Read Online The Man in the Window by Jon Cohen, Nancy Pearl - Free Book Online

his key. Back in his room, he would lift the key to the hardware store that Atlas had entrusted to him long ago and touch it softly to what remained of his lips.
    Each night before he went to bed, Atlas would knock very lightly on Louis’s bedroom door. “Louis,” he’d say. “Are you there?”
    Louis lay in the dark listening to his father’s words. He thought it such a funny thing to say, and very sweet. He was the Waverly recluse—of course he was there. He’d answer back. “Yes, Atlas, I’m here.”
    Atlas wouldn’t open the door, not because he was afraid of Louis, not then at least, but because the words he was about to say made him shy. “I love you, son. Goodnight, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
    The words that came to him in the dark were so sweet Louis almost forgot that Atlas could not look at him.
    Once upon a time, Atlas knocked on Louis’s door and whispered, “Louis, are you there?”
    Louis looked out of the car window at all the mourners seated in the distance. Reverend Plant’s words were lost among the sound of birds and the buzzing of insects. Behind the reverend lay Atlas’s casket, the brown wood gleaming in the sun. Louis stared at it for a long time and then he said, “Atlas, are you there?”
    He heard a soft beating of wings and felt the car jostle slightly on its springs, then a voice said, “Yes, I’m here.” Louisturned toward the other side of the car, the side not facing the funeral ceremony, and saw Atlas in his corduroy pants and his old Hush Puppies. Out of the back of his flannel shirt, a pair of magnificent pearly wings with gold-tipped feathers swayed in a gentle breeze.
    Atlas spoke, but his lips did not move. “Come to the window, son.”
    Louis slid across the car seat. He thought of all the time he’d spent at his windows. This was a different window with a different view.
    “You believe what you see?” Atlas said, touching the car door.
    “I always believe what I see,” said Louis.
    “Then remember, Louis, that on this day you saw your loving father.” And with those words lingering in the air, Atlas reached slowly into the car with both hands and removed Louis’s hat and unwrapped the purple scarf from his face. Then he leaned forward, just inside the car, and kissed the scorched skin of Louis’s cheek. Louis closed his eyes and felt the kiss.
    When he opened them again, Atlas had disappeared, and a figure in white, leaving the sidewalk and approaching the parking lot, walked toward his car. Louis looked anxiously around for his scarf and hat, and then realized the hat was on his head and the scarf still hid his face. Atlas…
    The figure in white was a nurse, a short squat nurse, and she walked right up to the car. “Excuse me,” she said. “Pardon me. But do you know whose funeral this is?”
    Louis looked at her looking at him. She didn’t seem to find it the least bit odd talking to a man who was invisible except for his eyes. Clearly, she had seen stranger things. She waited for him to answer.
    “Um,” said Louis. He was out of practice talking to people. “Atlas Malone’s,” he said. “This is Atlas Malone’s funeral.”
    The nurse pondered this. Then she said, “Nope. I don’t think he was ever a patient of mine. Don’t remember seeing him at the hospital.”
    “No. He was pretty healthy. He just… went.”
    The nurse said, “He was a relation of yours?”
    “My father.”
    The nurse looked at him some more. “I’m sorry. You knew that it was bound to happen, though?” She spoke the words without sounding unkind.
    Louis said, “Yes. Bound to.”
    “I have to go, my shift’s starting soon. I’ll be seeing you.”
    I doubt it, thought the recluse of Waverly, thought the man who was never seen.
    The nurse turned away, took some steps with her short legs, then turned back again. “There are worse things than death, you know.”
    “Yes, I know,” said Louis, pulling his hat a little lower and his scarf a little closer,