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

room, what his daughter, meaning me, wanted for desert. He had laughed about it,
but I could tell he didn't understand and was bothered. As he should have been.

The night I left, I found a book about vampires hidden in a pile of magazines
from his office. A well-read book.

I could wait no longer and I knew then that I could never talk to him about it.
I had to go that night and I did so, leaving only a note to him that said I
would always love him.

I moved quickly, silently, in an untraceable fashion, to the East Coast. But
less than a year later, no longer able to even fight the fight of keeping him
out of my mind, I returned to San Francisco under a new name and began to watch
him from afar.

As with me, he never remarried. Many nights he would walk the streets of the
city alone, just smiling, almost content. I paced him, watching him, protecting
him from others of my kind and from the mortal criminals. I imagined that he
knew I was watching him. Pacing him. Walking with him. Protecting him. I
pretended that knowing I was there made him happy. Many nights I even thought of
actually showing myself to him, of holding him again.

But I never did.

I never had the courage.

He stirred under the nursing home sheet and I watched him as he awoke. He opened
his eyes, saw me, and then smiled. "Good. I was hoping you were more than a
dream."

"No, Slowboat Man, you aren't dreaming."

He laughed and gripped my hand and I could feel the warmth flowing between us. I
leaned down and kissed him on the cheek, his rough skin warm against my face. As
I pulled back I could see a single tear in the corner of his right eye. But in
both eyes the look was love. I was amazed.

And very glad.

I had feared he would hate me after I had left him without warning. I had feared
that when I came to visit tonight he would ask the questions about my youth and
how I had stayed so young, questions that I had always been so afraid to answer.
I had feared most of all that he would send me away.

But he didn't. And the relief flooded through my every cell. Even after almost
thirty years he still loved me. I wanted to shout it to the entire world. But
instead I just sat there grinning at him.

In the hundreds of years that I had been alive I had n ever felt or seen a love
so complete and total as his love for me.