Blind (19 page)

“I don’t know her, Dad,” I said. “Maybe after I meet her, I can come back down and get something she’d actually want.”

“Good point,” he said.

“Have a good day, Dr. Silver,” the cashier said, and I had a flash of his being famous at the hospital, everyone knowing him as Dr. Silver. I wondered if I’d ever be known anywhere for anything other than being a tragic disaster girl. I moved along the slick floor and into the elevator, where my dad said, “Em, can you please push sixteen?” This was another test I wanted to pass. So I slid my index fingers across the cold steel braille, felt for the backward V that turns letters into numbers, then found the 1 and the 6 and pushed.

“Thanks,” my dad said—proudly, I thought—and his voice bounced off the metal walls of the elevator as we rode up and up. There were other people in the elevator. I wondered who.

On the sixteenth floor, my dad pushed open the door to Annabelle’s room, and I smelled lilies and balloons and something else—candy, maybe; a plasticky red cherry smell I couldn’t quite identify. Maybe lip gloss. Or Twizzlers. It reminded me of Logan.

“Emma, this is Annabelle. Annabelle, I brought my daughter Emma to meet you today.”

There was no voice, just a sound I recognized right away as the movement of a mechanical bed. I couldn’t tell whether its occupant had moved it up or down. I can tell if people have moved higher or lower only if they speak; closer or further away I can hear in other ways.

My dad waited a bit for Annabelle to say something, so I tried to be Leah about it, said in a friendly, big voice, “Hey, Annabelle, so nice to meet you.”

Still nothing.

“Emma is blind, too, Annabelle,” my dad said, and I heard a swallow come from the bed, like maybe some crying was rising up in Annabelle’s throat.

“Can I sit on your bed with you for a little while?” I asked.

My dad said quietly, “She’s nodding.”

I nudged Spark forward, and we made our way to the side of Annabelle’s mattress, which I felt with my hands before hoisting myself up and sitting on the edge. I felt small suddenly, my legs dangling off the mechanical bed. Annabelle still didn’t speak, but I felt her hand come out from under the thin, bleachy hospital quilt and feel around for where I was. She found me and, once she had, left her hand limp on my lap, like it had died there. I picked it up and held it.

My dad must have been watching this. His voice sounded like a clogged drain when he said, “I’m going to let you two hang out together for a bit. Emma, push the call button on Annabelle’s bed when you want me to come back.”

“Okay, Dad,” I said, and the words sounded strong to me, like soldiers marching out of my mouth in a neat line. Maybe because my dad was sad and scared for us, or because Annabelle was too freaked out even to speak yet, the fact of my being able to talk seemed suddenly like a huge achievement, one my dad would have no choice but to notice. We knew something he didn’t know—what it was like to lose our sight. We were older than my dad in this regard, more experienced. His shoes made a shiny sound on the floor, and then he pulled the door closed after him. I heard the swallowing sound in Annabelle’s throat again, and I knew she was trying not to cry.

“You can cry in front of me,” I told her. “I can’t see anyway.” I laughed a little bit and squeezed her hand, hoping to cheer her up, but she took a short, gasping breath and started to sob. I was afraid then, because I didn’t know her story, or what had happened to her or her vision or her face, but I reached over and felt her face anyway, thinking if it was as terrible as mine, she would be bandaged. I put my fingers lightly on her cheeks, then moved them up to her eyes, which were closed and wet from crying but not wrapped or patched.

“It’s really scary, right?” I said. “I cried all the time, too. But not anymore.” I didn’t mention Claire, or the fact that I had cried the day before.

I felt Annabelle’s small face bob up and down on the pillow. She had a cute nose, I noticed, tracing my fingers over it: little, with a slight tilt up at the bottom. I leaned forward and felt around on the tray I knew would be right next to her bed. I found a box, felt its edges, slid it toward myself, and pulled a tissue out. I put it in Annabelle’s hand, and she took it, lifted it almost involuntarily to her face to wipe the tears, but I stopped her hand. “Feel it for a second,” I said, and she did.

“It feels white, right?” She said nothing, and remained motionless on the bed.

