Night Blindness (25 page)

“I always remember that lighthouse on his birthday,” I said.

“And you send forget-me-nots to his grave.” He watched me dig a piece of conch shell out of the sand.

“How'd you know?”

He smiled. “I know my Jensen. Quiet about the good she does.”

“He used to make tuba noises with these,” I said, holding up the half shell. “The whole ones.” I passed the piece to him, and he turned it around in his fingers.

“He was good at stuff like that,” he said. “Remember the duck call he used to do?”

“I hated that sound,” I said meanly. I could feel my father staring at me, and I pushed my feet into the sand, burying my toes. “Sorry,” I said. “I'm ugly. Sometimes I say ugly things.”

He shook his head. “You're not ugly.”

Heat lightning lit up the rail around the lighthouse. “I am.” Thunder followed several seconds later. I could hear the belligerence in my voice, could feel the anger rising. “I'm not what you think.” I suddenly felt claustrophobic, being with my dad, who ignored that I'd fucked everything up, called me his “good girl” even though I'd hardly been home in thirteen years. Now with only one more week of radiation left, I'd be back in Santa Fe before we knew it, never having told him the truth.

“Well,” he said, “if that old wives' tale is true, we only have about ten minutes until the storm hits. What do you say we eat?”

His shirt had a line of sweat down the middle. He reached over and opened the picnic basket.

“You know the night Will died?” I dug my fingernails into my leg. “Remember that ER doctor kept asking if he'd had another accident after the game?” I felt a drop of rain on my neck.

My dad took his glasses off and stuck the arm in his ear. “Sure, of course I remember.”

“He did, Daddy.” A seagull called, a desperate sound.

He blinked at me. “An accident?”

I nodded.

He paused, as if trying to remember the words. “What kind of accident?”

I felt like I had when I used to get those awful fevers as a kid: My skin was hot, but my insides were cold. My voice came out as though I were talking in a foreign language. “Will hit his head on the fireplace.” I said it very quickly. The words floated between us, vulgar and obscene. My father opened his mouth. I felt as though I were shrinking. “Will told Ryder not to date me, but we…” How could I explain it? How could I tell him I'd been about to have sex with Ryder, and that Will had come down and I'd pushed him so hard, he'd hit his head a second time? How could I say all that and not make it sordid and horrible? “Will came down, and Ryder and I were on the couch. We were … together; it was nothing bad. Will got mad, and he came at Ryder—”

“Jensen.” My father laughed, a short, odd bark. “You're not making sense.”

I spoke quickly. “I didn't tell you until now because I was scared; I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore.” I realized I was crying.

He stared at me. His face had changed to carven stone. It was a look I'd seen before, but it had never, ever been directed at me. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

The waves were bigger now, slamming against the beach. “That's why I went to boarding school.” Another roll of thunder hit. “Because I couldn't stand for you to see me after what I'd done.”

“What”—his voice was rigid—“did you do?”

I swallowed. I had to speak loudly because of the waves, because of the thunder. It was raining harder now and I felt it on the back of my neck, on my head. It occurred to me it had been raining the day I told Mandy, too, as though the sky were commiserating, crying. “When Will found Ryder and me on the couch, he hit Ryder. He was threatening him, so I pushed him, and then I pushed him again. I was mad; he—”

But my father cut me off. “What happened to him? What happened to Will?”

Oh Jesus. Why? Why had I started to tell him? I couldn't stop now; the words were running all over themselves. “He stumbled backward. And his head hit the hearth. He wasn't breathing, so we called nine one one and…” I told him I didn't mean to; I must have said it a hundred times. “It was an accident,” I said. I was cold, shivering. “Will was so mad, he hit Ryder.” I realized I was blaming him. Blaming my dead brother. “Daddy,” I said. “Please … I didn't mean it … I shouldn't have told you.”

But my dad did what I'd been hoping he wouldn't do: He stood up. He walked backward a few steps, then stopped. “That must have been terrible for you.” His voice was choked, as though he were holding something back, an entire city. “Keeping this to yourself all this time.”

“I'm sorry, Daddy.” I was still kneeling on the beach. “Please, I don't know why I told you like this—”

But his words ran right over me. “I'm glad you did.” And then he put his pointer finger up as though he was going to say one more thing, but he never did. He just turned and walked away, past the carousel, up the grassy slope, small and hunched, his blond hair windblown, his feet sinking into the damp sod.

And then he found that little break in the chain-link fence and went through it, leaving me alone on the beach with that wet picnic basket and those horses in mid-flight, their eyes wide open.

 

22

“J.J. Why are you here?” Mandy rolled down the passenger window. She was wearing her hair in two long braids. Her T-shirt read
TELL YOUR BOYFRIEND TO QUIT CALLING ME.

I put the picnic basket in the back of her Touareg and got in the car, my arms crossed in front of me. I was shivering, but I didn't feel cold. She pulled out. “Where am I taking you?”

“I can't go home,” I told her.

“Okay.” She dragged the word out several syllables. She smelled like the silver iodide she used to emulsify film. “Let's go to my place.”

I glanced back at the lighthouse, blinking in the dark. Hours before, it had seemed cozy, welcoming; now it was a warning signal.

“Is it your dad?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Is he okay?”

I didn't answer.

“J.J., you're scaring me.”

