"Zenna Henderson - No different flesh" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

amidships again."
"Mark." The tone of Meris's voice caught his attention.
"Mark, my baby-our baby-is dead." She held out the statement to him as if
offering a gift-her first controlled reference to what had happened.
"Yes," said Mark, "our baby is dead." He accepted the gift.
"We waited for her so long," said Meris softly, "and had her for so short a
time."
"But long enough that you are a mother and I am a father," said Mark. "We
still have that."
"Now that I can finally talk about her," said Meris, "I won't have to talk
about her any more. I can let her be gone now. Oh, Mark!" Meris held his hand
to her cheek. "Having you to anchor me is all that's kept me from-"
"I'm set in my ways," smiled Mark. "But of late you've been lifting such a
weight off me that I don't think I could anchor a butterfly now!"
"Love you, Mark!"
"Love you, Meris!" Mark hugged her tightly a moment and then let her go.
"Back to work again. No flexibility left in the deadline any more. It has to
be done on time this time or-"
Lightning splashed brightness against the wall. Meris moved back to the
window again, the floorboards under her feet vibrating to the thunder. "Here
it comes again!" But Mark was busy, his scurrying fingers trying to catch up
with the hours and days and months lost to Meris's grief and wild mourning.
Meris cupped her hands around her temples and leaned her forehead to the
windowpane. The storm was truly back again, whipping the brush and trees in a
fury that ripped off leaves and small branches. A couple of raindrops cracked
with the force of hail against the glass. Lightning and a huge explosion
arrived at the same moment, jarring the whole cabin.
"Hit something close?" asked Mark with no pause in the staccato of his
typing.
"Close," said Meris. "The big pine by the gate. I saw the bark fly."
"Hope it didn't kill it," said Mark. "We lost those two in back like that
last summer, you know."
Meris tried to see the tree through the darkness, but the lightning had
withdrawn for the moment.
"What was that?" she cried, puzzled.
"What?" asked Mark.
"I heard something fall," she said. "Through the trees."
"Probably the top of our pine," said Mark. "I guess the lightning made more
than bark fly. Well, there goes another of our trees,"
"That's the one the jays liked particularly, too," said Meris.
Rain drenched again in a vertical obscurity down the glass and the flashes of
lightning flushed heavily through the watery waver.
Later the lights came on and Meris, blinking against the brightness, went to
bed, drawing the curtain across the bunk corner, leaving Mark at work at his
desk. She lay awake briefly, hearing the drum of the rain and the mutter of
the thunder, hardly noticing the clatter of the typewriter. She touched
cautiously with her thoughts the aching emptiness where the intolerable burden
of her unresolved grief had been. Almost, she felt without
purpose-aimless-since that painful focusing of her whole life was going. She
sighed into her pillow. New purpose and new aim would come-would have to