Read Online Made That Way by Susan Ketchen - Free Book Online Page A

make it more obvious that he was ashamed of himself would be if his cheeks turned flaming red, and maybe they are but under his white fur it’s impossible for me to tell. When he starts talking he doesn’t look at me but stares instead at a spot on the ground behind me. “I was bad. I strayed. I made a mistake and did something I wasn’t supposed to do. It got smaller and smaller and I woke up one morning and it was gone—I was a flathead, just like when I was born.”
    I notice that he won’t use the word horn. I reach over and stroke his cheek. Tears are welling behind my eyeballs. I feel the pressure along with the remains of a headache, but somehow manage to switch my attention back to the dream. I don’t want to abandon the unicorn in such a state, and there’s something about waking up that doesn’t appeal either, something happened—something I don’t want to think about.
    â€œYou mean unicorns are born without . . . I mean, they’re born with flat heads?”
    He huffs loudly. “Of course we’re born with flat heads. Otherwise our mothers wouldn’t survive the delivery. Our heads stay flat until puberty.”
    Automatically I tense as though I can expect a lecture on sexual development from the unicorn. Again I feel the pillow, and this time it’s too much and I wake up thinking I’ve just missed a great opportunity to find out if unicorns are born grey and turn white like horses do, or whether some of them stay grey all their lives.
    I don’t open my eyes, but I know I’m not in my own bedroom. The smells are wrong and there’s too much light and noise. And it all floods back to me, that I’m in the hospital. I keep my eyes shut as the memories unfold backwards in my head. How nice the nurses were last night when I couldn’t sleep and one of them sponged my face with a warm cloth and held my hand and said I’d be fine. They just wanted to keep me in for observation overnight, and before that the ambulance ride, and before that . . . Taylor! Oh my god I’d forgotten about Taylor. They took her in a different ambulance. My eyes flicker open against my will, but I slam them shut immediately, because sitting on the end of the bed is my mom, and my dad is leaning on the door jamb sending a text message on his BlackBerry.
    â€œTony, do you have to?” says Mom. Her voice is deep and gravelly like she hasn’t slept all night.
    â€œI’m just telling them I’ll be late coming in,” says Dad.
    â€œLate? You’re going in to your office today?” says Mom.
    Oh brother. You’d think that today of all days they wouldn’t be at each other.
    â€œI can’t book off like you can, Ev.”
    â€œOf course you can. You could if you wanted to.”
    I think about opening my eyes and pretending I don’t recognize them. That might change their priorities.
    â€œWe can’t do anything anyway,” says Dad. “She’s in good hands here.”
    â€œPatients need an advocate,” says Mom.
    I remember her saying this all the time when Uncle Brian was in the hospital. My mom pretty well lived at the hospital when he was sick, and then he died anyway. This was before my mom went back to school and became a therapist, so she had more spare time.
    â€œWell you can be the advocate, and I’ll keep the home fires burning,” says Dad.
    â€œOh right. . . ,” says Mom with a sarcastic tone that I’m never allowed to use.
    I’ve had enough. I open my eyes wide, smile at them and say hi.
    â€œOh thank god!” says Mom. She looks awful. There are bags under her eyes and she hasn’t washed her hair. It’s lying flat against her scalp and I can see her roots.
    â€œHey, Munchkin!” says Dad. He doesn’t look much better, although at least his hair looks okay because its got so much natural curl it almost never looks bad. He sits on my bed on the