JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 229 из 425“She used to show me her photos, and more herb samples than I honestly cared to see, but she never showed me anything she was writing. In fact, I remember her once saying that she’d decided to leave the writing to you and just—”
“—take a little taste of everything else, right?”
“Yes.”
I thought this was a good place to end the conversation, but the guys in the basement seemed to have other ideas. “Was she seeing anyone, Bonnie?”
Silence from the other end. With a hand that seemed at least four miles down my arm, I plucked the fax sheets out of the basket. Ten of them—November of 1993 to August of 1994. Jottings everywhere in Jo’s neat hand. Had we even had a fax before she died? I couldn’t remember.
There was so fucking much I couldn’t remember.
“Bonnie? If you know something, please tell me. Jo’s dead, but I’m not.
I can forgive her if I have to, but I can’t forgive what I don’t underst—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and gave a nervous little laugh. “It’s just that I didn’t understand at first. “Seeing anyone,’ that was just so… so foreign to Jo… the Jo I knew… that I couldn’t figure out what you were talking about. I thought maybe you meant a shrink, but you didn’t, did you? You meant seeing someone like seeing a guy. A boyfriend.”
“That’s what I meant.” Thumbing through the faxed calendar sheets now, my hand not quite back to its proper distance from my eyes but getting there, getting there. I felt relief at the honest bewilderment in Bonnie’s voice, but not as much as I’d expected. Because I’d known. I hadn’t even needed the woman in the old Perry Mason episode to put in her two cents, not really. It was Jo we were talking about, after all.
J0.
“Mike,” Bonnie was saying, very softly, as if I might be crazy, “she loved you. She loved you. ’i “Yes. I suppose she did.” The calendar pages showed how busy my wife had been. How productive. S-Ks of Maine. . the soup kitchens. Womshel, a county-to-county network of shelters for battered women. Teenshel.
Friends of Me. Libes. She had been at two or three meetings a month-two or three a week at some points — and I’d barely noticed. I had been too busy with my women in jeopardy. “I loved her too, Bonnie, but she was up to something in the last ten months of her life. She didn’t give you any hint of what it might have been when you were riding to meet ings of the Soup Kitchens board or the Friends of Maine Libraries?” Silence from the other end.
“—take a little taste of everything else, right?”
“Yes.”
I thought this was a good place to end the conversation, but the guys in the basement seemed to have other ideas. “Was she seeing anyone, Bonnie?”
Silence from the other end. With a hand that seemed at least four miles down my arm, I plucked the fax sheets out of the basket. Ten of them—November of 1993 to August of 1994. Jottings everywhere in Jo’s neat hand. Had we even had a fax before she died? I couldn’t remember.
There was so fucking much I couldn’t remember.
“Bonnie? If you know something, please tell me. Jo’s dead, but I’m not.
I can forgive her if I have to, but I can’t forgive what I don’t underst—”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and gave a nervous little laugh. “It’s just that I didn’t understand at first. “Seeing anyone,’ that was just so… so foreign to Jo… the Jo I knew… that I couldn’t figure out what you were talking about. I thought maybe you meant a shrink, but you didn’t, did you? You meant seeing someone like seeing a guy. A boyfriend.”
“That’s what I meant.” Thumbing through the faxed calendar sheets now, my hand not quite back to its proper distance from my eyes but getting there, getting there. I felt relief at the honest bewilderment in Bonnie’s voice, but not as much as I’d expected. Because I’d known. I hadn’t even needed the woman in the old Perry Mason episode to put in her two cents, not really. It was Jo we were talking about, after all.
J0.
“Mike,” Bonnie was saying, very softly, as if I might be crazy, “she loved you. She loved you. ’i “Yes. I suppose she did.” The calendar pages showed how busy my wife had been. How productive. S-Ks of Maine. . the soup kitchens. Womshel, a county-to-county network of shelters for battered women. Teenshel.
Friends of Me. Libes. She had been at two or three meetings a month-two or three a week at some points — and I’d barely noticed. I had been too busy with my women in jeopardy. “I loved her too, Bonnie, but she was up to something in the last ten months of her life. She didn’t give you any hint of what it might have been when you were riding to meet ings of the Soup Kitchens board or the Friends of Maine Libraries?” Silence from the other end.