While he grilled vegetables on a barbeque outside the house, I gazed through the glasses at the sky. I saw the stars and the moon. Some birds flew by and I lost sight of them, then scanned down and there they were, on a telephone wire.

And below them was a window, lit up, with a family in the living room working a puzzle. I watched the father slip a puzzle piece over to a kid who was a little younger than me. I could have watched them for a long time, but it felt like spying. I knew I wouldn’t want some strange girl peering in on me when I didn’t know about it, even if she was only curious and didn’t mean any harm.

I turned the glasses downward and that’s when I saw her. A woman, ancient, with vacant eyes. She stood in a nightgown on the street. In one hand, she held a bouquet of oversize, plastic daisies. In the other, she held what looked like the gnarled roots of a tree. She was on the sidewalk, alone in the dark, staring at nothing.

“Blake,” I said.

He was carving into wood with a pocketknife while he waited for the food to cook. “Mm-hm,” he answered, eyes fixed on his project.

“Look at that lady,” I said. He kept carving for a moment and then saw I was handing the opera glasses to him. He took them and I pointed down at the street. “What’s she doing? Do you think we should help her?”

He lifted the glasses to his eyes and shifted the focus. He remained turned toward where I had been looking for a long time. I could see her even without the glasses, standing perfectly still, then swaying back and forth before growing still again.

“What lady?” Blake asked.

But he had been looking right there. He was still looking. And there she was.

“The old woman.”

“I don’t see an old woman.”

“Right there,” I said. “With the fake flowers and that other thing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “You must be tired, you should go to bed.” He folded the opera glasses and dropped them back in their velvet pouch.

“But I haven’t had dinner yet. It’s still early.” I couldn’t tell how early it was, though. I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t own a watch.

“You’re so tired you’re seeing things,” Blake said. “You don’t feel right. Go lie down.”

I did as he told me.

___

“You know . . . ,” he said the next morning. We were warming water over the fire for coffee. “I had a thought about this so-called woman you saw last night.”

“She was right there,” I said. “It’s so weird you didn’t see her.”

“I’m wondering—was she by any chance wearing a nightgown?”

“Yes!”

“And was her hair very short?”