"Rosenblum-CaliforniaDreamer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenbaum Benjamin)

I'll get you some water, or would you rather have some orange juice?"

"March?" the woman whispered brokenly. "It can't be. Why can't I remember!"

In the kitchen, Ellen spooned orange crystals into a glass from a white can,
trying to recall the effects of a prolonged high fever. Seizures, she
remembered, but Laura hadn't gone into convulsions. Amnesia? Ellen shook her
head, stirred the fake juice to orange froth. She carried the glass back to the
bedroom and found Beth already there, her arms around her mother.

"Mom, it's me," Beth was saying in a broken voice.

"It's . . . coming back." Laura stroked her daughter's back. "Beth. Honey, it'll
be all right."

There was a tentative quality to the gesture and a frightened expression in her
eyes. "Here's your juice," Ellen said, holding out the glass. "How are you
doing?"

Beth almost snatched the glass from Ellen's hand. "I told you she'd get well,"
she said.

Voyeur, outsider, Ellen watched Beth help her mother drink. Side by side, they
looked even less alike. There was a protective possessiveness to Beth's posture;
a confidence that was lacking in Laura. Beth might be the mother; Laura the
fragile child.

"Thank you." The woman sank back on the pillows, trying for a smile. "Thank you
for taking us in. We must be a horrible burden."

"Not at all." Ellen collected the empty glass. "I'm just glad you're better."

Laura stroked her daughter's hair. "Beth said I was in our apartment when it
happened. I'm . . . starting to remember." She spoke hesitantly, like an actor
groping for half-learned lines. "What about . . . Joseph? Oh . . . God, Joseph!"

"What's wrong? Who's Joseph, Mom?" Beth stroked a strand of hair back from her
mother's face. "Someone at the office?"

"No. I . . . don't know. I don't know a Joseph, do I? It was a . . . dream, I
guess. From the fever." She squeezed Beth's hand, her fingers trembling.

"You'll sort it out." Ellen touched Laura's shoulder, moved by the anguish in
her face. "I've got to run into town." She had almost forgotten the helicopter.
"I'll be back in an hour. There's more water in the jugs beside the kitchen
counter."

Laura nodded weakly, but her eyes never left her daughter's face. She is afraid,
Ellen thought.