“You can wipe your face if you want to,” I said, and she did. I felt her little arms move up to her face and scrub at the tears, and deduced that she hadn’t been in an accident, because she wasn’t gentle with her face. It must have been a disease that made her eyes stop working.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” I asked her, partly because I thought she might, and partly because I thought she might want me to tell her what happened to me; I think it’s weird for older kids to talk about themselves before younger kids get a chance to. It’s something I learned from Naomi and Jenna and Benj. Mostly, if a little kid wants to know something about you, they’ll ask. Adults who talk about themselves in front of kids are creepy. And so are big kids who don’t ask little kids questions first. But since Annabelle didn’t say anything, I was kind of at a loss.

So I asked, “Do you want me to tell you what happened to me?” I put my hands gently on her chin, so I could feel her nod.

“I was at a Fourth of July party with my family—my mom and dad and my sisters and brother. I have five sisters—I only had four then because my littlest sister, Lily, wasn’t born yet—and my brother, Benj,” I said, feeling like I was falling headfirst down a mole hole. I steadied myself, remembering. “We were standing in the front—my dad and I were, I mean; my sisters and my mom and Benj were on a blanket. But anyway, we got there early, just so we’d have a good place to see the fireworks, and my dad and I love them most, so we wanted to be right up near where they were lighting them. But then when they started, one of them blew up backward and sprayed fire and pieces of the bottle rocket into the crowd right where we were standing. And some of it hit my eyes, and they were burned.” My face felt very cold, and there were colors all over the place in the room.

Annabelle was making the swallowing noise again.

I tried to focus on her instead of myself, even though it was the first time I’d told the story. It hadn’t sounded sharp and broken and dangerous, the way it felt in my mind. I added, in a quiet voice, “So that was a really bad thing that happened, right?” I could hear her crying, and feel her nodding.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” I said, “but I bet it was also bad. And scary. Did you used to be able to see?” She nodded again. “And now you can’t, right?” Right.

We both sat there for a while, thinking about each other.

“I learned to read again,” I told her. “Braille. I can get all my favorite books, and my computer talks to me.” She stirred a bit at this, not enough that anyone watching would have been able to pick it up, I think, but just enough that I could sense it, feel it.

“You like computers?”

More nodding.

“Me too. I like science, too,” I said, thinking before I added, “Especially robots.”

At that, she sat up a little straighter.

“There are robots to help kids like us,” I said. “Computers that read to you, sticks that feel the ground in front of you, music players that put on whatever song you ask for. Sometimes,” I said, “I even feel magical.”

She was so still I thought she might be holding her breath.

“I pay really super-close attention to stuff, like this.” I squeezed my face into its tightest focus position. I had never even considered doing my focus-in thing in front of anyone else, but I knew she needed it, and besides, just like I couldn’t see her crying, she couldn’t see me struggling, wishing, hoping so hard it made my head explode.

“When I focus as hard as I can now, I can understand—or kind of see—almost anything,” I told her. “I couldn’t really understand as much before I was blind. Maybe because I didn’t have to.”

She swallowed. I was thinking how shy I would have been if she hadn’t been shyer than me. How scared I would have been if she hadn’t been more scared than me. How everything we feel depends on who we’re feeling it next to. I felt grateful suddenly for my sisters and Benj.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” I asked her. She nodded.

“One?” She shook her head.

“Two?” She nodded.

“Brothers?” She nodded.

“Both of them?” She nodded again.

“Are they older?”

At this, she took my hand and put it on hers, so that I could feel she was holding up one finger.

“One is older?” I guessed.

She nodded, vigorously this time, and I had the thought that she might be smiling. I smiled, and put her hand on my mouth so she could tell.

“What about the other?” I asked. “Younger?” She nodded, and put my hand on her mouth. She was smiling, too.

“They’ll be able to help you figure out fun ways to set up your house so you can get around. And maybe read you stories. My sisters did that for a long time, before I learned to read braille. But now I read to them, late at night, when we’re supposed to have the lights out, because I can read in the dark, under my covers, and nobody knows.”

