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

"That's OK. I never get it into the house anymore these days."
He had never said the word "newspaper," had he? So if he
hallucinated it and she saw nothing there in the driveway, what was
it that she never got into the house?
He was back out the door in a moment, car keys in hand. It was
barely dawn as he pulled back into that gravel driveway and walked
to the front door and knocked.
She came to the door at once, as if she had been waiting for him.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's so early."
"I was up," she said. "I thought you might come back."
"You just have to tell me one thing."
She laughed faintly. "Yes. I saw it, too. I always see it. I used to
pick it up from the driveway, carry it into the house, lay it out on
the table for him. Only it's fading now. After all these years. I
never quite get to touch it anymore. That's all right." She laughed
again. "I'm fading too."
She stepped back, beckoned him inside.
"I'm Tim Bushey," he said.
"Orange juice?" she said. "V-8? I don't keep coffee in the house,
because I love it but it takes away what little sleep I have left.
Being old is a pain in the neck, I'll tell you that, Mr. Bushey."
"Tim."
"Oh my manners. If you're Tim, then I'm Wanda. Wanda Silva."
"Orange juice sounds fine, Wanda."
They sat at her kitchen table. Whatever time warp the newspaper came
from, it didn't affect Wanda's house. The kitchen was new, or at
least newer than the 1940s. The little Hitachi TV on the counter and
the microwave on a rolling cart were proof enough of that.
She noticed what he was looking at. "My boys take care of me," she
said. "Good jobs, all three of them, and even though not a one still
lives in North Carolina, they all visit, they call, they write. I
get along great with their wives. The grandkids are brilliant and
cute and healthy. I couldn't be happier, really." She laughed. "So
why does Tonio Silva haunt my house?"
He made a guess. "Your late husband?"


"It's more complicated than that. Tonio was my first husband. Met
him in a war materials factory in Huntsville and married him and
after the war we came home to Greensboro because I didn't want to
leave my roots and he didn't have any back in Philly, or so he said.
But Tonio and I didn't have any children. He couldn't. Died of
testicular cancer right after the election of '48. I married again
about three years later. Barry Lear. A sweet, dull man. Father of my
three boys. Account executive who traveled all the time and even
when he was home he was barely here."
She sighed. "Oh, why am I telling you this?"
"Because I saw the newspaper."
"Because when you saw the newspaper, you were embarrassed but you
were not surprised, not shocked when it disappeared. You've been