"Smith-SlowboatMan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Adam)

"Beautiful evening isn't it?" he said hoarsely from the bed beside me. His words
yanked me from the past and back to the smell of death and antiseptic in the
small nursing home room. Johnny was smiling up at me lightly, his sunken eyes
still full of the light and the mischief that I had loved so much.

"It is now," I said, stroking him, soothing him.

He started to laugh, but instead coughed and I soothed him with a touch again.

He blinked a few times, focusing on me, staring at me, touching my arm. "You are
as beautiful as I remembered," he said, his voice clearing as he used it,
gaining more and more power. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," I somehow managed to say. I could feel his weak grip on
my arm.

He smiled and then his eyes closed.

I touched his forehead and again he was dozing. I sat on the bed beside him and
thought back to that last time I had sat beside him on our marriage bed, almost
thirty years earlier.

That last night, as with any other night I went out to feed, I had put him to
sleep with a few strokes on the forehead and then stayed with him to make sure
his sleep was deep. But that last night I had also packed a few things, very
few, actually, because I had hoped to take very little of our life together to
remind me of him. It had made no difference. I saw his face, his smile, heard
his laugh and his voice everywhere I went.

I had known for years that the day of leaving was coming. And many times over
the years we were together I thought of telling him about my true nature. But I
could never overcome the fear. I feared that if he knew he would hate me, fight
me, even try to kill me. I feared that he would find a way to expose those of us
like me in the city and around the country. But my biggest fear was that he
would never be able to stand my youth as he aged.

I could not have stood the look of hate and disgust in his eyes.

At least that was what I told myself. As the years passed since I left him I
came to believe that my fear had been a stupid one. But I never overcame that
fear, at least not until now.

I know my leaving to him must have felt sudden and without reason. I know he
spent vast sums of money looking for me. I know he didn't truly understand.

But for me I had no choice. During the month before I left comments about my
youth were suddenly everywhere. Johnny and our friends had aged. I hadn't. I
even caught Johnny staring at me when he thought I wouldn't notice.

Three nights before I left, one waitress asked him, while I was in the ladies