I could hear Annabelle’s breathing. It had picked up, and had a smooth rhythm.

“Do you want to know the best thing, though?” I asked. And before she could even respond, I said, “You might get a dog like Spark.”

At the sound of his name, Spark perked up. “Stand up, boy,” I told him, and he stood up on his hind legs, putting his face up to where Annabelle and I were. “You can pet him,” I told her, and she reached over with both her hands and felt the sides of Spark’s face. He wagged his tail happily, and she leaned her face in close to his. He was so overcome with delight that his tongue came flying out of his mouth and he slobbered all over her face.

“Spark!” I said, but she kept her face right up in his.

“He really likes you,” I said, genuinely impressed. “He’s not usually such a kisser.”

We stayed like that for a minute, and then I asked if she wanted a Swedish fish. She took my hand, which I took to mean yes, and I pulled the bag from my pocket, tore it open, and gave her a handful. She ate one and fed one to Spark. I don’t usually give him candy, but he loved it and I didn’t want to do anything to make her sad, so I let her feed him the rest of the fish.

There was a knock at the door, and then the sound of my dad’s shoes squeaking across the floor. He said hello, and I said to Annabelle, “Did you hear my dad’s shoes?” I still had my right hand resting lightly under her chin. She nodded. “That’s the sound of black on a white floor.”

“How are you guys doing? Emma, you ready to head out?”

I said I was, and leaned down to give Annabelle a hug. When our faces were right next to each other, I heard a tiny whisper of a word come out of her mouth into my ear. It was so soft and weak, maybe from however long she hadn’t spoken, that I wasn’t even sure what it was or that I’d heard it, except I was, and I had:
Spark.

My dad kissed the top of my head as we walked outside, a little, awkward peck, like a dad bird. Then he cleared his throat.

“So, that was an okay exchange between you and Annabelle?” he asked.

“It was fine,” I said.

“Did she confide anything in you about her experience?”

“I told her what happened to me and then she told me she has an older brother and a younger brother and that she loves robots. Oh, and dogs.”

“She said all of that?”

“Not with words,” I said. “I don’t think she’s in the mood to talk yet. She mostly used her hands and her face.”

“Thank you for meeting her, Emma,” my dad said. “And telling her your story.”

“What happened to her?”

“She has a disease called RP, or retinitis pigmentosa.”

“What is that?”

“We don’t know that much about it, except that it runs in families. It’s extremely rare to be blind from RP so young, and we’re concerned because in some cases it’s caused by syndromes that create other problems as well.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Deafness.”

“Oh.” I took this in for a minute. “Will she be deaf, too?”

“Well, it’s not always . . . well . . .” he stumbled, not wanting to tell me.

“So she will.”

My dad sighed. “In her case, yes, it looks like—”

“When will she lose her hearing?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Does she know she’s going to be deaf, too?”

“No.”

I took this in. “Are her parents blind or deaf?”

“No.”

“What about her brothers?”

“What about them?”

“Are they blind or deaf?”

“No.”

“But will they be?”

“Her older brother is unaffected, but her younger brother appears to be suffering from RP as well, yes.”

“Oh.” I imagined Benj, awake in his toddler bed at night, snuggling Champon, knowing that he would go blind, too. Like me.

“Why is she in the hospital?” I asked.

“She had some gene therapy that was meant to improve her vision.”

“But it didn’t.”

“The results were not optimal, no.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Well, not if she ends up being a brave and brilliant warrior like you,” said my dad.

We decided to
try again at the Mayburg place in January, after New Year’s, which I spent reading and sleeping. Logan went to California to see her dad, and the Sunday she was supposed to get back, Naomi woke me at five in the morning. She said she wanted to give me a card she’d made; she was too excited to wait until I woke up. I was still basically asleep, but I propped myself up, tried not to be annoyed, and opened the envelope.

“Want to read it to me?” I asked her, yawning.

“Nope!” she said.

