Revival by Stephen King Read Free Book Online

and invited my brothers to go skiing with them, my parents sent them off to Goat Mountain without a qualm, my brothers’ scarred old skis strapped to the station wagon’s roof right along with the Fergusons’ gleaming new ones.
    When they came back, there was a bright red weal across Con’s throat. “Did you drift off-course and run into a tree branch?” Dad asked when he came home for supper and saw the mark.
    Con, a fine skier, was indignant. “Gosh no, Dad. Me n Norm were racing. We were side by side, going like hell’s kitchen—”
    Mom pointed her fork at him.
    â€œSorry, Mom, like heck’s kitchen. Norm hit a mogul and just about lost his balance. He stuck out his arm like this”—Con demonstrated, almost knocking over his glass of milk—“and his ski pole hit me in the neck. It hurt like . . . you know, bad, but it’s better now.”
    Only it wasn’t. The next day the red mark had faded to a necklace-­like bruise, but his voice had gotten hoarse. By that night he could hardly speak above a whisper. Two days later, he was completely mute.
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    A hyperextension of the neck resulting in a stretched laryngeal nerve. That was Dr. Renault’s diagnosis. He said he’d seen them before, and in a week or two, Conrad’s voice would begin to come back. By the end of March Connie would be as right as a trivet. Nothing to worry about, he said, and there wasn’t. Not for him, at least; his voice was fine. This was not true of my brother. When April rolled around, Con was still writing notes and making gestures when he wanted something. He insisted on going to school, even though the other boys had started making fun of him, especially since he had solved the problem of class participation (to a degree, anyway) by writing YES on one palm and NO on the other. He had a pile of file cards with more communications written on them in block letters. The one his classmates found particularly hilarious was MAY I USE THE RESTROOM.
    Con seemed to take all this in good spirits, knowing that to do otherwise would only make the teasing worse, but one night I went into the room he shared with Terry and found him lying on his bed and weeping soundlessly. I went to him, asking what was wrong. A stupid question, since I knew, but you have to say something in that situation, and I could say it, because I wasn’t the one who’d been struck across the throat with the Ski Pole of Destiny.
    Get out! he mouthed. His cheeks and forehead, studded with newly arrived pimples, were flaming. His eyes were swollen. Get out, get out! Then, shocking me: Get the fuck out, cocksucker!
    The first gray began to appear in my mother’s hair that spring. One afternoon when my father came in, looking more tired than usual, Mom told him that they had to take Con to a specialist in Portland. “We’ve waited long enough,” she said. “That old fool George Renault can say whatever he likes, but I know what happened, and so do you. That careless rich boy ruptured my son’s vocal cords.”
    My father sat down heavily at the table. Neither of them noticed me in the mudroom, taking an inordinate amount of time to lace up my Keds. “We can’t afford it, Laura,” he said.
    â€œBut you could afford to buy Hiram Oil in Gates Falls!” she said, using an ugly, almost sneering tone of voice I had never heard before.
    He sat looking at the table instead of at her, although there was nothing on it except the red-and-white-checked oilcloth. “That’s why we can’t afford it. We’re skating on mighty thin ice. You know what kind of winter it was.”
    We all knew: a warm one. When your family’s income depends on heating oil, you keep a close eye on the thermometer between Thanksgiving and Easter, hoping the red line will stay low.
    My mother was at the sink, hands buried in a cloud of soapsuds.