"TUROW, SCOTT - THE BURDEN OF PROOF" - читать интересную книгу автора (Turrow Scott)

Between them, they were referred to as moods and allowed to pass. For
years, he prided himself on his discretion.

Driven now, he moved restlessly about the house, holding the items she
had held, examining them as if for clues. In the powder room, he
touched a tortoiseshell comb, a Lilac dish, the dozen cylinders of
lipstick that were lined up like shotgun shells beside the sink. My
God! He squeezed one of the gold tubes in his hands as if it were an
amulet.

On a narrow wig stand in the foyer, three days' mail was piled. Stern
fingered the envelopes, neatly stacked. Bills, bills--they were painful
to behold. These prosaic acts, visiting the cleaner or department
store, humbly bespoke her hopes. On the sixth of March, Clara expected
life to continue. What had intervened?

"Westlab Medical Center." Stern considered the envelope. It was
directed to Clara Stern at their address. Inside, he found an invoice.
The services, identified by a computer code, had been rendered six weeks
ago and were described simply as "Test." Stern was still. Then he moved
directly to the kitchen, already counseling himself to reason, exerting
his will powerfully to contain the.shameful outbreak of grateful
feelings. But he was certain, positive, she had made no mention of
doctors or of tests. Clara recorded her appointments in a leather. book
beside the telephone. Luncheons. The inevitable musical occasions. The
dinner dates and synagogue and bar affairs of their social life. He had

brought the.bill and matched its date against the book.

"9:45 Test." He paged back and forth. On the thirteenth there was
another entry. "3:30 Dr." He searched further. On the twenty-first,
the same. "Dr."

"Test."

"Dr."

Cancer. Was that it? Something advanced. Had she resolved to make her
departure without allowing the family to beg her, for their sake as much
as hers, to undergo the oncologist's life-prolonging tortures? That
would be like Clara. To declare that zone of ultima sovereignty. Her
mark of dignity, decorum, intense belief was here.

Pacing, he had arrived once more in the dining room, and he heard
movement on the second floor, above him. With even an instant's
distraction, he felt suddenly that, for all the blind willingness with
which his heart ran to this solution, he had been caught up in fantasy.
There was some explanation of these medical events more mundane, less
heroic. Somehow he found the suspicion chilling. Last night,