“Uh, how am—”

I opened the card up and felt the surface on the inside. Up bumped two dot sixes, for “all caps,” and I laughed. Then a raised 2 and 4: I; 1, 2, and 3: L; 1, 3, and 5: O; 1, 2, 3, and 6: V; and 1 and 5: E. Then, the crowning triumph: a solo 1, 3, 4, 5, 6: Y for
YOU
.

I screamed.

“What!? How did you get the
YOU
like that? Have you been learning grade two already?”

She was laughing gleefully.

“I found a glossary on the computer! To surprise you!” she said, so proudly I could hear the warm color of her cheeks.

“It’s the best card ever,” I said, kissing her. “I love you, too.” Then I pulled the covers off. “Follow me,” I said. “I want to show you something.”

We went upstairs, where everyone was still asleep, and I told her to pull down the attic ladder.

“Why?” she asked, scared. We all hate the attic.

“You’ll see,” I said. I lifted her up and she pulled the hatch open and released the ladder, and we made our way up slowly, with her in front. I touched and counted the rungs, five of them; pulled myself through the opening into the attic. Then I felt my way over to the window.

“Open this,” I said, and she did. A blast of icy air came toward us, and then we climbed out, Naomi holding my hand. And we sat in our pajamas on the winter roof, feeling the sun come up. Naomi told me where it was—over the lake, over the roofs, directly over us, and I felt and smelled it, bright yellow in a mint-blue sky.

“Emma?” she said, when we’d been sitting for a while. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What happens at the May-Bird place?”

I was quiet.

“Emma?” she said again. “Are you going there again?”

“Yes.”

“Can I come with?”

“How’d you know about the Mayburg place?”

“I didn’t mean to listen, but I just heard you always talking about it to Logan.” I couldn’t tell what kind of look she had on her face, and I felt sad but didn’t want to reach over and look. “You can say no,” she said. “I was just . . . I don’t want to be home with the babies all the time. It’s boring.”

“You can come with,” I said. “We just meet to talk, but maybe Leah can come, too, because I don’t know if I can get you there myself.”

“You took me here to the roof!”

“
You
took
me
here,” I said, and she laughed. I felt around for her hand and held it.

I was both horribly nervous and thrilled the following Saturday. Knowing Leah would be at the Mayburg place embarrassed me, but I had asked her to come, and to bring Naomi. What if Leah found the whole idea stupid? What if Naomi changed her mind and told on me? On the other hand, what if Leah was impressed? I wanted to impress Leah at least as much as Naomi wanted to impress me.

Logan got back from California in a very sad and weird mood, but at least she called me to see if I wanted to head to the Mayburg place early that Saturday, because some of us were going to clean the place up a bit. Carl and Josh and David had already driven away a bunch of junk in Carl’s dad’s truck. Logan and I walked over, and she told me about California, how her dad went out at night, too, like her mom, and she was mostly by herself at his place, watching TV. Spark and I half listened to Lo and half focused on where we were walking, what was in front of us. And as we approached the Mayburg place, my slight hope of the meeting going well was smothered by a thick, sudden smell I got before anyone else: cooking bacon, cigarette smoke, burning wood.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Hello? What’s going on here?” Logan asked.

“Nothing,” said a slightly laughing voice I didn’t recognize. “Why?”

“Are you here for the meeting?” I said, and immediately regretted it.

“Sure,” said the voice, and then laughed. “What meeting?”

He was older than we were. And we didn’t own the Mayburg place; we were trespassing. We could hardly demand that someone else, someone older, leave because we were “having a meeting.”

“We’re trying to figure out what happened to our friend Claire,” Logan said. “Did you know her?”

He whistled a low whistle. “I know who she was,” he said. He sounded pretty sincere, and Logan’s voice softened.

“What’s your name?” Logan asked him.

“Jason,” he said.

“Hey, Jason, I’m Logan,” Logan said in an unnatural way that made me think he was good looking. “And this is Emma. So, we’ve been meeting here, but we don’t want to get caught, because this is, you know, trespassing?”

“Right,” Jason said.

