"M. Rickert - Anyway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rickert Mary)

"Okay, Dad," I say, loudly, so he can hear me over the sound of drawers being
opened and closed. "I get the point. I'm leaving."

"No, no. The jewels."

Suddenly I am struck by my fear, so sharp I gasp. He's got it too, I think, and he's
going to come out with his socks or underwear and he's going to call them jewels
andтАФ

"Ah, here they are. I honest to God almost thought I lost them."
I sit down on the threadbare couch I have offered to replace a dozen times. He
comes into the living room, grinning like an elf, carrying something. I can't bear to
look.

"What's the matter with you?" he asks and thrusts a shoebox onto my lap.

"Oh my God."

"These are yours now."

I take a deep breath. I can handle this, I think. I've handled a lot already; my
brother's murder, my husband's abandonment, my mother's Alzheimer's. I lift the
lid. The box is filled with stones, green with spots of red on them. I pick one up.
"Dad, where did you get these? Is that blood?"

He sits in the recliner. "They were in the bedroom. They're your responsibility now."

"Are theseтАФ"

"Bloodstone, it's called. At least that's what your mother said, but you know, like I
told you, she was already getting the Alzheimer's back then."

"Bloodstone? Where did sheтАФ"

"I already told you." He looks at me, squinty-eyed, and I almost laugh when I realize
he is trying to decide if I have Alzheimer's now. "She wouldn't stop. She almost
drove me crazy with her nonsense. She kept saying it, all the time, 'Why'd he have
to die anyway?' You get that? 'Anyway,' that's what she said, 'Why'd he have to die
anyway,' like there was a choice or something. Finally one day I just lost it and I
guess I hollered at her real bad and she goes, 'What if you could save the world?
What if all you had to do was sacrifice one life, not your own, but, oh, let's say,
Tony's, and there would be no more war, would you do it?' I reminded her that our
TonyтАФ" His voice cracks. He reaches for the remote control and turns the TV on but
leaves the sound off. "She says, 'I know he's dead anyway, but I mean before he
died, what would you have done?'"

"And I told her, 'The world can go to hell.'" He looks at me, the colors from the TV
screen flickering across his face. "The whole world can just go to hell if I could have
him back for even one more day, one more goddamned hour." For a moment I