Read Things Invisible to See for Free Online Page A

and in two weeks you’ll hardly know it’s there.”
    How could she not worry about the dark swelling just under her hairline? She ran her finger over it and tears sprang to her eyes. Her hair was too matted for the comb. But Mrs. Thatcher took a single lock and worked it between her fingers, and presently Clare was combing it, a few strands at a time.
    “Let’s braid it, Clare. That way it won’t get snarled so fast.”
    From her pocket she drew another comb and a pair of scissors and went to work on the snarls at the back. To Clare’s surprise, her touch was firm but gentle. Snip! sang the shears.
    “Don’t cut it,” Clare pleaded.
    “We don’t have to cut very much,” said Mrs. Thatcher. “Vaseline helps.” She was already braiding and banding the left side. But she did not hurry Clare, and she put the scissors back into her pocket and went on combing and chatting.
    “Till you learn to use crutches, life is going to be more difficult than you’ve ever imagined. From now on, stairs are your enemy. Before you go anywhere, you’ll ask yourself, Are the doors wide enough? Is there a bathroom on the ground floor?”
    Now she was braiding the right side, gathering the strands that Clare had combed.
    “When I was seventeen, I got polio. I spent four years in a chair. When my mother took me shopping for clothes, nobody wanted to wait on us. Nobody would help me try anything on. The clerks would talk about me to my mother as if I were deaf and dumb. ‘Would she like this green dress? This yellow one?’ But I’ll tell you something. The day I took my first step was the happiest day of my life. My boyfriend stuck by me. I wanted to walk down the aisle without crutches or braces. And I did. There. Take a look at yourself.”
    Clare peered anxiously into the mirror. A tight, greasy braid brushed each shoulder. Mrs. Thatcher lifted Clare into the chair and pushed a pair of bedroom slippers over her bare feet. Purple silk; her mother’s. At home Clare never wore slippers. Now she stared down at her feet, small, overdressed, cocked at an awkward angle on the foot rest of the wheelchair.
    “Ready to meet the world,” said Mrs. Thatcher and wheeled her into the hall.
    The world was filled with nurses, doctors, visitors, and orderlies pushing stretchers to operating rooms, to X-ray, to the emergency room. Carts stacked high with empty breakfast trays rattled down the hall. Clare recognized the rack of charts behind the nurse’s station, and here—wasn’t this the room in which she had watched one man live and another man die?
    Her chair turned sharply, a door opened, and she was wheeled into a large room, empty save for two sets of parallel bars and a wheelchair. Another nurse was helping a boy of about seven to walk very slowly between the bars. He was dragging his legs in their heavy braces along the floor and hanging on hard.
    “You’re doing so well!” exclaimed the nurse. “You’re doing so well .”
    The boy stopped. Sweat shone in large drops on his face.
    “I want the chair now,” he begged.
    Mrs. Thatcher and the other nurse exchanged nods.
    “I’m going to buckle your legs into braces, Clare,” said Mrs. Thatcher. “They feel awful, but they’ll help you keep your balance. Your bars are just like his, only higher.”
    In this room with a crippled child and two nurses, Clare feared for the first time that she might not get well. They were not healing her. They were teaching her to take her place in that invisible nation of the handicapped.
    “Hold onto the bars. Use your arms for support,” said Mrs. Thatcher. “Don’t worry. I have a good grip on you.”
    “I’m going to fall.”
    “No you won’t. I’m right beside you. I’m holding you up. Move your legs from the hips.”
    That she could move them at all gave Clare a small thrill. Two dead weights. She could not feel where she was setting them down.
    “My legs are too heavy,” she exclaimed.
    “Huh! You should’ve seen my first