"Gene Wolfe - Endangered Species" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"Okay with me. I don't know if Big Tim is going to like
it."

Something was moving, it seemed, out where the sun had
set. Something darker against the dark horizon.
"What made you Junior anyway? Usually it's the oldest
boy."

"He didn't want it, and would never let Mother do it. But
she wanted to, and I was born during the Democratic con-
vention that year."

"He had to go, of course."

"Yeah, he had to go, Lissy. If you don't understand that,
you don't understand politics at all. They hoped I'd hold off
for a few days, and what the hell, Mother'd had eight with
no problems. Anyway he was used to it-he was the youngest
of seven boys himself. So she got to call me what she wanted."

"But then she died." The words sounded thin and lonely
against the pounding of the surf.

"Not because of that."

Lissy upended the wine bottle; he saw her throat pulse
three times. "Will I die because of that. Little Tim?"

"I don't think so." He tried to think of something gracious
and comforting. "If we decide we want children, that's the
risk I have to take."

"You have to take? Bullshoot."

"That both of us have to take. Do you think it was easy for
Ryan, raising nine kids by himself?"

"You love him, don't you?"

"Sure 1 love him. He's my father."

"And now you think you might he ruining things for him.
For my sake."

"That's not why I want us to be married, Lissy."

She was staring into the flames; he was not certain she had
even heard him. "Well, now I know why his pictures look s6
grim. So gaunt."