Gingerbread Man (47 page)

She came closer, moved right up next to the
bed. Sandra was on the other side, and she slid a hand over mine,
closing it tight, and said, “I’ll probably look like an old lady to
you.” She was shaking, nervous and hopeful, and near tears.

“Shit,
I’ll
probably look like an old
lady to me. At least you had all morning to do hair and makeup.
I’ve never smelled so much hairspray in my life.”

She laughed softly. “It’s true, I did. Spent
an hour and a half. It’s not every day your sister sees you for the
first time in so long. God, I was what, sixteen?”

Doc’s hands were at the back of my head, and
she started unwrapping the gauze, layer by layer.

“Don’t worry,” I told Sandra to lighten the
mood. “I wasn’t expecting you to still be three feet tall and
wearing bunny jammies. But you’d better have kept the dimples and
curls. I’m probably a hag. It’s unfair.”

“You’re beautiful, Rachel. You’ve always been
beautiful.”

“Yeah, that’s the ticket. Make me cry so I
can’t see shit even with my new eyes.”

I wasn’t even kidding. Really.

“Don’t expect too much,” Doc said. “It’s
going to be better than the last times, but still a little blurry
for a couple of months. But it will improve. Every day it’ll
improve.”

“Thanks for the warning. Will you hurry up,
already? What are you, rolling the gauze back up to reuse as you go
along?”

“You are such a bitch, Rachel,” Amy said. But
she said it with love, and her voice was thick with tears
already.

The gauze was gone. I could feel it. Now
there were just two thick pads over my eyes. Doc said, “Keep them
closed until I tell you to open them, okay?”

“You want me to wait longer? Yeah, what the
hell, it’s only been twenty years.”

She had her fingertips over the pads, just in
case I got antsy, I guess. “Amy, can you get the lights? Sandra,
the blinds? I want it dim in here for this.”

They moved. The light switch snapped; blinds
whispered shut.

And then the pads were being peeled away.
“Not yet, Rachel. Keep them closed. Just for a few more seconds.”
Doc dabbed my eyes with something warm and wet. Then it moved away.
“Okay.”

Okay, I can open them now.

No, I can’t do it.

“Go ahead, Rachel. It’s all right. Open your
eyes.”

Just do it already. What are you gonna do,
walk around with your eyes closed for the rest of your life?

God, why is this so hard?

I made myself do it. And you know, as much as
you might think you can open your eyes slowly, you can’t. You
really can’t. Try it, go ahead. There’s just no way. Eyes are
either closed or open. Mine were closed.

And then they were open.

And it was dim, but…I could
see
. I
couldn’t believe it. Had to double-check.

Am I really seeing, or is this
imagination?

No, no, it was real. I could see people in
the room. Yes, blurry, I guess, but consider what I had to compare
it to. Women, three women, and I almost panicked, thinking I
wouldn’t know who was who and would hurt their feelings.

Duh, you knew who was who before, didn’t
you?

Right. Sandra’s on the left, holding my hand.
I shifted my new eyes to her, and then I clapped my hand over my
mouth and the tears started up. “I can see you,” I said behind my
hand.

She was smiling and shaking her head, and
crying, too, bending to hug me, but I pushed her away. “No, no, I
want to look at you.” And then I clasped her face in my hands and
stared at it. Smooth porcelain skin, and blue blue eyes, and laugh
lines. My big sister, all grown up. I stared at her until I saw the
girl she’d been in her face, in her blue eyes. Her hair was still
curly, and I thought it was still gold, but it was too dark to be
sure.

I turned from her to look at Amy by the foot
of the bed. And I laughed and smeared tears off my cheeks with one
hand, careful of my eyes. “You look just like I thought…only not as
Goth and even cuter.” She was, short, a little more rounded than
she wished she was, short dark perfectly straight hair parted deep
on one side. I knew it was dark red—not auburn but burgundy; I’d
heard her say so. But in the dimness it looked black.

“I usually
am
more Goth, but I toned
it down for this,” she said, grinning, tears rolling down her
cheeks.

