Читать книгу The Returned - Jason Mott, Jason Mott - Страница 11

Angela Johnson

The floors of the guest bedroom in which she had been locked for the past three days were hardwood and beautiful. When they brought her meals, she tried not to spill anything, not wanting to ruin the floor and compound her punishment for whatever she had done wrong. Sometimes, just to be safe, she would eat her meals in the bathtub of the adjoining bathroom, listening to her parents speaking in the bedroom on the other side of the wall.

“Why haven’t they come to take it back yet?” her father said.

“We never should have let them bring her...it to begin with,” her mother replied. “That was your idea. What if the neighbors find out?”

“I think Tim already knows.”

“How could he? It was so late when they brought it. He couldn’t have been awake at that time of night, could he?”

A moment of silence came between them.

“Imagine what will happen if the firm finds out. This is your fault.”

“I just had to know,” he said, his voice softening. “It looks so much like h—”

“No. Don’t start that again, Mitchell. Not again! I’m calling them again. They need to come and take it away tonight!”

She sat in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest, crying just a little, sorry for whatever she had done, not understanding any of this.

She wondered where they had taken her dresser, her clothes, the posters she had plastered around the room over the years. The walls were painted a soft pastel—something all at once red and pink. The holes left by pushpins, the marks left by tape, the pencil marks on the door frame indicating each year of growth...all of them were gone. Simply painted over.