“So would you mind maybe not lighting fires out back, in case the police or our parents notice?” Logan continued. Now her voice sped up; she was losing confidence, didn’t want to sound bossy, and was definitely embarrassed to have mentioned that we had parents. She added, “I mean, it’s fine to eat here, but maybe we can all bring things that don’t need cooking.”

Other people had begun to come in. I heard Deirdre and Amanda, Elizabeth, Carl and Josh, Christian and Coltrane. People were laughing and chatting and gossiping and tearing open bags of chips. Someone had french fries. A few more people came in. Logan introduced Jason like they’d been friends forever, and Amanda asked where he went to school.

“I don’t at the moment,” he said.

“What do you do?” Amanda asked.

“I work,” Jason said.

“Are you from around here?” Christian Aramond asked.

“My pop lives in Sauberg,” was all he said, before there was a numbing pause, and into it, he injected, “What happened to you?”

It took me a minute to realize he was talking to me.

My heart lurched and sloshed around, giant and dangerous. How did he know something had happened to me? That I wasn’t born this way? I shrugged, hoping to seem casual, thinking about how I had told Annabelle the whole story. “I had an accident,” I said. “I got burned.” It was the first time I’d ever said it that way, out loud.

“Brutal,” he said. “Nice dog, though.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Maybe we should get started,” Logan suggested, and there was a shuffling of chairs, milk crates, pillows, sneakers. The door swung open and I heard more kids come in, including Leah, who shouted across the throngs of people and noise, “Hi, Emma, we’re here!” She made her way over to me and touched my arm, and I could feel Naomi clinging to her other side. “Hey, Naomi,” I said.

“There are so many people here, Emma,” Leah told me. “This is amazing.” I heard Jason’s voice ask, “Who’s that?” But I didn’t know who he was talking about and maybe no one else did, either, because no one answered.

Logan whispered to me that Emily McIntyre had shown up. She was this girl who had apparently gotten pregnant the year before, by this older guy, and had an abortion. She was famous for it. I wondered if she knew that, or thought it was her secret. I wondered what it felt like to be her.

Then, to my surprise, Blythe came in with Dima, whispering. Maybe everyone else was surprised, too, because the room hushed, and Blythe said, “I thought if you all were going to talk shit about my dad again, I’d show up for it this time.”

No one spoke.

“And this whole . . . whatever it is, is stupid and insulting,” Blythe added. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Claire’s dead, and there’s no way everyone sneaking out to talk shit about her behind her back is going to help her, so how about we all just admit that and give her and her family the privacy they deserve.”

“But we’re not talking shit about anyone, Blythe. Just trying to make sense of what happened to Claire,” Logan said.

“Sense?” Blythe said. “Claire killed herself. There’s no such thing as being by the lake, by yourself and high, and falling in, unless you meant to, right? And killing yourself means you care more about yourself than the people you abandon when you do it. None of this is anyone here’s business, except maybe mine.”

“Come on, Blythe, Claire was all of our friend,” Amanda said. “We all hung out; it’s not like you guys were the only ones who—”

“She has a point, Blythe,” Logan said, and I was really surprised, because what did Logan know about it?

“You guys are all fucking idiots,” David Sarabande said. “Blythe gets to decide everything because her and Claire were—” And even though I couldn’t see whatever gesture he made, I got it, and it was like most things you’ve always known but didn’t know out loud or in Technicolor or whatever. I was surprised not to be surprised. Of course: Blythe liked girls, which was why she was sparkling and radiating, which was why she brought Dima; because Dima was her—

“Fuck you, David,” Blythe said.

“Why? Is it not true?”

“It’s none of your business, is what it is. If anyone here wants to talk about my dad, and accuse him of being a drug dealer, do it directly.” She started to walk out.

“Wait, Blythe, don’t go, please,” I said. “We didn’t mean to . . .”

Everyone waited.

“To what?” Blythe asked me.

But I couldn’t continue.

Monica Dancat asked in a super-quiet voice, “Um, did her parents know?”

“Know what? Did Claire’s parents know what?”

“That she was, you know, into girls or whatever?”

“She wasn’t
into girls
, Monica. Okay? And I don’t know what the hell her parents knew or thought they knew. Or why we’re talking about this, since it’s all totally moot now anyway.”

