JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 154 из 425They may love Dickie Brooks at Western Savings, but they don’t give a rat’s ass for Mattie Stanchfield Devore. After taxes I make about a hundred a week at the library. So you’re offering to pay. Right?”
“Right.”
“Why? You don’t even know us.”
“Because…” I trailed off. I seem to remember wanting Jo to step in at that point, asking my mind to supply her voice, which I could then pass on to Mattie in my own. But Jo didn’t come. I was flying solo. “Because now I do nothing that makes a difference,” I said at last, and once again the words astonished me.
“And I do know you. I’ve eaten your food, I’ve read Ki a story and had her fall asleep in my lap… and maybe I saved her life the other day when I grabbed her out of the road. We’ll never know for sure, but maybe I did. You know what the Chinese say about something like that?” I didn’t expect an answer, the question was more rhetorical than real, but she surprised me. Not for the last time, either. “That if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them.”
“Yes. It’s also about what’s fair and what’s right, but I think mostly it’s about wanting to be part of something where I make a difference. I look back on the four years since my wife died, and there’s nothing there. Not even a book where Marjorie the shy typist meets a handsome stranger.” She sat thinking this over, watching as a fully loaded pulptruck snored past on the highway, its headlights glaring and its load of logs swaying from side to side like the hips of an overweight woman. “Don’t you root for us,” she said at last. She spoke in a low, unexpectedly fierce voice.
“Don’t you root for us like he roots for his team-of-the-week down at the softball field. I need help and I know it, but I won’t have that. I can’t have it. We’re not a game, Ki and me. You understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“You know what people in town will say, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a lucky girl, don’t you think? First I marry the son of an extremely rich man, and after he dies, I fall under the protective wing of another rich guy. Next I’ll probably move in with Donald Trump.”
“(]ut it out.”
“I’d probably believe it myself, if I were on the other side. But I wonder if anyone notices that lucky Mattie is still living in a Modair trailer and can’t afford health insurance. Or that her kid got most of her vaccinations from the County Nurse. My parents died when I was fifteen.
“Right.”
“Why? You don’t even know us.”
“Because…” I trailed off. I seem to remember wanting Jo to step in at that point, asking my mind to supply her voice, which I could then pass on to Mattie in my own. But Jo didn’t come. I was flying solo. “Because now I do nothing that makes a difference,” I said at last, and once again the words astonished me.
“And I do know you. I’ve eaten your food, I’ve read Ki a story and had her fall asleep in my lap… and maybe I saved her life the other day when I grabbed her out of the road. We’ll never know for sure, but maybe I did. You know what the Chinese say about something like that?” I didn’t expect an answer, the question was more rhetorical than real, but she surprised me. Not for the last time, either. “That if you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for them.”
“Yes. It’s also about what’s fair and what’s right, but I think mostly it’s about wanting to be part of something where I make a difference. I look back on the four years since my wife died, and there’s nothing there. Not even a book where Marjorie the shy typist meets a handsome stranger.” She sat thinking this over, watching as a fully loaded pulptruck snored past on the highway, its headlights glaring and its load of logs swaying from side to side like the hips of an overweight woman. “Don’t you root for us,” she said at last. She spoke in a low, unexpectedly fierce voice.
“Don’t you root for us like he roots for his team-of-the-week down at the softball field. I need help and I know it, but I won’t have that. I can’t have it. We’re not a game, Ki and me. You understand?”
“Perfectly.”
“You know what people in town will say, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m a lucky girl, don’t you think? First I marry the son of an extremely rich man, and after he dies, I fall under the protective wing of another rich guy. Next I’ll probably move in with Donald Trump.”
“(]ut it out.”
“I’d probably believe it myself, if I were on the other side. But I wonder if anyone notices that lucky Mattie is still living in a Modair trailer and can’t afford health insurance. Or that her kid got most of her vaccinations from the County Nurse. My parents died when I was fifteen.