I sat on the porch and looked at my watch. It's like the only real people are the ones she sees inside her head, people she sings to-sometimes at the top of her lungs-but that no one else sees. Once I could have told her, but for the last few months she acts like everyone is invisible, not just me. I wished I could talk to Gramoo about it. Bixler, our fifth grade teacher this past year. Thomas J was coming over in a little while. Maybe you get invisible from living around dead people? He said, 'Thanks, Vada,' but he didn't look up or anything. I got the mayonnaise and brought it to him. Maybe I was invisible, too? Add that to the cancer and the hemorrhoids. 'Hand me the mayonnaise out of the fridge, would you, Vada?' he said. 'I don't want to upset you,' I said, 'but you know this thing in my throat? I think it's getting bigger.

'Hmmm?' he said, but he didn't look up from his sandwich. He was frowning down at it like it was some puzzle to figure out. We were in the kitchen together, and Dad was at the counter by the window, making a sandwich. At least, that's what Gramoo says-what Gramoo used to say before she got weird and stopped talking.Īnyway, with all that's happened and that I've had to learn to live with, I figured Dad would be upset about my latest affliction-this chicken bone stuck in my throat and the lump that was growing up around it. I guess lots of dads have trouble talking to their daughters. Dad likes me okay enough, I guess, but he has problems talking about it. I don't remember it of course, because she died when I was born. I wondered if Dad cried a lot when my mother died. It's creepy being surrounded by dead people all the time-dead people and others who are crying over the dead ones.

Sultenfuss, Parlor, it says on the brass plate outside our door. They bring them to the basement, and then, when they're finished with them there, they dress them up and put them in the living room. And that's true-there really are dead people here. I've also learned to live with the dead people we always have in the basement and the living room. Although I was getting more worried about it lately, because I could feel it getting bigger. And I've learned to live with the chicken bone that's been stuck in my throat ever since Gramoo got sick-well, mostly I've learned.

Once I was in a bathroom at a truck stop and caught hemorrhoids. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020įirst Archway Paperback printing December 1991ĪN ARCHWAY PAPERBACK and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.Īll rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

What If They Knew? by Patricia Hermes