Todd Read Online Free PDF

610. It took them 20 minutes to get there. A pickup truck had
crashed through the glass storefront and into the registers. The sun was behind
the building and the power was out, leaving the interior black as a cave.
    They got out of the car. The day
was growing heavy and humid, a nasty piece of summer work. Tornado weather, Alan
thought, and realized there would be no sirens, no warnings. "Be careful,
here. See all the broken glass?"
    Todd ignored him, already walking
toward the ruin of the front door.
    "Todd, God damn it, hang on!
Do you see the broken glass?"
    "Yes!"
    "Well, listen to me for a
second. You've got to be careful."
    "I know. I will." He
started to turn back to the window.
    Alan took his shoulder.
"No." He turned him around. "Look. I need you to listen to
me."
    Todd looked confused. "I
am."
    "No, I mean right away. I
need you to listen to me like you listen to Mom. I know you've never really
cared what I say, but you need to start, because I'm the only grown up here
now."
    Todd shrugged. "All
right."
    He wasn't listening. He didn't
care.
    Oh, he'd listen to Brenda all day.
When she asked him to clean his room, he'd do it. When she worked with him on
his homework, it would actually help.
    Not with Alan. Never with Alan.
    If Alan tried to help with the
homework, his son would just dig in his heels and insist it was impossible. If
Alan told him to clean his room, it became a days-long feud of escalating
punishments every time.
    A couple years ago, Alan had just
quit trying and turned the whole Todd Problem over to his wife, since she could
handle it so much better. This had resulted in an uneasy truce, whereby any
time Alan wanted Todd to do something, he'd talk to Brenda. There had been the
occasional flare-up, but for the most part the truce had worked.
    The casual disregard Todd was
throwing his way now was bringing it all back. It pushed every single one of
his buttons. An old rage woke in his chest, snarling for meat. God dammit, he
wanted to snap, do you even fucking understand the situation we're in?
    He took a breath, forcing himself
to calm down. If they started fighting, everything would get worse than it
already was.
    And maybe, he realized, that
question isn't rhetorical. Maybe I should explain.
    "Look. If you fall, if you
get a cut, we can't just go to the doctor. Okay? And I don't know how to do
stitches. So that cut could get infected. That infection could spread. It could kill you, Todd. You get a cut on your foot right now, it could kill
you."
    Dramatic, maybe, but straight from
the gut. Todd looked sobered. "Oh. Okay."
    He'd gotten through to him. Wonder
of fucking wonders. "Do your shoes have any holes in them?"
    "No."
    "All right. Let me go first.
Stay right behind me."
    The truck had taken out most of
the store's front door, and twisted the support beams in the storefront into
spears. Alan went to the corner instead, where a single pane of glass was still
in one piece. He broke it out, then cleared the jagged shards as best he could.
His face was slick with sweat, the muggy air clinging like a second skin.
"Careful."
    He ducked under the support and
into the store. Todd ducked in behind him, forcing Alan to do a double take.
    When did he get so big? He
made a mental note to tell Brenda, later, about how tall Todd was getting. It
was a reflexive action, like a tongue probing the spot where the tooth used to
be.
    The realization punched him in the
gut, threatened to double him over: She's gone.
    He wouldn't get to tell her this
story. She wouldn't joke that they had to quit feeding Todd because he was
getting too big. There was no part at the end of this day where he would get to
lie down in bed with her snuggled against his chest, when he could secretly
admit to her how scared he'd been.
    In that instant he realized how
badly he needed those quiet moments; how badly he needed her.
    Oh, gods, she's actually gone. It
was like stumbling into an open elevator shaft.
    "It's really dark in
here," Todd