"Michelle West - Under The Skin" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

this week."
"No."
"Janie, I haven't seen you in almost six months."
"School's been keeping me busy."
"Which is why you're failing."
Mom told you that?
"My grades are none of your business," she said, biting back words, holding them
in.
"You're still my daughter, Janie. Your grades are very much my business.
Especially if you aren't listening to your mother." He fought the words back too, his
temper and hers were not so different when they were angry. But he was older, better
at it. "Janie, we'd really like to see you. I'd really like to see you."
She was angry at them both, and her anger was sudden, like the storm had been;
the words in her throat were a rumble, and then a roar. "Dad, you just don't get it do
you?" He didn't have the chance to reply. "I don't come to dinner because I can't
stand the sight of Pat, or you for that matter."
"Janie, don't you-"
"Don't you tell me what to do! You lost that right when you lied to us, cheated on
us, and took off on us!"
"If your mother-"
"My mother doesn't have anything to do with this! Do you think I'm too stupid to
figure it out on my own? Where do you get off telling me I'm selfish or I'm spoiled?
I didn't promise to love and honor Mom until death do us part, you did!"
Silence, then. Her hands were shaking as she pressed the receiver to her ear, to her
lips. She was waiting for his anger to flood back along the wires that bound them
together in this conversation.
But that wasn't what he offered her, smug bastard. He never gave her what she
needed. "Janie, try to understand. Life with your mother wasn't ever very easy."
"And living with you was better?"
"No, probably not for her." His words were so calm and so measured; she hated
them.
"Is that you speaking, Dad, or is that the fancy therapist you're seeing?"
Silence was better than patience, and he was silent for another thirty seconds. She
counted them. Then, "When you fall in love for the first time, you'll understand it
better. You've never been in love, Janie."
"You mean I've never been in lust," she snapped back. "And you're wrong. But at
least I knew it for what it was."
"That's enough, Janie. You've never been with anyone that's as good for you, as
good to you, as Pat is to me."
"Is she? Is she really that good?"
She heard an intake of breath so sharp it made her smile. But then he said, "I'm
sorry that we can't talk right now. I never meant to hurt either of you. I didn't do this
to hurt you, and I hope one day you'll understand that. But I deserved that chance to
be happy, and I won't listen to you cut down my wife."
He hung up before she could.
What about us, you bastard? What about our happiness?
She was strong, was Jane Thornton; she didn't even start to cry.
There was a resonance about anger and grief that had its own feel, stripped of
words and expression and humanity. In the valley she had chosen for her awakening,
she stirred, stood, lifted her chin. Testing something that was not just air, but the