"Nixon, Joan Lowery - The Other Side Of Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nixon Joan Lowery)

"You know. All sorts of professional things that nobody can understand."
He stands up, pats my hand, and moves toward the door. "Okay. There must be a medical book around here someplace. I'll look through it and find something that sounds good."
The door plops shut behind him, and the room settles into stillness. I remember in Grandma's house how she'd go through the living room and dining room every evening, pulling down the window shades against the dusk, one by one shutting out the night, shielding the house, enclosing it in a white-fringed safety. My mind is doing the same thing. I know that thoughts should be racing through my mind, tumbling over each other. I should be rolling in memories, wading through pain to all the new things I've seen and heard. But bit by bit my mind is shutting itself in, shielding itself from everything but one thought: Who was the person I saw on our back stairs?
It's his turn to die.


Chapter Three
A reporter comes to my room.
But Donna arrived first with a suitcase filled with blouses and jeans and underwear and a pair of brown sandals, so I'm sitting in a chair, dressed in jeans that are too loose and short and a T-shirt that's definitely too snug and sandals that actually fit.
"I had to guess on sizes," Donna said as she tugged at the belt that keeps the jeans from falling around my hips. "I didn't realize that you'd grown so tall and that you're so slender. I guess I keep thinking of you the way you were when you were thirteen."
"That makes two of us," I answered. I wish Donna hadn't helped me get dressed. I felt the same way I did last yearЧno, the year I was twelveЧand took swimming lessons and all the girls had to change clothes together in the dressing room. Some of them were starting to grow breasts, and I'd sneak little looks while I was trying to keep my own chest covered, feeling miserable, hoping no one was looking at me.
I know, Donna's my sister. But in a way she isn't my sister. She's a grown woman, with a baby growing inside her, and it makes her so different I really don't know her at all.
There's a quick knock at the door, and it opens before either Donna or I can answer. A woman steps in and takes in Donna and me and everything around us with a glance that sweeps the room like a vacuum cleaner.
Seemingly satisfied, she looks directly at me. "Hi!" she says, and her grin is broad and full of teeth. She's skinny, with frizzy blond hair that sticks out in every direction. Loose strands straggle over her eyes and fly away from her forehead. Straps for her handbag and camera case are tangled on her left shoulder.
For a moment Donna and I just stare at her, so she quickly adds, "Didn't they tell you I was coming? I'm Brandi Mayer, a reporter from the Houston Evening News." She peers at me. "You're Stacy McAdams?"
I watch a strand of hair flop across her glasses. They're huge and round and too big for her. She pushes her glasses up on her nose but doesn't seem to notice the hair in her eyes. "Yes. I'm Stacy," I answer.
Donna steps slightly in front of me, taking charge. "I'm Stacy's sister, Donna Kroskey. Maybe I'd better call the clinic's supervisor. No one here told us a reporter was coming. I really don't know if you should be here or not."
Brandi pushes up her glasses again and perches on the edge of my bed, since I'm in the only chair. "Communication foul-ups," she says. "Happens all the time. Drives me absolutely batty." She pulls a tiny tape recorder out of her handbag. The strand of hair drifts back over her forehead. "You mind if I tape this?" she asks.
"Tape what?"
Brandi says, "If you don't know, I'd better fill you in. I'm doing a story for the News about Stacy. My editor is real soft on human-interest stuff, and he thinks that what happened to Stacy, coming out of a coma and all that, ought to make a good feature story."
"But how did he know about Stacy?" Donna asks.
"Easy," Brandi says. "Medical news is a regular beat. We check the hospitals and clinics all the time, and we have people who call us about things they think might make stories." She smiles at me. "Okay. Now that you know what I'm doing here, do you want to talk?"
Donna answers. "Not yet. I'm going to call the supervisor's office and make sure this is all right. But first, we're going to ask Stacy if she wants this interview."
I shrug. "I don't care." A puff of hair drifts over Brandi's glasses again. She probably doesn't know what a mess her hair is. It looks as if she were caught in the rain and then in the wind. So I say, "Look, before you ask me any questions, do you want to comb your hair? You can use my bathroom mirror."
"Stacy," Donna mumbles. She looks embarrassed.
Brandi just gets up, goes into the bathroom, and comes right back. "Looks the way it's supposed to look," she says. "I worked hard to get it like this."
"I can't get mine to do that," Donna says. "I think it's the wrong length."
"You're kidding," I tell them. "You mean it's supposed to look messy?"
"Stacy! You're being rude."
But Brandi grins. "It's the latest thing, kid. But you wouldn't know that. You're still into what was going on four years ago. That's great! Real reader-interest stuff. How do you feel about the new cars and new movies andЧ"
"Wait!" Donna says, so while Donna telephones we sit and stare at each other. Brand! impatiently fiddles with her tape recorder.
Donna hangs up the receiver and says, "The woman in the supervisor's office says it's all right, but maybe I should try to get in touch with Dad and see what he thinks."
"Could I just take a couple of pictures and get some basic answers from Stacy while you're doing that?" Brand! looks at her watch. "I've got another appointment in less than an hour, and it's over near the Loop."
"It's all right with me," I tell them, so while Donna makes the call Brand! quickly aims her camera at me and snaps a few pictures. Then she tucks away the camera, turns on her tape recorder, wiggles into a shoulders-back alertness, and says, "Stacy McAdamsЧand that's spelled M-C and not M-A-C. Right?"
"Dad's not in his office right now," Donna says. She comes to stand beside me and rests a hand on my shoulder.
"If I ask anything you object to, just stop me," Brand! says. And without waiting for Donna to answer, she asks me, "What did it feel like, Stacy, coming back to the real world after four years asleep?"
The question throws me. "IЧI don't exactly know yet. There's a lot to get used to."
"New songs, new fashions, new television shows," Brandi says. "Sleeping Beauty, coming back to the world. Hmmm. That's good."
"No. That's wrong. Sleeping Beauty slept for a hundred years, and everyone else slept with her. Everything would be the same when she woke up."
"Details, details. Doesn't matter," Brandi says. "What did you remember when you woke up?"
I close my eyes for a moment, thinking, trying so hard to think. I can see our screen door flying open. I can see the guy with the gun running out and pausing as he sees me standing there. And I can see him raise the gun, pointing it at me. But I can't see his face!
"She's getting tired." Donna breaks in.
"No. I'm trying to see his face, and I can't!"
"Whose face?" Brandi asks.
"The guy who shot Mom. He ran out our back door. The screen door slammed open. I was standing there. We looked at each other, and he raised the gun. He shot me. I know him. I know his name. I think that's why he shot me."
Brandi leans toward me eagerly. "You're an eye-witness! You saw your mother's murderer!"
"Yes."
"So tell me about him."
"I can't remember his face."
"But you said that you know him."