"Sheri S. Tepper - The Family Tree" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

"It hurts to say it about my own, but he always has been useless," said Grandma. "Takes after my dad.
Why my mother married that man, I'll never know. Nothing in his head but maybe this, maybe that. Sit
there for half an hour looking at his shoes, wondering which one to put on first! Both my brothers were
just like him. I did my best to compensate, Dora, I swear to God. I picked a man with some gumption to
him, but it seems I carried the strain, like a curse in the blood. Your daddy showed the tendency by the
time he was two. Most kids, they'll holler, they'll reach for things, but not your daddy. Too much trouble.
He always did what was least trouble. I thought he'd never learn to walk; he couldn't decide to stand up.
And school, Lord, he'd do just what he was told and not a bit more. If the teacher said pick a topic for a
paper, he was a goner. The only thing I ever saw him hot and bothered over was your mama, and I guess
it was less trouble for him to marry her than to say no to her mama, and God knows without her
supporting you all these years, you'd all have starved."
She frowned, shaking her head, pinching her lips together.
"You never had any other kids, Grandma?"
"Nope. Not after I saw how your daddy had inherited the diddle gene. Diddle here, diddle there, never
get anything done. The world's got enough fool diddlers. Doesn't need any more."
Grandma was right about Daddy. He was ineffectual. Dora would say we need shoes for Michael, he's
got holes all the way through the sole, we have to have lunch money, school says we have to get
immunizations; and Daddy would say, sure, have to pick those up, have to get some change, have to
plan a visit to the doctor. Then nothing happened. Nobody ever picked up, nobody ever got, nobody ever
remembered the plan. They were always running out of diapers, running out of milk, forgetting to pay
the gas bill. There were always notes coming home from school-this child doesn't do his homework, this
child needs polio vaccine, this child, this childтАж
Daddy and Mama just couldn't get around to doing anything on purpose. The two of them were like,
leaves before the wind, just skittering along from bedtime to bedtime until they wore out or there was
nowhere else to blow.- The diddle gene finally killed Daddy when he went to bed with the gas heater on
even though he knew it didn't work right. Have to see to that, he'd said. Have to see to that, someday,
sometime, when I get around to it.
Which was maybe reason enough right there for Dora to have married Jared. Jared never went anywhere

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...r/Sheri%20S.%20Tepper%20-%20The%20Family%20Tree.htm (9 of 333)23-2-2006 17:57:17
 THE FAMILY TREE - Sheri S Tepper


or did anything without planning it right down to the molecular level. There was something almost
inhumanly rigorous about Jared. With him, you always knew right where you stood.
Grandpa'd been gone about eight years: stroke. Grandma'd died four years ago: heart. Jimbo'd been only
sixteen. Polly was seventeen, ready to start college on a full scholarship. Milly was eighteen, not starting
anything, just moping around. Grandma left the house to the girls, and Dora had kept the household
together for a year, until the last three had gone: Milly to a cult, Polly to college, Jimbo off God-knows-
where.
The other kids were spread all over the map now, and except for Milly and maybe Jimbo, they'd escaped
the worst of the family curse. Michael and Margaret had married, Kathleen had a job in advertising,
Mark and Luke had joined the army. They were going to make a career of it and never get married. So
they said.
Milly had inherited the diddle gene, and a cult was easier than thinking, and drugging was easier yet.
She'd died of a drug overdose, though Dora had told the others it had been meningitis. Polly had
graduated from college the past June with a degree in botany. She'd always been a little soldier, now she
wanted to get a graduate degree.
And the baby, JimboтАжwell, God knows what would become of Jimbo. Every now and then he lit on
Dora's doorstep, like a confused migratory bird, not sure whether he was coming or going. He never