And then I looked at Doc. And blinked.
“You’re
Asian
?” I burst out.

She broke into laughter, wiping tears from
her cheeks.

“Well, you could have told me! What the hell
kind of Asian is named Fenway?”

“A married one.”

I looked at the laptop on the tray table
beside the bed where BW was sobbing her eyes out from inside a
little box on the screen. This must be the magical Skype I’d heard
so much about. She had a predictable short, sleek silver hairstyle,
but I couldn’t see her face, because she had dropped it into her
hands and was bawling like the rest of us.

“God, BW, look up will you?”

She did. Man, she was a classic beauty,
sculpted cheekbones, big brown eyes. And sharp. Even if they were
weepy at the moment.

She smiled at me. Her teeth were
so
white!

“You’re gorgeous! You’re
all
gorgeous.” I couldn’t stop looking from one woman to the other.
“God, everything is…brighter. Even in the dark.” Then I looked at
Doc again. “Can’t I have a little more light?”

Nodding, she went to the window and opened
the blinds just a crack, and I could see even more. If it was
blurry, I didn’t know it. Since, aside from twenty-year-old
memories, I had only darkness to compare it to, and the teasing
glimpses offered by transplants gone by, it seemed perfectly 20/20
to me.

“This is amazing. Oh my God.”
Please last,
please last, please just fucking last this time.
“When can I
have full blasting sunlight?”

“In a few days. Here.” She leaned over and
slid a pair of tinted glasses on my face. “You need to wear
these—
these
, not your designer ones—until further notice,
okay?”

I pulled them off and looked at them. “Oh,
come on, these? Can’t I pick out a nicer pair? You know, something
trendy, with spangles or—” I stopped and looked at Sandra, grinning
like a loon `cause I could still see her. “For all I know, these
are
trendy. Are they?”

“Not in the least,” Sandra said. Then she
leaned over and picked up the top of the tray table, revealing a
mirror.

And there I was, staring at myself. At me.
Seeing me more clearly than I had in twenty years. It was so
surreal my stomach twisted a little. “That’s
me
?” I pulled
off the sunglasses and leaned closer, tipping my head at various
angles, touching my hair. “It’s like looking at a stranger.”

“A beautiful stranger,” Sandra said.

Amy added, “Yeah, but way more beautiful when
you’re not in a hospital bed, post-op, no makeup, kind of pale and
tired. Trust me, you look way better on your good days, hon.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off myself as I
searched for the image I used to identify with, which I only now
realized was a slightly older, slightly taller twelve-year-old.
With boobs.

“We’ll go shopping for prescription glasses
in any style you want the minute you get out of here,” Sandra
promised. “But you really need to listen to the doctor and put
those back on for now.”

I nodded but didn’t obey. “When do I get out
of here?” I asked. Because I wanted to see everything.

“Later today,” Doc said.

I shook my head in amazement. Later today I
was going to walk out of this hospital without a cane, without
having to count my steps or listen for traffic. “I don’t see how
life can get any better than this,” I said, sounding like one of my
own books.

Almost as soon as I said, it, I wanted to
snatch the words back. And not just because they made me gag. It
didn’t pay to tempt fate like that. I mean, maybe life couldn’t get
any better or maybe it could. What I knew for sure was that it
could
definitely
get worse.

And it was about to.

‘Cause really, miracles are just fairy tales.
And reality pretty much sucks.

BEING ABLE TO see was so damn good, I almost
started believing my own bull. I mean, really, you’ve gotta give me
some leeway here. After being blind for twenty years, getting your
sight back is a pretty big deal, and even the bitchiest of
skeptical bitches would start to waver a little.

We had agreed to keep my “miracle” quiet for
a while, which was great. I just wanted to bask in
seeing
for a little while before going public with the whole thing.

I had never seen my own house, and my first
day home from the hospital all I wanted to do was walk through just
looking
at it, you know?

I rode home in Sandra’s minivan. Jim had to
work, but the twins were in the backseat, chattering all the way
about how I would now be able to watch Misty’s soccer games, and
Christy’s cheerleading routines, and omygod the school play was
next month. It was hard to tune them out so I could gaze out the
windows at the scenery, but I managed.

