Things Invisible to See Read Online Free PDF

and I’ve got Davy to look after. He’s only in first grade a half-day.”
    “Fred and I are bringing Grandma to your house next Wednesday,” said Vicky. After Davy was born, first Nell and then Helen and Vicky had started calling their own mother and father Grandma and Grandpa. Sometimes Helen wondered if their new names had helped to hasten her parents into old age.
    “We’re not staying for supper,” added Vicky.
    “Couldn’t you wait till Clare is better?” pleaded Helen.
    “You owe me six months already,” replied Vicky. “From the time you had the flu. I can’t stand it anymore. Grandma’s getting worse.”
    “How worse?” inquired Hal.
    “This morning she tried to pay for her breakfast. She thought I was the hostess at Christianson’s.”
    “What about that woman you found to watch her?” asked Helen.
    “She quit. Grandma hit her.”
    “She did?” exclaimed Hal. “She really hit her?”
    “Right in the face. You can’t find anybody in Grosse Pointe who wants to take care of old people. I see these ads for wonderful nursing homes in the paper—”
    “No nursing home,” said Helen firmly. “I won’t put my mother in a nursing home. Vicky, I’ve got to run. The doorbell’s going to ring, and I’m in my old housedress.”
    “Who’s coming by at this hour?” asked Vicky.
    “I can’t tell yet. Good-bye.”
    The front door chimed its two tones. Before Helen could unlock the door, it opened of itself. Her youngest sister, framed in the doorway, glanced up from the depths of her purse.
    “Found my key,” said Nell.
    Her voice triggered footsteps on the stairs. Davy, in blue sleepers, hugged his mother’s legs and rubbed his cheek against her Persian lamb coat.
    “Tell me ’bout the movie! Tell me ’bout the movie!” he begged.
    “Vicky called,” said Helen. “She’s bringing Grandma here next week.”
    “Isn’t that awful,” said Nell. “Isn’t that the worst you ever heard.”
    “We’ll all have to pitch in and help,” said Hal.
    Nell looked hurt. “Why, of course.”
    “Tell me ’bout the movie!” screamed Davy.
    “It starred Veronica Lake,” said Nell, prying his fingers from her knees. “What I wouldn’t give to have hair like hers.”
    She ran a grieving hand through light brown hair that curled in thin ringlets to her shoulders.
    “How was your date with the piano tuner?” asked Hal. “What’s his name—?”
    “William Patrick Simpson,” said Nell. “I found out something awful about him.”
    “He’s married?” asked Helen.
    “He’s Catholic,” said Nell.
    “Patrick,” said Helen. “Of course, with a name like that. Wouldn’t you know.”
    She prided herself on her freedom from prejudice. Everyone in the Bishop family followed a different faith. She was Congregational, Nell was Grace Bible, and Clare was a Quaker. Nobody knew for certain what Hal believed except Hal, but Helen feared it involved reincarnation. He went to church with her only on Christmas and Easter.
    “He’s also married,” said Nell. “His wife went to the movies with us.”
    “You all three went to the movies?” exclaimed Hal.
    Nell nodded. “She said I’m the nicest girl Bill—she calls him Bill—has taken out since they got their separation.”
    “Can I have the kitty in my bed tonight?” begged Davy.
    “Sweetheart, I’ve told you a million times,” said Nell. “The kitty gives you asthma.”
    She hung her coat on the rack by the front door and hoisted the child to her hip, though he was getting too heavy for her to carry. At the first landing she paused for breath and groped for the switch that lit the corridor and stairs to the second landing.
    Under the molding, a row of lights flashed on. Dozens of photographs of Ericsons and Bishops, frame nudging frame, seemed to open their eyes. Her parents, in their wedding picture, smiled out at her, the way they had looked before she started calling them Grandma and Grandpa. And here was Hal in his laboratory