"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Courting Rites" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

would probably never see again.
My father looked smaller, diminished somehow, tubes up his nose and in his
mouth. An oxygen tent over his face. His hair was wispy and gray, his hands
skeletal. The monitors beside him beeped at intervals even I knew weren’t natural.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was worse than we thought.”
Later they told me. Later they said they opened him up and found that the
single small tumor was a growth that extended through his entire body. The growth
hadn’t shown up on any tests. They closed him immediately, but the procedure
sapped what strength he had. They were hoping that he would live until morning. I
think he managed to live until he saw me.
His eyes flickered once. I caught a glimpse of them, brown and cloudy. I
knew the look, had seen it too many times on the street. He smiled, just a little, and
for a moment, I thought I heard music. Then it stopped—and so did he.
I sat there for what seemed like hours, but it must have been only minutes.
Then I realized that I was completely alone. No one left. No family, no lover. No one
to hold me when I cried.
“Miss Winters?” A man beside me, dressed in black. An old-fashioned suit, a
banjo on his back, and the prettiest blue eyes I had ever seen. He extended his arms
to me, and I went into them, let him hold me while sobs shivered through my body.
Then when I was done, when the wave had passed, I was sitting on the chair again,
my father’s body before me, businesslike nurses invading the room like ants.
I quit the force. Too much death, I said. Then I went out and courted him my
own way.
Hospitals were never quiet. This one was no exception. The halls were wide
and expansive, more like those in a Hyatt Regency than a small Nevada hospital.
Someone had painted them kelly green, and placed a plush carpet on the floor. I
missed the squeak of rubber soles against the tile.
I left Silas in the lobby, staring at the terrarium. I didn’t trust him. He had
fallen in love with this woman, had trusted her with the very thing that would, if
improperly handled, destroy him. I didn’t want him to do it again.
I stopped at the door to the room and stared inside.
The television blared. The old man huddled on the bed, eyes closed. As I
watched, I realized that he was probably no older than my own father had been.
Sickness had diminished him. In Mariah’s eyes, he was probably a giant of a man,
immortal and all-powerful. What kind of life would she have without him? If death
came to her father, it would come to her, too. If death could defeat a man as
powerful as that, it could defeat anyone.
But Mariah had outsmarted death. She had traded her father’s life for Silas’s,
and for it, all she had to show was this hospital room that stank of decaying skin.
I closed my eyes. If I had had Silas’s banjo, would I have given it up? Even
knowing that our existence would be a kind of never-ending purgatory of bad
television, lime green walls and disease?
I took a deep breath, forced myself out of the memory, and scanned the
room. The banjo sat beside the bed, looking as fragile as Silas himself. I stepped
inside, no plan in mind, my only goal to pick up the banjo and hold it tight against
myself.
Mariah sat up. The old man started, breath rasping rapidly through his
half-open mouth. I grabbed the banjo, shocked at its warmth. It was a live thing, as
Silas had said. I could feel the power trapped within it, running up and down the
strings like an arpeggio.