Streams of Babel Read Online Free Page A

around behind Mom with the third degree. "Did you take your temperature? Why not? Did you pick up the results of your blood work, or do I have to do everything around here?"
    "No, you don't have to do everything, hon. 'Fever of Unknown Origin.'"
    That didn't make Scott look too happy, though it was a relief to me. I had started getting scared that Mom had leukemia or something. She had looked fine today, but for almost a month it had been three good days, two bad days, two good days, three bad days. Scott took three tubes of blood from her, after she refused to see a specialist, and left them at Saint Ann's lab. She's just not a doctor person.
    "...only thing I had today was a headache," she was telling him.
    "You take anything?"
    "Yes."
    "Did it go away?"
    Silence.
    "Well, why don't you go lie down? Go watch a movie with Owen? He'll give you the remote."
    There went my night in front of the tube. I glanced down at this big envelope under my ankle and froze, like I did every time I noticed it. Mom had tossed it at me last week when I was complaining about all these recruiters being up my shorts already. I don't know how long ago she'd gotten it, but it landed in my lap and she said, "You're not ready to think about this now. But if I had any betting money, I would bet that in a few years, you could happily end up here."
    I stared at the return address again in its dark, thick typeface.
Princeton Theological Seminary.
    Scott was making her sit in the kitchen chair while he took her temperature. This is what I didn't get: For all my brother probably hopping on Candy Cane and whoever else was drunk enough, and for all his foul mouth and domineering attitude, he was far less selfish than I was. He always came in here thinking about Mom first thing, and I was too wrapped up in my own noise-and-mauling damage. And she'd been talking about telling the coach to give me some breathing room, and having brochures sent to me from Princeton, like she had the time.
    She never stopped working for people who can't afford to pay her, and she never had a dime extra, which explained why we only had one TV. Scott agreed with her about me and Princeton. I just didn't get it.
    "Here, Mom. Watch what you want." I held the remote out to her as she zoomed away from Scott's evil paramedic meddling. He went rooting for a cold pack he'd said he would crack for her headache.
    "I'll watch what you want, Owen."
    "No. I'll watch what you want." I had to force it out, but the major sacrifice got me feeling somewhat in their league of unselfishness.
    "I finally rented
Joan of Arc,
thinking you'd be doing homework."
    Joan of Arc. A Mom special. A female-superhero-superdeluxo-the-woman-saves-the-day chick flick. Double, triple, quadruple damn.
"That's fine, Mom."
    Then, there was a knock at the door, and I lost it. Took the Lord's name in vain, which makes Mom really unhappy. And just to make me feel worse, she said to Scott, "And whoever it is, we have finished lying tonight. I can't stand lying, even to keep my boys out of a party, where surely there is trouble to be found. If you don't want to see somebody, Owen, don't run up to your room and think I'll tell somebody you're not here."
    Mom patted my cheek on the way past, and I could feel her hand was all too warm, now that I was paying attention. I just chucked the envelope back on the table, listening to Scott peal off with the truth to the person at the back door.
    "You don't wanna come in here, Rain. He's in one of his moods. Yeah, one of those watch-TV, don't-touch-me, don't-talk-to-me, I'm-not-home things."
    "Oh, he'll talk to
me.
" Rain's ski jacket rustled as she tried to push past him, and I shut my eyes.
    Rain Steckerman lived kitty-corner to us, and if you were in the mood to see no one, she was about the last person you'd want to have over. Rain was a captain on two of her four sports, was the life of every party, and never had my social breakdowns. She had a car but couldn't drive it half the