"Carol Emshwiller - At Sixes and Sevens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emshwiller Carol)

if I took him in. I certainly donтАЩt want itтАФnot even for an hour.

тАЬTake it over now. ItтАЩll cry all night and IтАЩm not taking it to bed with us.
Beside, sheтАЩll want the company.тАЭ

****

Next day I go over with fresh hot cornbread and thereтАЩs the pup
snuggled up beside her. Looks like even the cat has accepted him. HeтАЩs
walking back and forth across the back of the couch swinging his tail as if in
charge of everything.

SheтАЩs been up and around. ThereтАЩs some wash hanging on a new
little line over the sink. I wonder if Daniel put that line up. And thereтАЩs that
new dog bowl.

I bring her fresh water and fuss around as if IтАЩm doing something
though it seems Daniel has already done everything thatтАЩs needed. More
than whatтАЩs needed. For HeavenтАЩs sake, he turned down her bed and put a
candy bar on her pillow. For that skinny girl?

I go home feeling really bad. I go into the barn but the cow and goat
are out to pasture now. ThereтАЩs nothing warm to lean against.

Could she have given him some sort of love potion? What could he
see in such a wispy little person who always has her hair falling in front of
her eyes? And she hardly has any breasts at all.

****

I donтАЩt know how I did it, but I do it. I kill that cat. Cats donтАЩt fall. Or if
they do they donтАЩt hurt themselvesтАФnot from just two stories up, which is all
we have around here.

It was hard to do. I danced half the night, not in my yard, but way out in
the back of that old orchard.

Iris comes hobbling all the way over here on her new crutches, the
puppy running circles around her lickety-split. Even from my kitchen window
I can see sheтАЩs crying. Daniel is out in the fields so itтАЩs just me.

I walk out to meet her and get a skirt full of puppy paw prints. If that
dog was mine, first thing IтАЩd teach him is not to jump on people. When he
gets bigger itтАЩs going to be a lot worse.

Right away she says, тАЬWhy does everything happen all at once? I
know they were both old but why right now, one after the other? Everything
is dying.тАЭ

And I know I did it, finally. I feel such a sense of power.