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Gaits of Heaven

Gaits of Heaven

Titel: Gaits of Heaven Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Susan Conant
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steps.”
    “The hypocrite! That business about amends made me want to throw up.”
    “She’s obviously insincere,” Gabrielle said temperately. “As usual. Making amends to you and Steve would be difficult of course. But to me? If she’d really wanted to make amends to me, it would’ve been easy. She’d have enclosed a check."
     

CHAPTER 14
     
    I have an image of Johanna Green, Ted’s ex-wife and Wyeth’s mother, as she examines her face in what is all too accurately known as a fright mirror. The magnification confirms her sense that her lower lashes do an inadequate job of hiding the tiny scars from her eye job. Furthermore, in the four years since her last major cosmetic surgery, gravity has been at work. Jowls!
    After resolving to recommit herself to aesthetic dermatology and cosmetic surgery, Johanna turns to her professional work, which at the moment consists of feminist linguistic research on grammatical gender in Hebrew, Verdurian, and various other languages in which verbs as well as nouns are masculine, feminine, or, in some instances, neuter.
    Under Rita’s influence, I am forced to wonder about the emotional meaning of Johanna’s choice of topic. Does she find it nervy and greedy of languages to extend masculinity and femininity beyond the province of the noun to the vast territory of the verb? Or maybe the hidden source of Johanna’s scholarly pursuit lies in her feelings about her ex-husband, Ted Green, who is forever saying that he wishes he knew Hebrew but has never bothered to learn its rudiments or to visit Israel. Or if she thinks about Ted, perhaps it is with regard to the third category of nouns and verbs, the neither feminine nor masculine group, the desexed or sexless one, so to speak: neuter.
     

CHAPTER 15
     
    As soon as Caprice returned from her therapy appointment, she went upstairs to take a nap. Without Lady. Or any of the other dogs. I decided that her therapy hour had been a waste of time. Rita would’ve disagreed about the specifics, but she’d have agreed with the general proposition that if therapy doesn’t teach you to give and accept love, what good is it?
    While Caprice was napping, I took a break from work to check my e-mail and simultaneously to visit my cat, Tracker, who inhabits my study, in which I almost never write, never mind study. Tracker is mine because no one else wanted her. She has a torn ear, a birthmark on her nose, and, worse, a tendency to hiss at everyone but Steve and to scratch everyone but him, too. My efforts to teach Rowdy and Kimi to accept her had been less than the sort of success that would have made for a great article in Dog’s Life : “Malamute Lions Lie Down with Feline Lamb.” Rowdy and Kimi were far calmer in Tracker’s presence than they’d once been, but I still didn’t trust them. Consequently, when they were loose, she was not. My study did offer her as much stimulation as one room could provide, including a tall cat tree and a myriad of toys, and she sometimes had the privilege of sleeping in our bedroom on Steve’s pillow. Even so, I felt guilty about her and made a point of socializing with her, or trying, whenever I used my desktop computer.
    Unfortunately, Tracker took the word mouse literally. She was asleep on it when I entered the room, and when my presence awakened her, she glared at me and hissed. When I finally got to sit at my own desk, I found my usual thousand e-mail messages from my malamute lists and dog writers’ lists and an invitation from Ted Green to attend Eumie’s memorial service at eight o’clock the following evening at his house. His message included this passage:
     
Eumie’s mortal remains will not be available, but she is still and will always be very much with me in all possible senses and will be present in spirit at this gathering as we celebrate her life and especially her loving relationships with all of you. Each of you was very, very special to Eumie. Although her background was Protestant, her true religion was the nurturance of caring relationships. Consequently, I hope that each of you will speak to all of us and to Eumie herself about the memories of her that you cherish most and the lessons you learned from her.
     
    I had met Eumie only twice—postmortem didn’t count—and knew from experience in personal invitations to funerals that I was being invited only in case Dolfo acted up. If he did, I could be counted on to settle him down. My memories of Eumie weren’t

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