JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 157 из 425“The linoleum keeps bubbling up in the kitchen, the showerhead keeps falling into the tub, and the whole damn rig cants to the east these days, but I could have been the six-million-dollar woman.” Did you ever consider taking the ofr, Mattie? I wondered. . but that was a question I’d never ask, a sign of curiosity so unseemly it deserved no satisfaction.
“Did you tell Lance?”
“I tried not to. He was already furious with his father, and I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want that much hate at the start of our marriage, no matter how good the reasons for hating might be… and I didn’t want Lance to… later on with me, you know…”
She raised her hands, then dropped them back on her thighs. The gesture was both weary and oddly endearing. “You didn’t want Lance turning on you ten years later and saying “You came between me and my father, you bitch.’”
“Something like that. But in the end, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I was just this kid from the sticks, didn’t own a pair of pantyhose until I was eleven, wore my hair in nothing but braids or a ponytail until I was thirteen, thought the whole state of New York was New York City… and this guy… thisphantomfather… had offered me six million bucks. It terrified me. I had dreams about him coming in the night like a troll and stealing my baby out of her crib. He’d come wriggling through the window like a snake…”
“Dragging his oxygen tank behind him, no doubt.” She smiled. “I didn’t know about the oxygen then.
Or Rogette Whit-more, either. All I’m trying to say is that I was only seventeen and not good at keeping secrets.” I had to restrain my own smile at the way she said this—as if decades of experience now lay between that naive, frightened child and this mature woman with the mail-order diploma.
“Lance was angry.”
“So angry he replied to his father by e-mail instead of calling. He stuttered, you see, and the more upset he was, the worse his stutter became. A phone conversation would have been impossible.”
Now, at last, I thought I had a clear picture. Lance Devore had written his father an unthinkable letter—unthinkable, that was, if you happened to be Max Devore. The letter said that Lance didn’t want to hear from his father again, and Mattie didn’t, either. He wouldn’t be welcome in their home (the Modair trailer wasn’t quite the humble woodcutter’s cottage of a Brothers Grimm tale, but it was close enough for kissing).
“Did you tell Lance?”
“I tried not to. He was already furious with his father, and I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want that much hate at the start of our marriage, no matter how good the reasons for hating might be… and I didn’t want Lance to… later on with me, you know…”
She raised her hands, then dropped them back on her thighs. The gesture was both weary and oddly endearing. “You didn’t want Lance turning on you ten years later and saying “You came between me and my father, you bitch.’”
“Something like that. But in the end, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I was just this kid from the sticks, didn’t own a pair of pantyhose until I was eleven, wore my hair in nothing but braids or a ponytail until I was thirteen, thought the whole state of New York was New York City… and this guy… thisphantomfather… had offered me six million bucks. It terrified me. I had dreams about him coming in the night like a troll and stealing my baby out of her crib. He’d come wriggling through the window like a snake…”
“Dragging his oxygen tank behind him, no doubt.” She smiled. “I didn’t know about the oxygen then.
Or Rogette Whit-more, either. All I’m trying to say is that I was only seventeen and not good at keeping secrets.” I had to restrain my own smile at the way she said this—as if decades of experience now lay between that naive, frightened child and this mature woman with the mail-order diploma.
“Lance was angry.”
“So angry he replied to his father by e-mail instead of calling. He stuttered, you see, and the more upset he was, the worse his stutter became. A phone conversation would have been impossible.”
Now, at last, I thought I had a clear picture. Lance Devore had written his father an unthinkable letter—unthinkable, that was, if you happened to be Max Devore. The letter said that Lance didn’t want to hear from his father again, and Mattie didn’t, either. He wouldn’t be welcome in their home (the Modair trailer wasn’t quite the humble woodcutter’s cottage of a Brothers Grimm tale, but it was close enough for kissing).