katkend ühest romaanist

/---/

'Ayuh', Aunt Evvie said. 'But do you want to know a secret, Trisha?'

Polly nodded her head, smiling a little. Her real name was Patricia, but she had been Polly to everyone since her babyhood. Everyone except Aunt Evvie.

'Baby Kelton's dead... but you're not.' Aunt Evvie tossed her cigarette away and used one bony forefinger to tap against Polly's chest for emphasis. 'You're not. So what are you gonna do about it?'

Polly thought it over. 'I'm going back to California,' she said finally. 'That's all I know.'

'Yes, and that's all right for a start. But it's not enough.' And then Aunt Evvie would say something very close to what Polly herself would say, some years later, when she went to dinner at The Birches with Alan Pangborn. 'You're not the culprit here, Trisha. Have you got that sorted out?'

'I... I don't know.'

'Then you don't. Until you realize that, it won't matter where you go, or what you do. There won't be any chance.'

'What chance,' she asked, bewildered.

'Your chance. Your chance to live your own life. Right now you have the look of a woman who is seeing ghosts. Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?'

She had shaken her head slowly.

'Men and women who can't get over the past,' Aunt Evvie said. 'That's what ghosts are.'

/---/