"Tad Williams - The War of the Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Tad)

ludicrous. In fact, he needed to pass the news to Johnny at some point just so the drummer would do that
for him, so that Theo didn't have to watch Kris and the other two pretend like they gave a shit, if they
even bothered.
Who else should he call? How could you lose a baby тАФ his baby, too, he had to keep reminding himself,

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half his, not just Catherine's тАФ and not tell anyone? Had it really come down to this, thirty years old and
nobody in his life who he needed or wanted to talk to about the miscarriage?
Where are my friends? I used to have people around me all the time. But who were they, those people?
It had seemed exciting at the time тАФ the girls who had flocked to his gigs, the guys who had wanted to
manage him тАФ but now he could hardly remember any of them. Friends? No, just people, and people
didn't seem as interested in him these days.
He wound up calling his mother, although he hadn't spoken to her since just after the beginning of
February. It seemed unfair, to wait four weeks or so and then call up to deliver this sort of news, but he
didn't know what else to do.
She answered before the second ring, as usual. It was unnerving, the way she always did that тАФ as
though she was never out of arm's reach of the phone. Surely her life wasn't that empty since Dad had
died? It wasn't like the two of them had been party monsters or anything in the first place.
"Hi, Mom."
"Hello, Theo." Nothing else, no "It's been a long time," or "How are you?"
"I justтАж I've got some bad news, Mom. Catherine lost the baby."
The pause was long even by Anna Vilmos standards. "That's very sad, Theo. I'm sorry to hear it."
"She had a miscarriage. I came home and found her on the bathroom floor. It was pretty awful. Blood
everywhere." He realized he was telling it already like a story, not like something that had really
happened to him. "She's okay, but I think she's pretty depressed."
"What was the cause, Theo? They must know."
They. Mom always talked about the people in power, any kind of power, as if they were a single all-
knowing, all-powerful group. "No, actually they don't. It was just kind ofтАж kind of a spontaneous thing.
They're doing tests, but they don't know yet."
"So sad." And that seemed to be the end of the conversation. Theo tried to recall what he'd thought when
he called, what he had expected, if it had been anything more than a sort of filial duty тАФ look, Mom,
here's what's gone wrong in my life this month.
It would have been a real baby, he thought suddenly. As real as me. As real as you, Mom. It's not just a
"so sad." But he didn't say it.
"Your uncle Harold is going to be in town next month." His father's younger brother was a retail
executive who lived in Southern California. He had taken on himself the role of family patriarch when
Theo's dad died, which meant that he called Theo's mom on Christmas Eve, and once or twice a year
when he flew up to San Francisco on some other business he took her out to dinner at the Sizzler. "He
would like to see you."
"Yeah, well, I'll call you about that, maybe we can set something up." How quickly it had turned into the
kind of interaction they always had, dry, faintly guilt-ridden. Theo wanted to say something different,
wanted to stop the whole thing and ask her what she really felt, no, what he was supposed to feel about
the terrible thing that had happened to him, but it was useless. It was as though they had to force their
words across some medium less rich than normal air, so that only the simplest, most mundane things
could pass from side to side without disappearing into the empty stillness.
A quick and unclinging good-bye from his mother and Theo was alone with himself again. He called the
hospital, wondering if Catherine was by herself and needed company. Laney picked up the phone and