We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier Read Free Book Online

Artie.
    “We can’t pretend that the vandalism didn’t take place,” he said, voice strained as if he had been shouting against the wind all day. “But we have to go on living. Living here, in this house. We have to put it all behind us. Not as if it didn’t happen but looking ahead instead of behind us. We also can’t pretend that Karen isn’t in thehospital. In a …” His voice faltered and he skipped the word
coma,
after pausing for a minute. “So we have to be concerned about her, think about her, pray for her, and visit her. Which we’ve all been doing and which we must and will continue to do. But we also have to get on with our own lives. We can’t afford to be bitter, to let what happened spoil our lives.”
    He took a deep breath and paused. “Now let me talk about something we’ve all avoided talking about. The trashers themselves.
    “We don’t know why they did what they did. Why they chose our house. Everybody, and that includes the police, thinks it was a random thing, that we shouldn’t feel as though we were special targets, that it was a personal attack on us as a family. The world is filled with weird people and some of those weird people came upon our house and did terrible things. We can’t deny that it happened but we have to get over it. The trashers would be the big winners if we let what they did change us, spoil our lives. Yes, Karen is in the hospital. But she’s alive and the doctors are optimistic about her chances of recovery. The police are convinced that she was what they call an unintended victim. That the trashers were attacking the house, not her, not us. We have to believe that and get on with our lives.”
    Such a brave speech, delivered with such determination and resolution that Jane wanted to rush to him and embrace him.
    After that, she and her family settled into a kind of a routine, caught up in busy days and evenings. Her father left for work every day as usual, spent long hours at the office and the rest of the time at the hospital. He did not play golf anymore on weekends. Her mother acted as if someone had cranked her up in the morning and dispatched her on her daily rounds. She was a whirlwind ofbustling activity, dashing between home and the hospital meanwhile doing the housework, cleaning, dusting, knitting, seldom pausing to catch her breath. All of which made Jane wonder: Was all of this normal? What was normal, anyway?
    She developed her own routine in the neighborhood. Sometimes, she did not feel like taking the bus trip to Wickburg, and found the house lonely and forlorn. She’d put on her Nikes and shorts and jog the streets, dodging the bike brigade and the brats, ignoring them when they whistled and yelled or tried to sideswipe her. The kids were pests but she preferred them to that silent empty house.
    “Hello, Jane.”
    She paused in her jogging as Mickey Looney tipped his baseball hat.
    Jane drew up, breathing heavily, glad for the respite. She was not the most athletic of persons, probably the least.
    “Hi, Mickey,” she said. He blushed when anyone looked directly at him, deep crimson sweeping his face.
    “Almost time to plant tomatoes?” she asked.
    “Thirtieth of May,” Mickey said, seriously, suddenly, the professional planter. “Anytime before then is too early, New England being what it is.”
    He seemed to hesitate, then kicked at something invisible on the ground. “How’s Karen?” he asked. “I’ve been meaning to inquire but don’t like to intrude.”
    “She’s still in the coma,” Jane said. Observing how stricken he looked, she reassured him: “She’s not suffering, Mickey, and she’s not any worse.”
    “I hope she’ll come out of it,” he said, still kicking at nothing.
    Weird Amos Dalton came along, his arms loaded with books as usual. He did not look up as he trudged by.
    “Hey, Amos,” Jane called on an impulse. “What’re you reading?”
    Amos looked up with a pained expression as if it hurt him to