"Robert F. Young - The Dandelion Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

deer, and today, you.

Then, on a rainy night in mid-November, he found the suitcase. It was Anne's, and he found it quite by
accident. She had gone into town to play bingo, and he had the house to himself; and after spending two
hours watching four jaded TV programs, he remembered the jigsaw puzzles he had stored away the
previous winter.

Desperate for something—anything at all—to take his mind off Julie, he went up to the attic to get them.
The suitcase fell from a shelf while he was rummaging through the various boxes piled beside it, and it
sprang open when it struck the floor.

He bent over to pick it up. It was the same suitcase she had brought with her to the little apartment they
had rented after their marriage, and he remembered how she had always kept it locked and remembered
her telling him laughingly that there were some things a wife had to keep a secret even from her husband.
The lock had rusted over the years, and the fall had broken it.

He started to close the lid, paused when he saw the protruding hem of a white dress. The material was
vaguely familiar. He had seen material similar to it not very long ago—material that brought to mind
cotton candy and sea foam and snow.

He raised the lid and picked up the dress with trembling fingers. He held it by the shoulders and let it
unfold itself, and it hung there in the room like gently falling snow. He looked at it for a long time, his
throat tight. Then, tenderly, he folded it again and replaced it in the suitcase and closed the lid. He
returned the suitcase to its niche under the eaves. Day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, and yesterday
a deer, and today, you.

Rain thrummed on the roof. The tightness of his throat was so acute now that he thought for a moment
that he was going to cry. Slowly he descended the attic stairs. He went down the spiral stairway into the
living room. The clock on the mantel said ten-fourteen. In just a few minutes the bingo bus would let her
off at the corner, and she would come walking down the street and up the walk to the front door. Anne
would … Julie would. Julianne?

Was that her full name? Probably. People invariably retained part of their original names when adopting
aliases; and having completely altered her last name, she had probably thought it safe to take liberties
with her first. She must have done other things, too, in addition to changing her name, to elude the time
police. No wonder she had never wanted her picture taken! And how terrified she must have been on
that long-ago day when she had stepped timidly into his office to apply for a job! All alone in a strange
generation, not knowing for sure whether her father's concept of time was valid, not knowing for sure
whether the man who would love her in his forties would feel the same way toward her in his twenties.
She had come back all right, just as she had said she would.

Twenty years, he thought wonderingly, and all the while she must have known that one day I'd climb
a September hill and see her standing, young and lovely, in the sun, and fall in love with her all
over again. She had to know because the moment was as much a part of her past as it was a part
of my future. But why didn't she tell me? Why doesn't she tell me now?

Suddenly he understood.

He found it hard to breathe, and he went into the hall and donned his raincoat and stepped out into the
rain. He walked down the walk in the rain, and the rain pelted his face and ran in drops down his cheeks,