Read Online Now You See It... by Vivian Vande Velde - Free Book Online

what she'd been like before.
    I dragged the photo album over onto my lap. It was one of the older ones, with pictures of Nana's parents and her sister, who'd died of polio when she'd been about my age, and a whole bunch of people I
didn't know. I flipped to the back where her wedding pictures were. I didn't remember Papa at all; he'd died before I was a year old. I only knew him through Nana's stories. And Nana's stories about Papa had been one of the last things that left her. When my parents were still married, Nana had been fine: living on her own, taking care of the house and yard, organizing the women's guild at her church, visiting as Story Lady at the local library. It was after the divorce, actually after Mom married Bill, that there were the first signs of trouble: Nana kept calling Bill "Eugene."
I
thought it was funny. I thought she was hinting that she didn't like Mom's new husband, and that was why she called him by my father's name. I wasn't even worried when Nana called me by my Mom's name, Jeannette. Nana would roll her eyes, smack herself on the forehead, and correct herself by saying "Wendy." Until the day when she didn't catch on that she'd used the wrong name. Until the day she wouldn't believe me when I said that I wasn't Jeannette.
    It had all started when Bill and Gia came into our lives. Thinking about it, I knew that was coincidence; but feelings don't necessarily make sense, and they can be stubborn. It was hard—when I was having a bad day about something or other—not to wonder.
    Gia finally finished with Miss Lysiak and came and gave Nana a hug and a kiss. "How are you feeling, Nana?" she asked, giving her a quick little shoulder massage.
    No reaction to Gia, either, which was petty of me to gloat over.
    Gia kept on. "What a pretty sweater you're wearing. I love the embroidery. Is it one of the ones you made? Wow, look at those tiny stitches, Wendy."
    It
was
one of the ones she'd made. She'd made me one just like it with the tiny blue forget-me-nots along the bottom border. But mine had been made to fit an eight-year-old, and it was given away to the Salvation Army so that another little girl could enjoy it. I wondered if yet another child had it now, or if it was at the bottom of someone's closet, or if it had been thrown away.
    Gia plunked herself on the edge of Nana's bed and lifted the photo album away from me. "Oh, I love this album," she said. "This is the one where you were growing up. Here, let's look at it together." She was positioned between the two of us, but Nana continued to look out the window, and I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
    As Gia chattered away about the pictures, I wanted to tell her:
She's not like the others. You can't
charm her. Not only does she not know who we are, she isn't even aware we're here. You can be as personable as you want, and she won't care.
That gave me a certain amount of satisfaction—to know that Nana couldn't be comparing the two of us and liking Gia better.
    Gia said, "Oh, and here you are in that blue and white dress that was handmade for you in Italy. We still have that, you know, and a couple other of your special dresses, like your Japanese kimono, and the green suit you wore when you and Papa got married. Look at all these handsome young men you knew. I bet they were all courting you."
    Courting.
I sniffed. That fit along with
demure.
    Still, I glanced at the page Gia was looking at, where Nana was a young woman, surrounded by friends, all laughing and having a good time.
    How many of them were dead now? Were any in the same state as Nana? Probably not. Nana was lucky enough to be suffering from
early
Alzheimer's. Like regular Alzheimer's wasn't bad enough.
    I was feeling claustrophobic and I stood up.
    Gia seemed as oblivious to me as Nana was.
    When will Mom get here?
I wondered.
And how much should I tell her about what's been going on?
She wasn't likely to let me transfer to a different school starting tomorrow without
some
sort