Dead Lines: A Novel of Life . . . After Death by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear [Bear, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Psychological, Horror fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, California, Technological, Ghost stories, Cellular telephones, Future life, Social control, Cell phones
ISBN: 9780345448385
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2005-06-28T20:39:56.818000+00:00

Im here, sweetie, he called, walking down the hall, pushing the door open, and stepping softly into the girls bedroom. She had chosen the right-hand bed, where she lay with her face poking out from under the covers, a small moon in the blackness above a pale smear of gray that was the coverlet, a band of lighter gray that was the counterpane, straight and tidy. Two thin arms lay folded on the counterpane. She looked smaller and younger, lying in the bed in the dark, and she sounded younger, too, perhaps afraid of the dark, waiting for him to come home.

That would give him some leverage with Helen, leaving their daughter alone in the house with the front door unlocked. Was any date hot enough to be worth taking that kind of risk?

And then she would come back at him for his not being there in the first place, when she needed him, betraying her once again . . .

Peter stowed all that and knelt beside his daughter.

Where have you been? she asked.

Stuck in traffic, he said, smoothing back the dark hair above her forehead. Her skin was soft and cool. It was a monstrous big beast that grabbed me. Nothing else could have kept me away.

Traffic, she echoed in just his tone of voice. A beast. She rolled to one side, facing him. He wished he could see her more clearly, but just touching her sent a thrill up his arm and into his body. It was the babies that mattered, the sex that made them was nothingit was the babies that made one feel so excellent and unworthy. He wanted to lay his head down on his daughters lap and beg forgiveness, spill his sorrows, but he was a daddy. None of that.

He would be here for her when she awoke in the morning. He would walk down to the market and get milk and cereal; no, he would just wait and they would walk down together.

Mother left you here, he said.

Yes.

Well, thats okay. Youre here and thats what matters. Ive missed you.

Ive missed you, she said. Its been too long.

Now you just sleep.

She nodded a big up-and-down nod. He reluctantly got to his feet and watched her for a long, lovely moment, all the loneliness gone. Full again, to the top.

Then he turned and looked to the left, at the broadly sketched suggestion of an empty bed in the lighter shadows on that side of the room. He seldom came into this room now, but somehow, with one bed filled, the empty one was tolerable.

It was a condition of life everywhere that parents sometimes lost their babies; knowing that did not stop the pain, but with Lindsey here, he was all right. He could believe that life would go on.

Sleep cozy, he whispered, and closed the door to a crack.

PETER SAT IN the kitchen, wishing that he had just a single beer, for this moment. Just a wish.

No beer, no liquor, no drugsnot that he had ever done much in the way of illicit drugs.

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