The Cobweb by J. Frederick George & Neal Stephenson

Author:J. Frederick George & Neal Stephenson [author]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thrillers, General, Unknown
ISBN: 9780553383447
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 2005-05-31T01:36:18+00:00

luck getting to sleep; the adjustment was just too difficult to make. So he made himself comfortable in theliving room, turned the TV around toward his chair so that its flickering light would not disturb the girls,and watched TV for a while, mostly CNN. It all had to do with Desert Shield. President Bush wasbuzzing around Maine in his boat, and convoys of heavy military vehicles were converging on air basesaround the country, mostly in the Southeast. There was a little feature story about a schoolteacher inOhio who had been called up, and who had appeared before his class in his Army uniform to give a lastlecture, explaining to the kids where he was going and why. The kids looked stunned, much the wayDick Dhont had. Then the doorbell had rung and its sound was dying away and the front door had been flung open. It wasMrs. Dhont and two of the Dhont wives. It was morning. Clyde tried to sit up in the La-Z-Boy but foundMaggie had been deposited on his chest all wrapped in pink blankets. Desiree was not in the roomanymore. She was taking a shower. He heard the whine of the house's plumbing and could smell hershampoo. Becky, the eldest Dhont wife, came and plucked Maggie off Clyde's chest and cuddled her, leavingClyde there alone, as if he had some preordained role in the upcoming ceremony that had nothing to dowith looking after Maggie. Mrs. Dhont and the other Dhont wife busied themselves in the kitchen makinga hearty Dhont breakfast. Knowing that Desiree had strayed from the family dietary traditions, they hadbrought the necessary staples with them: two-inch-thick patties of homemade pork sausage, eggs stillwarm from the chickens, bottles of raw milk with cream still making its way to the top. Clyde found himself with nothing to do. He went out and walked around the truck a couple of moretimes. When he came back inside, Desiree was out of the shower, her hair wet and smelling of peaches. Shehad changed into jeans and a T-shirt for the drive. They spent a few minutes smooching and flirting in thebedroom as if this were any other day, then went down, hand in hand, to breakfast. The Dhont femaleshad prepared a meal adequate to feed the entire Seventh Army Corps. Clyde expressed rote amazementbut was hurt on the inside; it reminded him too much of what was to come. Still, he thought as he chewed his sausage, it wouldn't have been any better if Desiree had pulled into thedrive-up window on the way out of town for an Egg McMuffin. There was nothing wrong with markingthe occasion, with bringing all of the heavy emotions straight to the forefront, as women in general and theDhont women in particular tended to. It just wasn't a Banks way of doing things, and he would neveradjust to it. After breakfast Desiree drank a whole big tumbler of water, the way she always did when she was aboutto breast-feed, and took Maggie into the den for a quarter of an hour.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.