| OCR Text |
Show Woodworth/221 She surprises herself, sitting calmly in the chair as if nothing has happened. Not even thinking to herself that at least she still has one left that hasn't figured out that she doesn't know. She doesn't have any answers. Being a mother was just thrust on her. And, as if the weight is too much for her, she lets her head drift to the side, and falls asleep. It must have been the singing of the earliest birds that woke her, the ones that she only notices sometimes, when she is lying awake, trying not to keep going over and over that time when she kicked him. The light is still on, and she feels as though someone has just left, although, by the clock, it has been hours since the others went to bed. She hadn't meant to really kick him at all. Just to scare him. But the feeling of her foot against his shoulder had been satisfying. That was the thing she couldn't forget. It was just that all of a sudden he got so smug about everything, like he knew she was wrong all the time. But he would never t say so. Now, it seems like the telephone was already ringing when she kicked him. When he stood up, holding his shoulder, and said, "you are not my mother any more," it was as if Ned was already standing there by her right shoulder (why did he stand there, where she couldn't even see his face, couldn't see what he was thinking?): He said that they had found Jake unconscious in his room, and had taken him to the infirmirary. Michael had told them that it was Valium, so they took him to the hospital in an ambulance. When she turned to look at Ned, it was as if Jake was still standing there, ^#4-441 4wi<friiig"Jtil^ shoulder, still waiting for her to |
