"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Memory Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

It really was my fault.
 Because, Elizabeth screamed, after we came home from the
hospital, gently ejected from the E.R. and then the chapel and then the
lobby after Wendy was pronounced dead, I had taken too many memory
drugs, too much of them, and could no longer pay attention to the simplest
thing.

тАЬMike! You didnтАЩt even know she was out in the street!тАЭ

It was true.

I can see the various angles of ElizabethтАЩs fury-stretched face, her
anger-stunned eyes, her chest heaving as she gasps for breath, hear the
hoarseness of her voice as it devolves into small shreds of sound. Her face
is mottled red, like some pale, mineral-dappled stone, and her straight
blonde hair is pasted onto her cheeks by tears. Her smell is of sweat too,
sharp, one she has never had before. It tastes sour and unpleasant.

This grief is memory, and it is JollyтАЩs memory, for our collie rushed
out the front door after Wendy, tried to keep her from the road, the
neighbor who was also running toward her at the time told us. When we got
back from the hospital, Jolly ran to Elizabeth, emitting hoarse barks, licking
the back of her hand, pawing at her leg, and then jumping up, planting her
paws square on ElizabethтАЩs chest, barking like fury right in her face until
Elizabeth drew Jolly tightly to her and they both collapsed backwards onto a
chair, Elizabeth crying, Jolly licking her face as she was never, never
allowed to do, while I stood dumb and stunned and empty.

The next day, Jolly disappeared. We knew she was looking for
Wendy, trying to find her and bring her back. As Elizabeth made funeral
arrangements I walked the neighborhood, and later that night while
Elizabeth sobbed I called тАЬJolly!тАЭ out the car window, driving slowly down
nearby roads. I put up signs. The next morning, while I was walking into the
dog pound, Elizabeth called my cell phone. тАЬA man just found Jolly in a
ditch next to Bartello Street. Down where it curves.тАЭ Her voice was flat. She
thought JollyтАЩs death was my fault too. She was probably right. I was
supposed to fix the fence. I hadnтАЩt.

I went and lifted Jolly from the ditch. He was stiff. I took him down the
road to our vetтАЩs and asked that he be flash-frozen. They do this all the time
at the vetтАЩs; people donтАЩt always have time to deal with their dead pets
immediately. тАЬStep back,тАЭ he said, as he lifted JollyтАЩs shrink-wrapped body
into the open freezer, but I didnтАЩt and tears froze on my face.

I was not fit to be a person. I wasnтАЩt fit to be alive at all. Not any more.
I shared ElizabethтАЩs opinion in this matter.

****

After everything was done with, after we buried Wendy, after I