We took the Whitney Point exit, left at the
light and straight through the village, and I was taking it all in.
The river, really wide and shallow, and pretty, the mix of nice and
junky-looking businesses, the big brick school building that had
probably been there for a century or so, minus the various
additions. We took a right at the Mobil-slash-McDonald’s, and drove
until the pavement ended and became the unpaved track that twined
around the lake-sized reservoir. I lived beyond the backside of the
dam, surrounded by state forest and the reservoir itself. I
realized as Sandra drove just how far I had retreated from the
world.

Made sense, I guess. I was in the public eye
in my work. I liked to hide my private life away. I mean, I wasn’t
paparazzi-bait famous, but still, I
was
a total fraud.
Privacy was important when you were running a scam as big as
mine.

When we rolled up to the gated driveway I sat
there gaping. My house was like a fairy-tale cottage on crack.
Steep peaks, curved clay shingles, some sections cobblestone,
others rich maple wood. The windows were tall with red-stained
shutters, and the front door was a like a slice from a giant
redwood tree. My curving walkway was bordered in thick beds of
mums…yellow, brown, red, orange. I got out of the minivan and stood
there staring at them like a jackass until Sandra put her hand on
my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” I
looked past her at the tall, lean, pair of blonde cover models who
were my twin nieces. My mental camera had totally malfunctioned on
those two. I’d been picturing a pair of chubby twelve-year-olds
with their mother’s dimples, I guess, even though I knew they were
sixteen. Everyone looked way too serious and sappy-eyed. So I
grinned, going for the kind I’d heard called
shit-eating
and
said, “This is
really
fuckin’ cool.”

They laughed. Great. Sappiness averted. We
all went inside.

Family party that first night. Amy, who I
considered family, Sandra, the twins—still no Mott. And, of course,
no Tommy. Sandra and the kids avoided mentioning his name, and when
I did, the subject was gently, firmly changed. Sandra had been in
touch with the police again. Still no news.
Let’s focus on
celebrating tonight. Tommy would want us to
. End of
subject.

Eventually everyone went home. Well, everyone
but Amy, who hung back, offering to help with the dishes. But I
knew that wasn’t what she really wanted.

So I washed, and she dried, and while I was
thinking this china pattern really didn’t suit me at all and
imagining how much fun I would have picking out something new, she
finally got to the point.

“So there are a couple of things….”

I pulled the plug on the sink. “I could tell.
What’s wrong, Amy? You never keep quiet for this long. You afraid I
won’t need an assistant anymore now that I can see, because
honestly—”

“Pshhhhh. Are you kidding? You couldn’t get
along without me if you had four sets of 20/20 eyes.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” I looked her up
and down for effect. She wore short black boots with killer heels
and silver buckles, a pair of black leggings under a skintight
miniskirt, an off-the-shoulder top that looked like it had been
caught in the gears of the washer and torn up a little, with a
white cami underneath, and a silver necklace with a giant skull.
“Your job is safe, kid, unless I find out you’ve been dressing
me
like that, in which case, you are
so
fired.”

She smiled so big I got distracted by her
teeth. Straight and white except for the incisors, which stuck out
in front of the rest a little bit.

“You could not even hope to pull this off,”
she said with a look at her own getup.

“Why would I want to?”

She rolled her eyes.

“So, if you’re not worried about your job,
then what’s up?”

Her demeanor changed. I couldn’t put my
finger on it until I stopped looking and started feeling again. Her
body had shifted away from mine a little, and I sensed her
shrinking into herself, not quite as open as before.
She’s
hiding something. Or wishing she could. But she knows she has to
tell me, whatever it is.

“Come on, Amy. In case you haven’t noticed,
I’m dying to be alone in my house for a while. Just spill it, so
you can leave already.”

She did look at me then, and offered a
crooked smile, more on the left than on the right. “I hope you
never change,” she said. “You’re such a bitch. I just love you so
much. So yeah, there’s one little thing.”

“I’m listening.”

“You know how we talked a while back about
getting you a service dog?”