"Orson Scott Card - Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

hallucinated it, and it wasn't as if you could run away from
hallucinations. You carried those around in your own head. And they
were nothing new to him. He'd been living on the edge of madness
every since the accident. That's why he didn't go to work, didn't
even have a job anymore -- the compassionate leave had long since
expired, replaced by a vague promise of "come back anytime, you know
there's always a job here for you."
But he couldn't go back to work, could only leave the house to go
jogging or to the grocery store or an occasional visit to Atticus to
get something to read, and even then in the back of his mind he
didn't really care about his errand, he was only leaving because
when he came back, he'd see things.
One of Diana's toys would be in a different place. Not just inches
from where it had been, but in a different room. As if she'd picked
up her stuffed Elmo in the family room and carried it into the
kitchen and dropped it right there on the floor because Selena had
picked her up and put her in the high chair for lunch and yes, there
were the child-size spoon, the Tupperware glass, the Sesame Street
plate, freshly rinsed and set beside the sink and still wet.
Only it wasn't really a hallucination, was it? Because the toy was
real enough, and the dishes. He would pick up the toy and put it
away. He would slip the dishes into the dishwasher, put in the soap,
close the door. He would be very, very certain that he had not set
the delay timer on the dishwasher. All he did was close the door,
that's all.
And then later in the day he'd go to the bathroom or walk out to get
the mail and when he came back in the kitchen the dishwasher would
be running. He could open the door and the dishes would be clean,
the steam would fog his glasses, the heat would wash over him, and
he knew that couldn't be a hallucination. Could it?
Somehow when he loaded the dishwasher he must have turned on the
timer even though he thought he was careful not to. Somehow before
his walk or his errand he must have picked up Diana's Elmo and
dropped it in the kitchen and taken out the toddler dishes and
rinsed them and set them by the sink. Only he hallucinated not doing
any such thing.
Tim was no psychologist, but he didn't need to pay a shrink to tell
him what was happening. It was his grief at losing both his wife and
daughter on the same terrible day, that ordinary drive to the store
that put them in the path of the high school kids racing each other
in the Weaver 500, two cars jockeying for position, swerving out of
their lanes, one of them losing control, Selena trying to dodge,
spinning, both of them hitting her, tearing the car apart between
them, ripping the life out of mother and daughter in a few terrible
seconds. Tim at the office, not even knowing, thinking they'd be
there when he came home from work, not guessing his life was over.
And yet he went on living, tricking himself into seeing evidence
that they still lived with him. Selena and Baby Di, the Queen Dee,
the little D-beast, depending on what mood the two-year-old was in.
They'd just stepped out of the room. They were upstairs, they were