JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 155 из 425I have a brother and a sister, but they’re both a lot older andboth out of state. My parents were drunks—not physically abusive, but there was plenty of the other kinds. It was like growing up in a… a roach motel. My dad was a pulper, my mom was a bourbon beautician whose one ambition was to own a Mary Kay pink Cadillac. He drowned in Kewadin Pond. She drowned in her own vomit about six months later. How do you like it so far?”
“Not very much. I’m sorry.”
“After Mom’s funeral my brother, Hugh, offered to take me back to Rhode Island, but I could tell his wife wasn’t exactly nuts about having a fifteen-year-old join the family, and I can’t say that I blamed her.
Also, I’d just made the jv cheering squad. That seems like supreme diddlyshit now, but it was a very big deal then.” Of course it had been a big deal, especially to the child of alcoholics. The only one still living at home. Being that last child, watching as the disease really digs its claws in, can be one of the world’s loneliest jobs. Last one out of the sacred ginmill please turn off the lights. “I ended up going to live with my aunt Florence, just two miles down the road. It took us about three weeks to discover we didn’t like each other very much, but we made it work for two years. Then, between my junior and senior years, I got a summer job at Warrington’s and met Lance. When he asked me to marry him, Aunt Flo refused to give permission. When I told her I was pregnant, she emancipated me so I didn’t need it.”
“You dropped out of school?” She grimaced, nodded. “I didn’t want to spend six months having people watch me swell up like a balloon. Lance supported me. He said I could take the equivalency test. I did last year. It was easy. And now Ki and I are on our own. Even if my aunt agreed to help me, what could she do? She works in the Castle Rock Gore-Tex factory and makes about sixteen thousand dollars a year.” I nodded again, thinking that my last check for French royalties had been about that. My last quarterly check.
Then I remembered something Ki had told me on the day I met her. “When I was carrying Kyra out of the road, she said that if you were mad, she’d go to her white nana. If your folks are dead, who did she—” Except I didn’t really have to ask; I only had to make one or two simple connections. “Rogette Whitmore’s the white nana? Devore’s assistant? But that means…”
“That Ki’s been with them. Yes, you bet. Until late last month, I allowed her to visit her grandpa—and Rogette by association, of course—quite often. Once or twice a week, and sometimes for an overnight.
“Not very much. I’m sorry.”
“After Mom’s funeral my brother, Hugh, offered to take me back to Rhode Island, but I could tell his wife wasn’t exactly nuts about having a fifteen-year-old join the family, and I can’t say that I blamed her.
Also, I’d just made the jv cheering squad. That seems like supreme diddlyshit now, but it was a very big deal then.” Of course it had been a big deal, especially to the child of alcoholics. The only one still living at home. Being that last child, watching as the disease really digs its claws in, can be one of the world’s loneliest jobs. Last one out of the sacred ginmill please turn off the lights. “I ended up going to live with my aunt Florence, just two miles down the road. It took us about three weeks to discover we didn’t like each other very much, but we made it work for two years. Then, between my junior and senior years, I got a summer job at Warrington’s and met Lance. When he asked me to marry him, Aunt Flo refused to give permission. When I told her I was pregnant, she emancipated me so I didn’t need it.”
“You dropped out of school?” She grimaced, nodded. “I didn’t want to spend six months having people watch me swell up like a balloon. Lance supported me. He said I could take the equivalency test. I did last year. It was easy. And now Ki and I are on our own. Even if my aunt agreed to help me, what could she do? She works in the Castle Rock Gore-Tex factory and makes about sixteen thousand dollars a year.” I nodded again, thinking that my last check for French royalties had been about that. My last quarterly check.
Then I remembered something Ki had told me on the day I met her. “When I was carrying Kyra out of the road, she said that if you were mad, she’d go to her white nana. If your folks are dead, who did she—” Except I didn’t really have to ask; I only had to make one or two simple connections. “Rogette Whitmore’s the white nana? Devore’s assistant? But that means…”
“That Ki’s been with them. Yes, you bet. Until late last month, I allowed her to visit her grandpa—and Rogette by association, of course—quite often. Once or twice a week, and sometimes for an overnight.