Why They Run the Way They Do Read Online Free PDF

to her, these animals, and she had, it seemed, hundreds of them, all of which she loved for a day or two until another in the room caught her eye. So he put the armadillo on a crowded shelf with another twenty once-loved animals and she rolled over onto the star-nosed rabbit and he went down the hall to his bedroom and his sleeping wife.

    In the morning Chloe came into the kitchen with the armadillo balanced on her head. Carrie was packing the lunchbox for preschool and her stomach dropped at the sight of the animal, whom she had seen first thing that morning, tucked on a shelf, only a fraction of it visible, when she’d crept into Chloe’s room to do the same and found the deed already done.
    â€œLook what Michael can do!” Chloe said.
    Dan set down his coffee. “Where’d you get that?” he asked.
    â€œNana sent him,” she said, spinning in circles.
    â€œI know,” he said. “I mean . . .”
    Chloe stopped spinning. “Can I take Michael to school?”
    â€œNo,” Carrie said, narrowly missing severing her entire thumb while slicing a pear. Or maybe that would be preferable, she thought. Things would have to be done, ambulances called, digits reattached, bloody counters scoured. No one would think about an armadillo.
    â€œHow come?”
    Carrie shook her head. “You don’t take toys to school.”
    â€œSometimes I do,” Chloe said. She scooched out her chair and sat down in front of her Cheerios, the armadillo still perched on her head. “For show and tell.”
    â€œNot today, honey,” Carrie said.
    â€œBut—”
    â€œChloe, the answer is—”
    â€œIf she wants to take him to school, let her take him to school,” Dan interrupted. “It’s her armadillo.”
    â€œYay!” Chloe said.
    Carrie ran her tongue over her teeth. She’d just be quiet; that was best.
    Dan solemnly crossed his arms and addressed the puppet on his daughter’s head. “Now, Michael,” he said. “This is a very serious matter. I have to ask you: Do you want to be in show and tell?”
    â€œHe does!” Chloe shouted.
    â€œIt’s not for the faint of heart, Michael,” Dan said. “Everyone will be looking at you. You’ll be on display for all to see. Are you prepared for that, Michael?”
    â€œDaddy, he wants to!”
    â€œDo you understand what we’re asking of you, Michael?”
    Okay, then, Carrie thought, pitching Baggies into her daughter’s lunch box. All right, then. This was how it was going to be. This was how he had chosen to play it. Okay. Accept. Accept and adjust. This was the price. This was the price you paid. Once, during the months of letters, she had written his name all over her body with a big red marker. She’d done it on her lunch hour, at work, in a bathroom stall, breathlessly, the tip of the pen like the tip of a finger. She had walked around for an entire day with him under her clothes, his name in thick letters on her stomach, her upper arms, her thighs. She lay in bed with the word still there, her heart pounding, knowing if Dan turned to her and started something that all might be revealed. She’d been out of her mind, sick with desire. This was the price you paid for something like that.
    When she’d come home that day, that terrible day, and found dinner on the table, the house clean, Dan still there, she realized her subconscious plan had gone awry. If only her plan had been just a little less sub she would have surely seen the obvious holes, been able to play out the possible scenarios. She had thought Dan would leave—that was why (subconsciously why, of course) she’d told him the truth—and now he hadn’t left, apparently had no intention of leaving, and now her conscious self was left with the mess made by the subconscious. What was she supposed to do now? “We’re going to be okay,” he’d