ABSTRACT
Patrick’s mother, Deirdre, had no patience for texts. He held vague memories of her opening books with every good intention of reading them, of participating in some small way in the vast love of the written word that her oldest son had for so long felt. (She didn’t know, or maybe she did, that this was a love defined by escape. Maybe she knew this intimately, and sought precisely the same kind of remove.) But she never got farther than the first few pages, bored with how still she had to remain in order to focus completely on whatever stories were being told. Her mind started to drift, her leg would shake, and before long she had forgotten what she had only just read. Closing the book, she would withdraw to her room, dress in her running clothes, and leave for hours of exercise.
