him around, she found a jagged cut along the back of his scalp. Three-inch-long flaps of hairy skin hung loose on either side of the wound, and she could see the white of what looked like his skull. Blood gushed down his back. The snow where he had fallen was diluted into red whirls like a cherry Italian ice.
    She bit down on her lip and tried not to let him know from her expression how bad this was. Head wounds, they tended to bleed a lot, right? Buckets, even…That didn’t mean he was going to slip into a coma or anything, right?
    She pressed hard against the flaps of skin with both hands. “How do you feel?” she asked.
    He didn’t answer.
    “Matthew, come on, I’m sorry. I did a stupid thing. How do you feel, are you dizzy?”
    His eyes rolled upward like he was trying to see his own brows. “Huh?” he asked. He didn’t look like her son right then. He looked empty. The little boy she loved, she realized