Chapter 23 The second visit ends

Percy, whispered Miss Thermer: I'm going to see the grandkids and stay with them for a while. She looked much better now than when she had come to ring her mother's doorbell.Her face is smooth and her eyes and lips are carefully drawn.Mother combed her curly, dyed orange hair.For the first time I discovered that Miss Therma was a good-looking woman.She must have been a heartthrob when she was young. Mother kissed Miss Therma on the cheek, then took the bag and told me to follow her.We met a little girl with braids in the hallway, and she stomped towards us. grandmother?She said: Are you asleep?

I took a step back, but she walked past us without looking at us.She is followed by a little boy maybe her brother?The little boy stopped at the door and put a finger in his mouth.I held out my hand and waved it in front of his eyes.no response.Apparently they couldn't see us. Mom, I'm stuttering: what's going on? She looked at Miss Therma.Her granddaughter climbed into bed.They were clapping together to the rhythm of the nursery rhyme.Tears welled up in my mother's eyes. Miss Therma dying too? Not long.mother said. I walked up to her. Mom, please tell me. She called me, Charlie.

We look at the beds. Miss Thurma?She wants you to come? no sweetheart.It's not like this.I came to her heart, that's all.I am an idea.She hoped that I would still be there to help her, to make her look more beautiful and not sick.So here I am. an idea?My eyes are on the ground: I don't understand. My mother moved a little closer to me.Her voice softened.Charlie, have you ever had such an experience?Do you dream about someone who is dead, but in the dream you start a new conversation?In this case, the world you enter is not that far from my world. She put her hand over mine.When someone is in your heart, they don't really disappear.They can come back to you, even at moments when you thought it was impossible.

The little girl was playing with Miss Thermer's hair on the bed.Miss Therma smiled and looked at us. Do you remember old Mrs. Grinski?mother said. I remember.She is a patient in the hospital, a terminally ill patient.She was dying, but she told my mother every day that someone was coming to see her.The people who came to see her were all people who had appeared in her life in the past.She talks to them and laughs with them.Mother once said at dinner that she saw old Mrs. Grinski with her eyes closed, muttering to herself, talking to someone she couldn't see.Father said she was mentally ill.A week later, she died.

Her mind is fine.mother said. Well, Miss Therma is Soon.Mother narrowed her eyes: the closer you get, the easier it is to talk to the dead. A chill ran from my shoulders to the soles of my feet. Does this mean that I also I would say dying.I want to say I'm leaving. You are my son, she whispered: that's it. I swallowed: how much time do I have? There's some left.she says. Running out? What do you call more? I don't know, Mom.Can I be with you forever, or will you be gone in a minute? You can find a lot of really important stuff in a minute. Suddenly, everything made of glass in Miss Therma's house burst open, the windows, the mirrors, the TV screen.Shards of glass splattered all around us as if we were standing in the heart of a hurricane.A voice from outside rumbled above the hurricane:

Charles.Bernato!I know you can hear me!answer me! what should I do?I yelled to my mother. Glass shards whirled and danced around her, and she blinked calmly. It's up to you, Charlie.she says.