The Invention of Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

out-of-place object, not a single knickknack or chair that doesn’t fit in with the color scheme or style of a room, and the color of one room fades thoughtfully into the next—her aqua living room, the light green dining room, the pale yellow kitchen. Only one crocheted anything in the whole house, a placemat she bought in Europe from a street vendor, and she doesn’t own a scrap of nylon net. A corner of the basement is packed with things she has bought out of duty at church bazaars or been given as gifts—hideous plastic flower arrangements and macaroni paintings as well as nice figurines and vases, things that just will not fit in no matter where she puts them. She thinks that maybe she will tell Mrs. Lovelace to go down there, to help herself.
    In the kitchen, Mrs. D. washes the crystal and puts it away. She comes back through the dining room and dusts a set of ornamental plates her grandmother had painted. She feels ecstatic; every once in a while she goes to the window by Mrs. Lovelace and looks out, but the things are still there, the husband hasn’t come. Now and then Mrs. Lovelace breaks out of her lethargy to ask Mrs. D. a question: “How many sets of dishes you got?” she asks when she sees her dusting the plates and learns that they’re never used. “Five,” Mrs. D. says, “no, six, including the painted. Four sets of china and two everyday.” Mrs. Lovelace is impressed. “I’ve always loved china,” Mrs. D. says, “and so my husband every once in a while surprises me with a new pattern.”
    â€œHow long you lived here?” Mrs. Lovelace asks a half an hour later, and Mrs. D. says, “All my life. I was born in this house,” and she tells Mrs. Lovelace what parts of the house were added on, what parts have always been there, and what she and her husband have done to improve the property. Mrs. Lovelace asks her didn’t she ever want children and Mrs. D. tells her that the good Lord didn’t see to bless them with children and it wasn’t her place to question that. “Instead of children,” she says, “He made every day with my husband like a honeymoon.” Mrs. Lovelace, bored, turns back to the window. “Of course,” Mrs. D. says, “you have to work at it.”
    Mrs. D. feels generous and she tells Mrs. Lovelace about the pile of things in the basement and then tells her that she has to go to the service station to get a new right rear tire for her car; she’d promised her husband that morning that she’d do it today. “Is it busted?” Mrs. Lovelace asks. “Just worn,” Mrs. D. says. She goes upstairs to change, comes back down and sees Mrs. Lovelace into the basement, picks up her purse, and heads out the back door to the garage. She sees Mrs. Lovelace’s dog lying hot and breathing heavily, no water in sight, and thinks my God, I forgot about you, and runs back inside and in her hurry picks up a bowl from her every-day dishes and fills it with water to take out to the dog who drinks it and licks her hand. It’s a tiny dog, female, and it’s started into heat; already enormous male german shepherds and labradors are starting to loiter around the edges of Mrs. Lovelace’s yard. “Something else to worry about,” Mrs. D. thinks, and she gets into her car and drives out the driveway, bouncing as she passes over the uneven sidewalk.
    She hurries because she doesn’t want to miss seeing Mr. Lovelace. It’s possible that he might make a scene, be so distraught that he’ll throw a tantrum or he’ll sit down on the steps and cry, and she will have to go out and talk to him, make him see the rationality of his moving, tell him how if he looks at the whole thing in a more positive way, he’ll see it’s for the best, that this may be the catalyst he needs to get over his drinking problem, that someday he’ll be grateful that this