Their new house has a pool, and it's much closer to the all-boys Catholic school that eight-year old Robert Chase goes to, but he never invites his friends home when classes let out. Partly it's because he's already been double-promoted, and the older boys who are in the same classes he's in aren't interested in hanging out with him. He's into football as well, but even though those fellows are his age, he doesn't want to get too matey with them.
They might disturb Mum, and Robert knows he can't let that happen. She's unwell a lot, and they wouldn't understand. Dad says he's done everything he can for her, she's the only one who can make herself better, but sometimes he daydreams that one evening his father brings home a cure. And his mother drinks it down---she makes a face at the taste, everyone knows the worse medicine tastes, the better it is for you---and it's like she wakes up then, and kisses his father and hugs him and after that, there aren't any more bad times. When he finally brings his friends round, they're all envious because his mum is so great.
Robert's grades have to be the best in his class, because that earns him a rare "Well done" from his hard-working dad. By the time he's ten, his instructors and the school administrators are saying he can begin at high school next year, as long as he keeps on as he has been. So he gives up football---he can't afford the time---and comes home and studies. Once in a while, when he's restless and has trouble focusing, he'll allow himself a quick swim. In all the time they've lived in that house, he's the only one who's ever swum in the pool.
It's a good thing he had those lessons, too, because one of the first things he was taught was how to do CPR. Robert comes home one day when he's thirteen, and at first his mum seems, well, a bit groggy, but then she goes silent and he realizes, with a rush of cold terror that she's not breathing. He pulls her off the couch and lays her out on the hardwood floor. She's staring at nothing and still, so very still. And he goes at CPR the way they showed him, frightened, wondering if he should run and call treble zero or if he should keep trying. Tears sting his green eyes and what's he going to do if she's dead? How can he ever explain such a colossal failure to his father?
Mum coughs, and Robert prays, "Please, God, You can do this. Please let her live. I'll do anything You want, I'll be a monk and live in the desert if that's what it takes, please, God---!" Then she's barfing, hurling so hard that for a few minutes, he's afraid she's going to hurt herself, but she's breathing---not well, but breathing.
He knows enough to lay her on her side so she doesn't choke and then he calls the rescue squad. When they've taken her off to Dad's hospital, he gets the shakes. Thinking about what his dad is going to say makes him sick to his stomach, but he makes it to the lav, bringing up his lunch and curling up in a ball on the floor, shivering. How does his dad handle all this life and death stuff every day?
After a while, he feels a bit less wobbly, so he gets out the wet-dry vacuum and cleans up his mum's mess. It isn't the first time he's had to do that.