"Marina Fitch - Sarah at the Tide Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitch Marina)

aside a pebble in its path, then darts over the uneven stone to a pocket of sand just
beyond Sarah’s sight. She leans further over the pool. The hermit crab trots into the
fissure only to back out quickly, followed by the claw-waving decorator crab. Sarah
smiles.

Richard liked hermit crabs. He refused to let her keep a tank of nudibranchs at
home, but he encouraged her to keep hermit crabs. He liked to watch them change
shells. He brought home shells for her hermit crabs the way some spouses brought
home flowers for the piano. Perhaps if she could remember when he stopped
bringing home cowries and conches, she could figure out when and why the
marriage went sour.

But maybe not.

Sarah reaches for the hermit crab, careful to touch only the shell, not the
tender body. The crab tucks itself deeper inside its fortress. Sarah lifts it from the
water. Frantic, it shakes a claw at her.

SARAH LOOKED up from the microscope and stared at the cupboards and
equipment around her, a habit she’d fallen into since Jason Whitcomb’s visit five
days ago. She could call the police, but no one would believe her. And even if they
did, MediChem would cover it up, Richard would die in some “accident,” and she
would lose the lab.

She placed her hand against the cool wall of the tank. The lab was her world.
And now that world had been invaded by Jason Whitcomb — and Richard’s voice.
 Whenever she relaxed, her mind replayed the night Richard left. Maybe I just
need a fling, maybe I’ll be back, he’d said. But right now, I need someone with a
real life, someone alive.

My work is too important right now, she’d said. I need to develop that skin so
my mother and people like her can live.

Sarah, you work seven days a week, twelve, fifteen hours a day. You don’t
care about people — you don’t see your mother anymore, or anyone else. You
don’t even see me, and I live with you.

I see you when I get home from the lab.

For a whole half hour before you drop into bed. You’re hiding in that lab,
closing yourself off.

I’m getting results.t What are you getting?

He’d glared at her through hateful, narrowed eyes. God, I’d love to smash
your lab, force you out of your insulated little cave.

But the next morning it was Sarah who did the smashing. Lining up his prized
Waterford crystal on the concrete patio, Sarah had taken Richard’s hammer and
shattered each tumbler, each wine, sherry, and champagne glass. “Just try to use