"Nancy Kress - Evolution" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

At home, Sylvia James is sitting in my driveway in her black Algol. As
soon as I see her, I put it together.
"Sylvia," I say tonelessly.
She climbs out of the sportscar and smiles a social smile. "Elizabeth!
How good to see you!" I don't answer. She hasn't seen me in seventeen years.
She's carrying a cheese kuchen, like some sort of key into my house. She's
still blonde, still slim, still well dressed. Her lipstick is bright red,
which is what her face should be.
I let her in anyway, my heart making slow hard thuds in my chest.
_Sean. Sean._
Once inside, her hard smile fades and she has the grace to look
embarrassed. "Elizabeth -- "
"Betty," I say. "I go by Betty now."
"Betty. First off, I want to apologize for not being...for not
standing by you in that mess. I know it was so long ago, but even so, I -- I
wasn't a very good friend." She hesitates. "I was frightened by it all."
I want to say, _You_ were frightened? But I don't.
I never think of the whole dumb story any more. Not even when I look
at Sean. Especially not when I look at Sean.
Seventeen years ago, when Sylvia and I were seniors in high school, we were
best friends. Neither of us had a sister, so we made each other into that,
even though her family wasn't crazy about their precious daughter hanging
around with someone like me. The Goddards live on the other side of the
river. Sylvia ignored them, and I ignored the drunken warnings of my aunt,
the closest thing I had to a family. The differences didn't matter. We were
Sylvia-and-Elizabeth, the two prettiest and boldest girls in the senior class
who had an academic future.
And then, suddenly, I didn't. At Elizabeth's house I met Randolf
Satler, young resident in her father's unit at the hospital. And I got
pregnant, and Randy dumped me, and I refused a paternity test because if he
didn't want me and the baby I had too much pride to force myself on any man.
That's what I told everyone, including myself. I was eighteen years old. I
didn't know what a common story mine was, or what a dreary one. I thought I
was the only one in the whole wide world who had ever felt this bad.
So after Sean was born at Emerton Memorial and Randy got engaged the day I
moved my baby "home" to my dying aunt's, I bought a Smith & Wesson revolver in
the city and shot out the windows of Randy's supposedly empty house across the
river. I hit the gardener, who was helping himself to the Satler liquor
cabinet in the living room. The judge gave me seven-and-a-half to ten, and I
served five, and that only because my lawyer pleaded post-partum depression.
The gardener recovered and retired to Miami, and Dr. Satler went on to become
Chief of Medicine at Emerton Memorial and a lot of other important things in
the city, and Sylvia never visited me once in Bedford Hills Correctional
Facility. Nobody did, except Jack. Who, when Syvia-and-Elizabeth were
strutting their stuff at Emerton High, had already dropped out and was bagging
groceries at the Food Mart. After I got out of Bedford, the only reason the
foster-care people would give me Sean back was because Jack married me.
We live in Emerton, but not of it.
Sylvia puts her kuchen on the kitchen table and sits down without being
asked. I can see she's done with apologizing. She's still smart enough to