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

I drive to the factory and make them page Jack.
He comes off the line, face creased with sweat and dirt. The air is
filled with clanging machinery and grinding drills. I pull him outside the
door, where there are benches and picnic tables for workers on break. "Betty!
What is it?"
"Sean," I gasp. "He's in danger."
Something shifts behind Jack's eyes. "What kind of danger?"
"Sylvia Goddard came to see me today. Sylvia James. She says Sean is
involved with the group that blew up the bridge, the ones who are trying to
get Emerton Memorial closed, and...and killed Dr. Bennett."
 Jack peels off his bench gloves, taking his time. Finally he looks up
at me. "How come that bitch Sylvia Goddard comes to you with this? After all
this time?"
"Jack! Is that all you can think of? Sean is in trouble!"
He says gently, "Well, Bets, it was bound to happen sooner or later,
wasn't it? He's always been a tough kid to raise. Rebellious. Can't tell
him anything."
I stare at Jack.
"Some people just have to learn the hard way."
"Jack...this is serious! Sean might be involved in terrorism! He
could end up in jail!"
"Couldn't ever tell him anything," Jack says, and I hear the hidden
satisfaction in his voice, that he doesn't even know is there. Not his son.
Dr. Randy Satler's son. Turning out bad.
"Look," Jack says, "when the shift ends I'll go look for him, Bets.
Bring him home. You go and wait there for us." His face is gentle, soothing.
He really will find Sean, if it's possible. But only because he loves me.
My sudden surge of hatred is so strong I can't even speak.
"Go on home, Bets. It'll be all right. Sean just needs to have the
nonsense kicked out of him."
I turn and walk away. At the turning in the parking lot, I see Jack
walking jauntily back inside, pulling on his gloves.
I drive home, because I can't think what else to do. I sit on the
couch and reach back in my mind, for that other place, the place I haven't
gone to since I got out of Bedford. The gray granite place that turns you to
granite, too, so you can sit and wait for hours, for weeks, for years, without
feeling very much. I go into that place, and I become the Elizabeth I was
then, when Sean was in foster care someplace and I didn't know who had him or
what they might be doing to him or how I would get him back. I go into the
gray granite place to become stone.
And it doesn't work.
It's been too long. I've had Sean too long. Jack has made me feel too
safe. I can't find the stony place.
Jackie is spending the night at a friend's. I sit in the dark, no
lights on, car in the garage. Sean doesn't come home, and neither does Jack.
At two in the morning, a lot of people in dark clothing cross the back lawn
and quietly enter Dan and Ceci's house next door, carrying bulky
packages wrapped in black cloth.
****
Jack staggers in at six-thirty in the morning. Alone. His face droops with