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

"I have a few things to look after for later." She was preparing the
household for the crush of callers that would follow the funeral.

"I shall help Aunt Silvia. You four play."

"I'll help Aunt Silvia," said John. He was on his feet already, a huge
young man, a mountainous blond with a neck thick as a tire rim. He had
never mastered the game, like so many other things attached to his
in-laws. The Sterns with their quiet intense ways had mystified John
for most of a decade.

"Come on," Marta called. She was in.the sun room, already looking for
cards. Stern understood his daughter's excitement. For an instant, it
would be as when she was seventeen and the children were all safe from
the world of grownup difficulties. Stern, as ever, found himself chafed
and touched by his Marta and her impulses.

"Katy, I will play with you," Stern announced. He was always a partner
with one of the girls; usually Kate. He and Peter squabbled when they
played together. Stern had spent much of the little time he had at home
playing one game or another with his children. Chutes and Ladders.

Monopoly. Word games when they were in the primary grades.

The four of them spent hours around a game table in the sun room. Clara
seldom participated. Often she would sit in a fifth chair, with hands
and ankles primly crossed, watching or, when necessary, assisting Kate.
But she was not obtrusive. This, for better or worse--rules, moves,
strategies--was Alejandro's time.

Peter made the cards and handed them to Stern to deal. The sun
room--referred to in the old architect's plans, drawn in the twenties,
as 'the solarjura'--was a narrow area, rimmed with windows, floored in
slate. From here they looked directly at Clara's garden. It was the
time of year when she would have begun to turn the soil. The stalks of
last year's gladloll, trimmed neatly almost to the soil, rose in rows,
survivors of the mild winter.

Stern bid a weak club. He played all conventions. Anything but hand
signals, Clara said.

"Are you going back to work after the baby?" Marta asked her sister.

Kate seemed a bit puzzled. Her future, such as it was, was apparently
beyond her. Within, Stern seemed to cringe. This child with a child!
By John, no less. Veyiz mir. Kate told Marta that they did not know
yet how the money would work out or how she would feel about leaving the
baby.