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THE FACE IN THE WINDOW.
They called her the face in the window. Practically everybody in the neighborhood knew her-the woman who would sit in the upstairs window of her house, looking out intospace, oblivious to the world. Some people said she’d gone crazy after her husband had left her, others said that she’d lost a son or a daughter. The truth was, nobody really knew for sure. She was justknown as the Face Woman, because her expression was always blank, like a mask.
Jim Heller knew that she had a different name, one that she no longer used, that had been lost to the world. He was theone who brought her food, and took care of the rent. Part of the money came from her social security; he assumed the rest came from an inheritance, or from an insurance policy she had stashed somewhere.She was always dressed in the same simple clothing, although not always the same clothes, so he knew that she didn’t have to spend all of her time in the wheelchair that she used to watch the worldoutside her window
“So, how are you today?” Jim asked one Friday afternoon as he stopped by on another one of his monthly rounds. Looking at the window, he added, “The weather is nicer today, isn’tit? I’ll bet you are glad that storm is over with.”
She didn’t answer as Jim gathered up the envelopes on her kitchen table. Her face was impassive as always, although he thought he saw a flicker ofrecognition in her eyes. “Well, I’ll just take care of these, then. See you next month, okay?”

When he was gone, she continued to sit in her wheelchair, looking out her window at the houses beyond.She knew there was a world out there that she was no longer a part of, a world of noise and people-people who brought danger, and did bad things to each other. In her withdrawn silence, she’d wanted nopart of that world for years, and tried not to think about what had made her that way.
then that he was now, she had been different. The world had been different, too, and it had been part of the...