An Invisible Woman

An Invisible Woman

Elsie knew the change was coming; she had timed her whole day around it. She was waiting in the car, hoping against hope that it would go longer then ever before—but she could only predict the beginning. The last time she went see-through, it lasted a mere 20 minutes.
As she pondered the change in her light, she realized that it had already happened. She had wasted valuable time outside the door. Herb’s house was just beyond her line of sight and if she wanted to make use of her time invisible, she would have to hurry. But she hoped her aggravation would so worth it. She arrived at Herb’s house and used her key to come in the back door. She still looked around, fearing that is someone saw the portal open without help, phone calls would be made. Herb should be gone for another hour.
The boxes from her ex-husband still crowded the kitchen where she entered. There were the dishes he so argued for just a week ago, stacked as high as pancakes at a free breakfast. She discouraged her first impulse to hurl to the floor. He would know immeidiately she was there. And her advantage of invisiablity would be lost in a moment. She figured that the two rooms she needed to focus her search on was his office and his bedroom.
His office was the room most closely to completion. The boxes were present, but now empty, the computers and paper work neatly stacked like the previous plates. She had copied his keys long before the divorce, using the excuse that he might die before he gave her a chance to have a copy made. She knew that one day, some day, she would need to see if there was a will or other legal documents that could affect her.
But his journal was nowhere to be seen.
She moved to the bedroom faster then she probably had moved her entire life. She felt her hips brush the doorway as she moved in and wondered if that was the true reason he left. She found a full length mirror but remembered she was invisible. With a heavy sigh to add to her heavy panting she searched the boxes shrewn into Herb’s new bedroom.
Herb had always kept a diary before they even met. He wrote in it daily, every morning and every night, even when he didn’t have an assignment at the newspaper. She thumbed and thumbed. She looked for words that were scribbled hastily, signs of nerves and anger.
There weren’t any.
So she began to look for the time three years ago (yes, it was in there—he was a reporter by profession and kept his writing blissfully short) he did some work out in Washington DC. There were references to sights seen, coworkers and their affairs and food eaten. Occasionally, a political quip danced across the page.
But she found nothing that she was looking for. There was no lover, male or female, mentioned. Not even a mention of someone attractive.
Worse, there was no mention of her.
She searched further.
All mentions of her were also short. Without adjectives. Without emotion. Without feeling.
Once sentence stood out.
“Had to take Emily out to eat again so she’d look at me in the face.”
Emily wondered if she cried, if she would become visible again. As she looked down, she realized she had. And there was no one else to pin it on.