The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald [MacDonald, John D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 978-0-307-82677-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

“Welcome back!” said Meyer.

“Thanks. What about the Flush?”

“It floats.”

“Really, how is it?”

“There’s nothing that about ten thousand dollars can’t fix. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good God, what’s left of it?”

“Don’t worry about it. You do a lot of talking about the way possessions hold us all in thrall. Pretty things are chains and shackles.”

It made me gloomy. I could see a listing hulk with huge holes, with wisps of smoke rising from the interior debris. And it worried me that I should care that much. The important loss was the death of that lively girl. Blown in half. Into two girl parts. Such a great and bitter waste.

I realized that if the Flush were entirely gone, if it had burned to the waterline and sunk, I would be able to adjust more easily than to the uncertainty. Baubles and toys should disappear, not become broken litter.

Meyer sat beside the bed. He looked like an apprehensive owl as he said, “I kept wondering what the hell to do if you didn’t wake up. People stay in a coma for years. They seem to have families to look after them.”

“And you could see yourself stuck?”

“I could see myself tottering down to the drugstore saying, Yep, he’s still asleep. Been nineteen year now. Gimme some more of that goo for bedsores.”

“Look, I blank out during my walk that Saturday afternoon. Tell me about Joanna.”

He told me. I could not make it seem real. It was easier to make the service seem real. They did the same thing for her as they did for Carrie. One less girl in a long dress to throw flowers. Good-by, my sister Joanna. Her widower father attended, full of indignation and stiffness at such an informal heathen ceremony. But, Meyer said, it melted him quickly and he wept with the rest. It loosened the adhesions in his heart, freeing him from other rituals.

“We’re losing too many girls,” I told Meyer.

“You’ve added a new one.”

“Hmm. The spry nurse lady?”

“No. Cindy Birdsong. She’s spent a lot of time here, so someone would be with you when you woke up. She was sure you would. Then she missed by a few minutes. She left a little while before you came out of it, apparently. She’s out there now, waiting her turn.”

“Why the devotion?”

“I don’t know. It’s some kind of penance, maybe. Or maybe she is the kind of person who has to have somebody to fret about. Cal is gone. You were at her marina when we got blown up.”

“What did it do to you?”

“Gave my back a little wrench and gave me a sore shoulder and one deaf ear.”

“So this is Thursday, everybody keeps telling me, June sixth, they keep saying, and it is five days gone out of my life, and what useful thing have you done with those days? I don’t like it any more around here, Meyer. I want to go home. Every time I get blown up by a bomb I get that same feeling. Let’s go home.

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