"Goonan, Kathleen Ann - The String" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

The String
by
Kathleen Ann Goonan

Dan tried to ignore the sadness that pervaded him whenever he and Jessica did
something fun together. He smiled at her and her smile told him, "Don't worry,
Dad, it's all right."
She was much more grown up than him. But that's what a fatal illness often did
to a child, the doctors had told him.
Cincinatti was always cool in spring, and often overcast. Dan squinted at the
sky as he unrolled the brilliant dragon kite Jessica had picked out and snared
its breast with a string.
"Come on, Dad," she said, hopping from one foot to another. "What's taking you
so long?"
"I'm kind of concerned about those trees," he said. Huge oaks surrounded the
ballfield across the street from their house, but it was the clearest place
around. The gusting wind held the sweet tang of rejuvination. How many springs
would his daughter see? He had to try to knot the string twice; his hand
trembled the first time and he missed poking it through.
Jessica was short for her age, eight, and she wheezed a lot. Dan knew she would
be dead in a few years but tried not to think about it too much. He wouldn't
live forever either. Anita was bitter about their daughter having cystic
fibrosis, and seemed to want to blame it all on Dan, even though she knew that
it took recessive genes from both parents.
Jessica lifted the kite, and its fanciful wings filled with wind. "It's
gorgeous," she said. "Purple, red, and yellow."
He smiled at her, and she grinned back, her pale brown hair flying out from the
hat pulled over her ears, her green eyes full of knowledge no child should have
to bear, learned as she lay gasping for breath in an endless stream of anonymous
hospital beds, stuck full of needles which dripped experimental drugs which
never worked into her veins, which were getting harder and harder to find.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked.
He watched the string run through her hands as the wind took the kite. She
played it out until the dragon floated high and small, then began to play with
it, making it swoop, its long tail swirling like invisible writing on the gray
sky.
Then she shrieked as a strong gust pulled the end of the string, which Dan had
wrapped around a stick, from her hand. The dragon hung suspended for a moment,
then zigzagged and plummeted into an oak tree.
"Oh no," said Jessica, looking stunned.
"It's okay," he said. He climbed the tree, cut the string with his penknife,
pulled it the kite from the branches, and tossed it down to the ground. It was a
little ripped up, but he thought he could fix it.
When he was almost down, he saw the tangled string, stuck in a lower branch. He
reached over, worked it loose, and stuck it in his pocket. Then, holding hands,
he and Jessica walked back to the old house he'd lived in since he was a child.
#

Later that night, when he finished putting the dishes away and Jessica was in
bed, he remembered the string, and got it out of his pocket. Anita, on one side