"Elizabeth Hand - Last Summer on Mars Hill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hand Elizabeth)

Moony ducked back from the window as her mother turned to stare up at the
cottage. She waited until Ariel looked away again, as Martin and Jason
beckoned
her toward the gazebo.

"Okay," Moony whispered. She took a step across the room and stopped. An
overwhelming smell of cigarette smoke suddenly filled the air, though there
was
no smoke to be seen. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face.

"Damn it, Jason," she hissed beneath her breath. The smell was gone as
abruptly
as it had appeared. "I'll be right there --"

She slipped through the narrow hallway with its old silver-touched mirrors and
faded Maxfield Parrish prints, and went into Ariel's room. It still had its
beginning-of-summer smell, mothballs and the salt sweetness of rugosa roses
blooming at the beach's edge. The old chenille bedspread was rumpled where
Ariel
had lain upon it, exhausted by the flight from LaGuardia to Boston, from
Boston
via puddle jumper to the tiny airport at Green Turtle Reach. Moony pressed her
hand upon the spread and closed her eyes. She tried to focus as Jason had
taught
her, tried to dredge up the image of her mother stretched upon the bed. And
suddenly there it was, a faint sharp stab of pain in her left breast, like a
stitch in her side from running. She opened her eyes quickly, fighting the
dizziness and panicky feeling. Then she went to the bureau.

At home she had never been able to find the envelope. It was always hidden
away,
just as the mail was always carefully sorted, the messages on the answering
machine erased before she could get to them. But now it was as if Ariel had
finally given up on hiding. The envelope was in the middle drawer, a worn
cotton
camisole draped halfheartedly across it. Moony took it carefully from the
drawer
and went to the bed, sat and slowly fanned the papers out.

They were hospital bills. Hospital bills and Blue Cross forms, cash register
receipts for vitamins from the Waverly Drugstore with Ariel's crabbed script
across the top. The bills were for tests only, tests and consultation.'s.
Nothing for treatments; no receipts for medication other than vitamins. At the
bottom of the envelope, rolled into a blue cylinder and tightened with a
rubber
band, she found the test results. Stray words floated in the air in front of
her
as Moony drew in a long shuddering breath.

Mammography results. Sectional biopsy. Fourth stage malignancy. Metastasized.