"Paul Preuss - Secret Passages" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preuss Paul)

would belong in one place in the world, belong there by choice, instead of drifting or
running or being held prisoner to someone elseтАЩs whims. As soon as the divorce was
final, as soon as Charlie had finally accepted the inevitable and done what was right,
she and Peter would marry. The dream would come true.

But when she came home from her job at the ad agency that day, the
baby-sitter told her about the thick envelope that had arrived in the morning mail.
Before the door closed behind the woman, Anne-Marie had ripped open the
envelope.

Re: Marriage of Phelps.

Dear Anne-Marie; I am pleased to inform you that the court has entered
a judgment of dissolution, effective 1 NovemberтАжBecause the dissolution
was contested, the court has decided a number of issues. While we were not
given everything we asked for, nevertheless ...

Her fierce hope exploded in despair. She had lost; Charlie had won. He had
won the right to carry Jennifer away for weeks at a time, and worse, much worse,
Carlos would go on living with him. Charlie had taken her son. The daughter who
was more PeterтАЩs than his, the son who was not his at all.

For an unknown time her mind was filled with no coherent thought but
instead with a kind of howling light. Then she heard her ten-month-old daughterтАЩs
tiny voiceтАФтАЭMa, MaтАЭтАФ and felt a tug on her skirt and forced herself to bend and
take up the little girl, to flee the beach house, to trudge the sand where the blurred
light resolved itself into waves making their thundering landfall.

The lawyerтАЩs letter lay open on the kitchen table, beside the stiffly folded
judgment. She had not read the letter a sec-ond time, had not read the judgment at
all. Why should she? Without her children, what did the rest matter? She was
through with lawyers and judges and social workers and hearings, through with trips
to California to beg for what was hers, through with postponements and empty
days waiting in motel rooms, through with decisions made without her. What was
left to her was what she had never used but should have begun with, the truth.
CharlieтАЩs money and connections wouldnтАЩt save his pride when he heard what she
had to tell him.

As for her own pride . . . that was only a part of the dream.
 Jenny was tiring of the beach walk; she fretted and struggled in her motherтАЩs
arms until Anne-Marie soothed her тАЬWeтАЩll go back, honey. WeтАЩll go home now.тАЭ She
walked toward cottages standing among palms and ironwoods at the edge of the
sand, and when she was far enough from the surf, she set the girl down. After a few
moments of staggering and falling down and bulldozing the sand, Jenny was glad to
be carried again.

As they came near the houseтАФall angles and raw wood and salt-streaked plate
glass, a modernistic bachelorтАЩs pad too small for the three of them, but in the
months since Anne-Marie had moved in, she and Peter had yet to find better
quartersтАФAnne-Marie saw PeterтАЩs antique Triumph turn into the driveway and pull