"Robert F. Young - One Love Have I" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

that she'd remarried and had children. She had been meant to have children. She had been too full of love
not to have had them.
 But if she had remarried, then her name wouldn't be Miranda Lorring. It would be Miranda
something else, Miranda Green, perhaps, or Miranda Smith; and perhaps she had moved away from
Cedarville, perhaps he was going home for nothing. No, not for nothing. He'd at least be able to trace her
from Cedarville, trace her to wherever she'd gone to live, find her grave and cover it with
forget-me-notsтАФforget-me-nots had been her favorite flowerтАФand shed a tear on some quiet afternoon,
her kiss of a hundred years ago a warm memory on his lips.
He got up in the gently swaying compartment and stepped over to the water cooler and dialed a
drink. He had to do something, anything at all, to distract his mind. And the dial was so simple, so
child-simple, requiring but the flick of his finger, and no thought, no attention. It could not interrupt the
flow of his thoughts even briefly, and the cool taste of the water only gave the flow impetus, sent it
churning through his mind, wildly, turning his knees weak, sending him staggering back to the seat, his
grief a tight-packed lump swelling upward from his chest to his throat, and the memories, released,
flowing freely now, catching him up and carrying him back to the light days, to the bright glorious days,
back to his finest moment ...

It had been a simple wedding. Miranda had worn blue and Philip had worn his academic dacrons.
The Cedarville justice of the peace had performed the ceremony, being very brusque about it, saying the
words as fast as he could and even holding out his hand for the fee the moment he had finished. But Philip
had not minded. Nothing seemed ugly to him that day, not even the November rain that began to fall
when they left the justice's house, not even the fact that he had been unable to obtain leave of absence
from the university. The wedding took place on Friday night and that gave them Saturday and Sunday;
but two days weren't enough for a trip, and they decided to spend their honeymoon in the little house
Philip had bought on Maple Street.
It was an adorable house, Miranda said for the hundreth time when they paused before it in the rain.
Philip thought so too. It was set well back from the street and there were two catalpa trees in the front
yard, one on either side of the little walk. There was a tiny porch, latticed on each side, and a
twentieth-century paneled door.
He had carried her over the threshold, and set her down in the middle of the living room. All of his
books were there, on built-in shelves on either side of the open fireplace, and Miranda's knickknacks
covered the mantel. The new parlor suite matched the mauve-gray curtains.
She had been shy when he kissed her, and he hadn't known quite what to say. Being alone together
in their own house involved an intimacy for which neither of them had been prepared, despite all the
whispered phrases and stolen kisses, the looks passed in the university corridors, the afternoons shared,
and the autumn evenings walking together along leaf-strewn streets. Finally she had said, "I'll make some
coffee," and had gone into the kitchen. The first thing she had done was to drop the coffee canister, and
there was the coffee, dark against the gleaming floor, and there was Miranda, her blue eyes misted,
lovely in her blue dress, a goddess in the room, his goddess; and then a goddess in his arms, soft-lipped
and pliant, then warm and suddenly tight-pressed against him, her arms about his neck and her dark hair
soft against his face . . .

A village showed in the distance, between wooded hills. It was a deserted village and it had fallen
into ruin, but there were remnants of remembered buildings still standing and Philip recognized it as a little
town not far from Cedarville.
He had very few memories associated with it, so he experienced but little pain. He experienced fear
instead, for he knew that very soon the car would be slowing, that shortly he would be stepping down to
the rotting platform of the Cedarville station. And he knew that he would be seeing another deserted
village, one with many memories, and he was afraid that he couldn't endure the sight of remembered
streets choked with weeds, of beloved houses fallen into decay, of vacant staring windows that long ago