"Charles L. Grant - Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

beneath her eyes, cursing himself for not noticing her condition sooner. To adjust from the
city's frantic years had been difficult enough when she was the proliferation of little girls
Hawthorne Street had spawned, but the addition of the pregnancy in the century's worst sum
was draining her of laughter; she had been claiming since the beginning that the baby hadn't
right, and no amount of persuasion from husband or doctor could change her mind. And if I
her about the milkman, Gerry thought, she might literally kill me. Finally he eased a solicito
arm about her shoulders and drew from her a melancholy smile.
"I spoke with Syd on the golf course this morning," he said after calling for Sandy to ge
move on. "We've decided to confront the dairy company—"
"Please, Gerry, I don't want to hear it."
"Oh, come on, Ruth, let's not start again, please? This milkman business is getting all ou
hand. I don't see why you're letting it get to you like this. I mean, no one else is all that
bothered."
"Well, maybe nobody else cares whether or not they're doing the morally right thing by
letting this farce continue the way it has," she said angrily, shrugging away his arm. "I told y
before, I don't want that man, beast, whatever the hell he is, coming to my house anymore.
Suppose Sandy starts sneaking notes to him? Suppose the other kids find out this isn't a gam
Suppose …" She turned to him, and he flinched at the hardened lines destroying her mouth.
"Suppose one of you big brave men gets tired of his wife and asks for a new one? What
happens then?" Her hands went protectively across her stomach, accusing him with their
barrier, and he realized that she suspected what he had done.
Suddenly angry to camouflage his fear, he paced to the sidewalk and back, his hands fis
in his pockets. "What the hell are you talking about," he demanded as slowly and flatly as h
could. "A few ties, a few shirts, one lousy set of golf clubs, and everyone—no, you go flyin
off the goddamned handle. Tell me, do you see anyone else on this block worried? Do you
the place crumbling in moral decay just because a milkman runs a shoddy little business on
side?"
"What about Syd's promotion and the new car?"
Gerry spun around, frustration at his wife's persistence threatening to erupt in shouting.
"Syd has been with that firm for fifteen years, and a promotion was just plain due. I won tha
bloody car in a raffle at the office, and what the hell more explanation do you want anyway
Ruth?"
"The hundred dollars."
"For crying out loud, I didn't get it."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, you did."
Gerry stopped just as Sandy ran out the front door and flopped next to his mother, grinn
"Well?" he said. "We going or not?"
"In a minute," Gerry said to him before turning back to Ruth. "What are you talking abou
Ruth? What hundred dollars?"
Ruth obviously did not want to continue the argument in front of their son, but Gerry's fa
in an uncontrollable sneer, forced her to ignore him. "In the mail, while you were out with y
precious friends on that precious golf course. A check from the insurance company.
Overpayment."
Gerry froze, the sun suddenly chilling as he loosened and began waving his hands
impotently in the air. "Nonsense," he said. "Pure nonsense."
"Then what about this baby?" she said, throwing the question like scalding water into h
face. She stood then, swaying, crying silently, her head shaking away what answers he migh
have had. Sandy gaped before reaching up to her, but she only cried out and ran into the hou
"Dad?"
Gerry fumbled in his hip pocket, pulling out his wallet from which he yanked the first b