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

usual, more tired, but that was probably just the hangover.

From outside, the chapel looked like all the other buildings at Mars Hill,
faded
gray shingles and white trim. Inside there was one large open room, with
benches
arranged in a circle around the walls, facing in to the plain altar. The altar
was heaped with wilting day lilies and lilacs, an empty bottle of chardonnay
and
a crumpled pack of Kents --Jason's brand -- and a black velvet hair ribbon
that
Moony recognized as her mother's. Beneath the ribbon was an old snapshot,
curled
at the edges. Moony knew the pose from years back. It showed her and Jason and
Ariel and Martin, standing at the edge of the pier with their faces raised
skyward, smiling and waving at Diana behind her camera. Moony made a face when
she saw it and took another swallow of coffee.

"I thought maybe she had AIDS," Moony said at last. "I knew she went to the
Walker Clinic once, I heard her on the phone to Diana about it."

Jason nodded, his mouth set in a tight smile. "So you should be happy she
doesn't. Hip hip hooray." Two years before Jason's father had tested
HIV-positive. Martin's lover, John, had died that spring.

Moony turned so that he couldn't see her face. "She has breast cancer. It's
metastasized. She won't see a doctor. This morning she let me feel it. . ."

Like a gnarled tree branch shoved beneath her mother's flesh, huge and hard
and
lumpy. Ariel thought she'd cry or faint or something but all Moony could do
was
wonder how she had never felt it before. Had she never noticed, or had it just
been that long since she'd hugged her mother?

She started crying, and Jason drew closer to her.

"Hey," he whispered, his thin arm edging around her shoulders. "It's okay,
Moony, don't cry, it's all right --"

How can you say that she felt like screaming, sobs constricting her throat so
she couldn't speak. When she did talk the words came out in anguished grunts.

"They're dying -- how can they -- Jason --"

"Shh --" he murmured. "Don't cry, Moony, don't cry. . ."

Beside her, Jason sighed and fought the urge for another cigarette. He wished
he'd thought about this earlier, come up with something to say that would make
Moony feel better. Something like, Hey! Get used to Everybody dies! He tried