Amanda said, “I don’t mean to be . . . but didn’t her parents—”

“Are you serious, Amanda?” Blythe said. “Shut up.”

“I just think if it’s because they found out, and they’re keeping the whole thing secret, that we should actually talk about it. I mean, when we took the—”

Monica said, “I agree with Amanda. I mean, if Claire was gay, and that’s why she . . . I mean, it is kind of everyone’s business. She made it our business by dying.”

“Maybe we should move to a different . . .” Logan said, in a fluttery, fake voice that made me think of a butterfly in the winter, freezing as it tried to flap its overly colorful wings against the absolute white of the cold. I wondered why she would want to change the subject when it seemed to me we had finally arrived at the point of all of our meetings and work and arguments.

I couldn’t help myself. “But was
that
why? Claire killed herself because she was, whatever, gay?” I asked. “Or because her parents caught her?” I couldn’t help the rage in my voice; how easy would being gay be compared to being blind? I didn’t have a chance to ask that directly, though, because Blythe’s weapon voice came down like a blade from above where I was sitting.

“Fuck you,” Blythe said, and I wondered suddenly where Naomi was sitting, whether she was okay. Blythe’s voice was quiet, but it felt like she was yelling: “You fill a stadium with people so you can pry into Claire’s private life, like you’re doing her or her family some big favor? By what, outing her? By accusing people of shit you know nothing about? If Claire’s parents want to keep the details of her death private, that’s totally their right.”

“But why?” I asked. “I mean, isn’t keeping secrets just worse?”

“Keeping secrets? That’s rich. Why don’t you two catch up on each other’s secrets instead of publicly announcing Claire’s and mine? Have you told Emma about last summer yet, Logan?”

My voice had that sound it sometimes gets, like it’s coming from someone underneath me, underneath the floorboards, the dirt: “Told me what?” I asked, beating like the dead guy’s heart in that Edgar Allan Poe story.

“Watch it, Blythe,” Logan said. My heart was up in my throat, gagging me.

“Watch what, Logan? Who the hell made you two God?” Then she stormed out. I felt the room start to spin, and put my hand down on the side of the table I’d been sitting on, trying to steady myself, but it didn’t work. I felt like I might throw up. I stood, said, “Let’s go, boy,” to Spark, and stumbled toward the door, reaching out as I went, feeling chairs, people, stuff. I didn’t care what I touched.

“Blythe, wait! Please?” I called. I could hear Blythe and Dima moving through the grass, and then I heard them stop. I tried to walk toward them, but stumbled, and heard them move back toward me.

“Be careful, Emma,” Blythe said. “It’s a mess back here.”

“I know,” I said, tripping a little again. Someone reached out and held my arm. Dima, I guessed. “Blythe, please forgive me. I didn’t realize . . . I mean, I didn’t want this to be . . . we won’t tell anyone about—”

“About what?” Blythe said. “You have the entire world talking about my private life, which is what you wanted, right?” Her voice was too far away to be connected to the arm that was holding mine, so I said, “Thanks, Dima,” and she said, “You okay now?” I nodded and she let go of my arm.

“This is not what I wanted. We can stop, okay? We’ll make everyone promise not to mention the—I mean, we can keep your secrets secret. I thought it would help to . . . I don’t know. I just wanted to know something about Claire—something I thought would make us all understand—”

“Well, now you know something,” Blythe said, and she walked away.

Leah and Naomi were outside then, and when Leah called my name, I jumped. “Let’s go home,” she said.

But I called after Blythe, “What did you mean about last summer?”

Blythe turned around from where she was, at least fifteen feet away in the trees, so I barely heard her, but I did. Maybe my bat ears were on duty. She said what I knew she would: “Ask Logan.”

“Emma, are you okay?” Naomi asked me in a tiny voice.

“I’m fine,” I said.

We were starting to make our way out of the woods when Logan came up behind us.

“Emma, wait,” she said breathlessly. “Please. Let me walk you home. Leah? Can I walk with Em? Can you guys go ahead?”