Things Invisible to See by Nancy Willard Read Free Book Online Page A

said, “Have some Harvey’s Bristol Cream.”
    It was the only alcoholic beverage she kept in the house. She’d called Vicky to ask what she should buy for her play-reading group, since you couldn’t expect all your guests to drink Sparkling Catawba grape juice.
    Vicky eyed it suspiciously. “Is that the same bottle you bought three years ago?”
    “For my club,” said Helen.
    “Heavens, don’t open it just for me,” said Vicky.
    And Nell called out from the hall, “Davy and Grandpa are here.”
    Grandpa walked slowly down the front walk, Davy on one side, his cane on the other. Hal followed them with the suitcase.
    “That sky means snow,” he said, but nobody was listening.
    Vicky climbed into the driver’s seat of the Olds, and Helen and Nell and Hal and Davy lined up by the rear door, which hung open like a broken wing. Grandpa settled himself into the back seat, then leaned forward and inquired of Vicky, “Where is your mother?”
    “Fred’s walking her around the block,” replied Vicky. “He should be bringing her back any minute now. We’ll drive around the corner and wait for him. I don’t want Grandma to see the car.”
    A slamming of doors. The car hugged the curb and glided out of sight.
    “Wave,” said Helen.
    The little group at the curbside waved.
    “They can’t see us anymore,” said Nell.
    But Helen went on waving.
    “When Hal and I said good-bye to the Crombergs in Berlin, they waved their handkerchiefs till our train was out of sight,” she said. “You never know when it will be the last time.”
    “It’s a queer business,” said Hal, “when a wife can’t lay eyes on her husband without picking a quarrel.”
    From the other end of the block, Fred approached with Grandma, wrapped in her sealskin coat, bulky with the sweaters she wore even in warm weather.
    Davy thought: I don’t like Grandma but I like her braids. They make a little bridge across her head.
    “No overcoat,” said Nell. “Fred has no overcoat.”
    “Fred is the only man I know who puts on a three-piece suit to go outside and mail a letter,” said Helen.
    “Stockbrokers always wear suits,” said Nell.
    “He shaved his mustache,” observed Hal.
    Nell shrugged.
    “What else could he do? A client told him he looked like Hitler.”
    Under the light banter, Grandma did not hear the good-byes, did not see Fred twinkle down the block to the getaway car waiting around the corner.
    He made it, thought Helen. They’re on the way home. Out of sight, out of mind.
    Grandma looked east from where they’d come, west to where they’d gone.
    “Where’s Peter? Where’s Peter?” she asked.
    “Grandpa’s in Grosse Pointe with Vicky,” said Helen.
    “Never here when he’s needed!” Grandma cried. “I got two men coming to fix the porch. He promised he’d fetch ladders.”
    “Hal, take her suitcase to the guest room,” said Helen.
    But Hal had already gone into the house, and Helen picked up the suitcase and carried it up herself.
    The guest room on the second floor was as formal as the attic was cluttered. A peach satin bolster, bedspread, and ruffled duster. A double-globed milk-glass lamp that turned into flowered moons when Helen touched the switch. Silver mirrors on the dressing table; cut-glass perfume bottles. Nobody ever used the perfume, which had aged to the deep brown of old woodwork. On the wall over the bed hovered an angel that Clare had painted. Its body followed the contours of a large crack.
    In front of the open suitcase, Grandma examined, arranged, and sorted, as if appraising goods at a rummage sale. The black suit was in good condition. The blue sweater was mended on both elbows. Two nightgowns like flannel tents were wrapped around a jar of Kaopectate (the wholesale size) and five rolls of toilet paper. She had once had an attack of diarrhea in church and ever afterward kept an emergency supply of toilet paper wadded in the top of her stocking, the way some women carry money. And the