Close Your Eyes. Amanda Eyre Ward
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Название: Close Your Eyes
Автор: Amanda Eyre Ward
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9780007352050
isbn:
CLOSE YOUR EYES
Amanda Eyre Ward
A sister is . . . a golden thread to the meaning of life.
– Isadora James
This book is for my sister, Sarah, with love.
Contents
Prologue
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Book Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Book Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Book Four
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Book Five
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Amanda Eyre Ward
Prologue
AUGUST 1986
I can remember the taste of ocean, and the dark smell of impending rain. Our parents had given us reluctant permission to spend the night in the tree house. From our perch, high in an oak tree, we could see a faraway sliver of Long Island Sound. I can almost see myself – the way I looked, before: a sweet girl, just eight. I was sturdy, like my father, with his dark hair and olive skin. My mother brushed my hair into pigtails, and I wore sun-dresses with bare feet, so I could climb.
My brother, Alex, had stolen a can of Tab from the pantry. We drank from plastic teacups, remnants of my girlhood set. Clouds moved over the moon. My L. L. Bean sleeping bag was too warm, and in the middle of the night, I slipped one leg outside the heavy fabric and touched my brother’s foot with my own.
The tree house was a small structure shaped like a pirate ship. My mother used to laugh and say it had taken longer for my father to build the damn thing than it had for her to grow and deliver a baby, but by the time I was two and could climb the ladder to the top, it was finished.
We had a large, grassy yard; from the tree house, you could barely see the peeling paint on our back door. No matter what happened inside, as it turned out, you wouldn’t hear a sound.
That night, our parents had given a small party. Alex and I often hid during their gatherings, and watched the adults drink wine and act strange. My father grilled elaborate Egyptian dishes on the Weber – rice-stuffed pigeon, rabbit with mint – and my mother sat with her friends at the picnic table and smoked cigarettes furtively, the embers lending her face an angelic glow. The guests that night were Phil Salinas, an investment banker; Jessica Salinas, his newest wife; Adam Schwickrath, an orthopedic surgeon; and Donna Halsey, my piano teacher.
My father teased my mother about Adam Schwickrath. He was the man she should have married, my father said, his words edged with bitterness. Dr. Schwickrath was wealthy and well dressed, usually wearing khakis and a button-down shirt. Some evenings he and my mother would talk to each other in soft tones, my mother laughing and lifting her head to expose her throat.
Dr. Schwickrath had given my mother a wrapped package that night, though her birthday had been weeks before. ‘Better late than СКАЧАТЬ