"Asaro, Catherine - Echea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asaro Catherine)

husband. He seemed to have cooled toward
Echea immediately. He thought Echea
abnormal because she wasnТt like our
girls. I reminded him that Echea hadnТt
had the advantages, to which he responded
that she had the advantages now. He felt
that since her life had changed, she
should change.

Somehow I didnТt think it worked like
that.

It was on the second night that I realized
she was terrified of going to sleep. She
kept me as long as she could, and when I
finally left, she asked to keep the lights
on.

House said she had them on all night,
although the computer clocked her even
breathing starting at 2:47 a.m.

On the third night, she asked me
questions. Simple ones, like the one about
breakfast, and I answered them without my
previous defensiveness. I held my emotions
back, my shock that a child would have to
ask what that pleasant ache was in her
stomach after meals ("YouТre full, Echea.
ThatТs your stomach telling you itТs
happy.") or why we insisted on bathing at
least once a day ("People stink if they
donТt bathe often, Echea. HavenТt you
noticed?"). She asked the questions with
her eyes averted, and her hands clenched
against the coverlet. She knew that she
should know the answers, she knew better
than to ask my older two daughters or my
husband, and she tried ever so hard to be
sophisticated.

Already, the girls had humiliated her more
than once. The dress incident had
blossomed into an obsession with them, and
they taunted her about her unwillingness
to attach to anything. She wouldnТt even
claim a place at the dining room table.
She seemed convinced that we would toss
her out at the first chance.