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

Maybe he'd put it in a drawer instead. Panicking, he pulled open drawer after
drawer, rummaged through them, and then opened the lower cupboards, completely
out of his head, and started throwing the pans that were left out onto the
kitchen floor.
Anita appeared in the doorway, hair tousled from sleep. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? My string is gone, that's what's wrong."
Anita was silent. Dan stared at her.
"You didn't."
"I did. I hate that string, Dan. If you hadn't sat there like a zombie with it
for the past six months, we might not have ended up like this."
Dan knew that was true, but not for the reasons she thought. He switched on the
porch light and ran outside.
Luckily, the trash hadn't been collected yet, but the pile was horrendous, full
of the debris they'd discarded in their massive housecleaning.
It was two in the morning when he finally found it, sodden with grease in a bag
of rancid garbage.
"Thank God," he whispered.
He reverently took it into the house and filled the sink with soap and a little
bleach. He let it sit for a few minutes, careful to disturb it as little as
possible, and then carefully squished water through it and pressed it between a
towel.
He looked up, and Jessica was standing in the kitchen doorway again.
"You're getting to be quite a nightowl," he said.
"The medicine keeps me awake, I think," she said, watching him with wide eyes.
"What happened to the string?"
"Oh," he said. "I accidentally threw it out."
She was quiet for a moment. He suspected she knew the truth.
"I'm glad you found it," she said finally. "I think the string is very
important."
Then she walked across the room and hugged him.
As she stood there, pressed against him, he held her small shoulders with one
arm, switched off the light with the other hand, and looked out the window at
the night.
It was clear and cold, and stars shimmered through the bare tree branches which
laced together in front of the glass.
He thought that all the space which surrounded them at this moment, stretching
out galaxy beyond galaxy, was nothing compared to the infinity of light, the
immense, glowing, and tangled grandeur, within the two of them.

The End

Copyright й 1995 Kathleen Ann Goonan All Rights Reserved.