The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock Page A

the house could take care of her and help her to the bathroom and stuff if I left. And I mean, I do love my mother, that wasn't it, of course I do. But every time I thought about what she'd just said to me—that I
couldn't keep my hands off him,
that he was going to get me
pregnant
—which just so you know was not part of my big plan at all, thank you very much—I felt like barfing, I was so mortified. And I could not figure out one single way to borrow the Caravan so that I could spend Saturday evening with a boy I can't keep my hands off. Also, how did she even know?
    So after I got Mom her special pillow from her bed, and her fuzzy slippers she likes so much, and calmed Smut down because normally folks only lie on the living room floor when they want to wrestle with her, which she couldn't figure out why Mom wasn't doing, I snuck off into the little office and shut the door and, completely miserable, called Brian.
    As soon as he answered, though, I could tell there was a problem. "What's wrong?" I asked.
    "Nothing," he said, sounding like his house had just burned down.
    I'm sure I sounded just as bad. "My mom hurt her back so I can't come over."
    "Oh! I mean, that's too bad. Is she okay?"
    "Yeah. She will be. What's going on with you?"
    "Nothing," he said, sounding better this time. "It's just these guys ... I thought they were doing something tonight but it got messed up and now they're coming over here. I mean, I really want to see you. But it'd be awkward, you know, with everyone."
    "Don't they know I quit?" I asked, although of course I hadn't
quit
football. I had to stop due to a separated shoulder, which is too hard to say.
    Brian laughed. "Oh, yeah. But you know how it is ... Is your mom hurting? Because my dad has these pills—he says they really help."
    "Nah. She'd rather just lie on the floor in pain," I said, only half joking. We laughed.
    Right then Mom called out that she sure would love an ice pack, and I had to go. Just talking to him, though, even though I couldn't see him, it helped. It really did.

    Sunday, Mom was better in that she could get to the bathroom in only twenty-five minutes, and without so much of my lifting her, which was good because she's not the lightest woman in the world. All her friends wanted to help. Cindy Jorgensen even came by with a casserole and told me how sorry Kyle was about me and football, watching me like she was trying to see how hurt I really was. Later I heard Dad on the phone with someone who was trying to get him to make me play, it sounded like. And Dad didn't sound like he was defending me too much either.
    Which made me feel just great, that my own father wouldn't even take my side.
    Monday at least I got to skip school because Mom decided to see a doctor finally and Dad sure couldn't drive her because just thinking about doctors sets him off. The two of us took the seats out of the Caravan and helped her outside so she could lie on a mattress and make sucking sounds whenever I went over a bump even though I tried my best and finally had to tell her that her sucking sounds weren't making the road any smoother.
    Dr. Miller took one look and said she'd slipped a disk and needed to keep doing what she already was, which was lying flat and taking Motrin. And stretching with these special back stretches. And also, he said kind of gently, lose some weight because that wasn't helping.
    "But I'm trying!" Mom wailed. "I've lost ten pounds. I walk every day!"
    I explained how Mom puffed around the farm, although I tried to make it sound a little better than that. "And she comes back all sweaty," I added. So he'd know how hard she was working.
    "Maybe you're walking a little
too
hard," he said. "Are you under any stress?"
    Mom and I looked at each other. Neither one of us was going to mention Curtis and how she blew her back out right after screaming at him. Plus there's that money stress that I wasn't going to bring up either. And my injury, which Dr. Miller