Free Elephant in the Sky by Heather A. Clark

pain or discomfort. Don’t forget to ice!”
    I walked towards the parking garage with the doctor’s words ringing in my ears.
    â€œEverything okay?” Pete asked when I got to our SUV. He was waiting outside by himself, leaning against the driver’s door.
    â€œWe’ll chat later,” I responded. I had no idea how Pete was going to respond to all of this. I stuck my head in the Enclave to see Nate, who was sitting lengthwise in the back row. His leg was propped up with a pillow the hospital had given us, and Nate was leaning the side of his head onto the back of the seat, almost like he was trying to burrow and escape.
    â€œYou okay, Bean?” I asked, calling over the middle row of our SUV to the backseat. “Ready to go home now? I was thinking we could pick up pancakes on the way home.”
    I waited for him to say yes to his favourite breakfast, or at least manage a semi-smile at the suggestion. But his only response was to turn his face away from me, trying to burrow further as he smashed his nose into the fabric.

16
    When we returned home, we got Nate settled into his room. It took five big pillows — two behind his back, one under his hips, and two under his ankle — before he finally seemed to be comfortable. We had offered to put him in the family room, in front of the big TV, but Nate had refused.
    â€œDon’t you want to watch some cartoons?” I asked him, anxious to see a flicker of light appear in his eyes. “One of the good parts of having a sprained ankle is that you get to watch them all day.”
    But Nate only shook his head, repeating, again, that he wanted to be by himself in his room. He refused to eat. He didn’t want to play video games. And he asked me to leave when I offered to stay.
    Pete wanted to talk to him about why he left the house, but I convinced him to let it wait. I was worried about the slump Nate was in, and didn’t want to push him.
    On Monday, Nate begged us to let him stay home from school. We gave in to his request, worried that he might not yet be ready, and concerned about how the other kids might treat a kid on crutches. On Tuesday morning, we echoed the decision and Nate stayed home once again, isolated in his room.
    I forced myself to return to work for a mid-morning meeting that I couldn’t miss. I’d managed to work from home the day before, calling into my meetings and using the time when Nate napped to plough through my quickly building email pile.
    But I couldn’t stay away from work any longer. The pressure was mounting with three of our most important accounts, and Jack had clearly expressed that he needed me to be directly involved with every aspect of managing our new client.
    By Wednesday, Pete convinced me to make Nate go to school. It was obvious his ankle was already healing by the amount of pressure he was able to put on it when we forced him out of bed to brush his teeth and take a bath. And it wasn’t healthy for him to continue to hibernate in his bedroom.
    After forcing myself to bury my swelling stress levels, which had heightened after one of my top team members had resigned the day before, I cleared my morning meetings to take Nate to school. It was the only real request he’d made when we’d given him no choice. I helped him get dressed, then walked at a snail’s pace beside him as he made his way to the car on crutches.
    When we got to school, I brought Nate straight to his classroom. A group of kids from his class snickered and began whispering. One boy I didn’t know pointed right at us.
    I inhaled sharply. “Hey guys,” I said. “Nate hurt his ankle and could use some friends to help him out until he’s better. Can you do that?”
    â€œYeah right,” one boy snorted. The others snickered outwardly. Then, more quietly, the instigator said to his gang of friends, “Like we’d ever help a hyena!” The entire group burst out