But I told her I didn't want to talk about it, and Mandy, being Mandy, just turned on the radio and let me sit there like a ghost in the car.

At her apartment, she led me through the hallway, which was covered in African masks and Balinese art, and plopped me down on the overstuffed couch. I was shivering and couldn't seem to do anything but stare at that row of little matryoshka dolls she'd brought home from Kaliningrad. Each figurine was smaller than the one before. I counted thirteen, an unlucky number. The last was half the size of my pinkie. I heard Mandy taking the glass top off the decanter at the antique tea caddy she called her bar. “Here.” She handed me a glass of something that might have been brandy. A tapestry hung against a back wall. She'd sent an identical one to me in Santa Fe after she'd been shooting okapi and white rhino in the Congo.

She took a sip of the brandy. “What the hell is going on?”

“I told him.”

Her eyes widened. “Your dad?”

I nodded.

“Just now?” Her windows were open, and it smelled misty and wet. I could see the New Haven Green sprawled out below us. “What did he say?”

I was completely numb. I couldn't feel anything. I tried wriggling my toes. “He just”—I shrugged—“walked away.”

“Jesus. What did you tell him? I mean…”

“I told him Will came downstairs that night and found Ryder and me on the couch, and I pushed him, and he hit his head.” I wanted to tell him that I hadn't hit Will that hard. That I didn't think I was strong enough to knock him down. I couldn't believe I'd told him on Will's birthday. I couldn't stop seeing him going through the chain link. “And then he left.”

“J.J.” Mandy put her brandy glass on the table. “You're ringing.”

The Velvet Underground song was playing. Ryder. I held my phone, staring at it. “What if my dad went over to Ryder's with a shotgun?”

She grabbed the phone from me and pressed the green answer button. “Your dad is a Democrat.” She handed it to me. “He's antifirearms.”

I gulped the drink. It burned going down. “Hey, Ryder.” I tried to sound like I wasn't falling apart.

“Jenny.” His voice was tight. “You need to get to the hospital right now.”

“The hospital?”

Mandy scooted over to listen, and I held the phone between us. “Your dad's had a seizure.” He had the same flat, slightly patronizing tone he used when I'd overheard him talking to patients, his Mr. Rogers voice. “And he's unconscious.”

Mandy was already shoving her feet in a pair of sandals. “I'll drive.”

When we got to her car, she put me into the passenger's side. “I'm not drunk, Mand. I can do it.” But I slunk down in the seat and let her strap me in. “I never should have told him,” I said. She didn't answer. She just patted my arm and shut the door. I watched her run to the driver's side. I wanted to take it back, all of it.

Mandy talked loudly and quickly as she drove, too fast, toward the hospital. “Listen, this didn't happen because you told him. You know things like that don't happen. You don't have a seizure because you're surprised. He probably—” But her voice became just noise, I couldn't really hear the words. Restaurants zipped by, all-night gas stations, grocery stores. Luke was full of shit. There was no relief in telling the truth. I thought of my dad at the roller coaster that day, of his eyes rolling back. I wondered if he'd been alone after he left the beach.

Stopped at the red light on Howard and York, Mandy banged the steering wheel. “Hurry up.” She honked at a group of kids crossing in front of the car; the girls had on bathing suit tops, and the boys' shirts were untucked. They were laughing, walking in that careless way of people who have their whole lives ahead of them and nothing to regret. As soon as the last one got an inch past her bumper, Mandy pushed down on the gas and sped through the light.

In the ER, she grabbed my hand and dragged me to a balding doctor who was reading a chart. “Sterling Reilly,” she said.

The doctor closed the file and took off his rimless glasses. “Through the double doors, take a left.” He sized me up. “Room one thirteen.”

Mandy pulled me down the hall and around the corner, and just as we got there, Dale came out of the room. “Jensen,” she said.

“What happened? Is Ryder here?”

“He got called away.” She was standing in front of the door like a linebacker, defending it. She glanced at Mandy.

“She's my best friend,” I said.

Dale raised her eyebrows. “Why don't you have a seat?” She nodded to a folding chair across the hall. I sat on the edge of it, and Dale stayed standing. Mandy hung back, reading a bulletin board.

“What happened?” I asked. My clothes were sandy and dirty, and I was still shivering.

“Your father is very sick. He's lost consciousness.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. She was wearing ladybug earrings, which reminded me of a child's jewelry box. “His temperature is almost a hundred and four, and your mother said the seizure lasted several minutes. We're not sure what caused it.” I touched the fray of my jean shorts. I hated Jamie for being with him when I wasn't. “Jenny,” she said.

“It's Jensen,” I told her.

“But Ryder…”

“He's the only one.”

“Okay, Jensen.” She seemed to draw up into herself. “Has he been acting strange lately?”

“Define
strange.
” I felt cut off from myself. “Is it strange that he can't think of words like
yogurt
and
chair
? And that he goes from sitting at the kitchen table, talking about our plans for the weekend, to crying uncontrollably for no reason?”

“Aphasia is part of the disease. I'm talking about new symptoms. Anything you can tell me could help.”

At dinner the night before, Luke had asked my dad to pass the tofu steaks, but he couldn't make his fingers connect to the platter. “He's been grabbing at the air, like he's trying to catch something.”

Her back stiffened. “How often?”

I could tell by the tone of her voice that something was wrong. “I don't know, a few times a day for the last three days.”

“He could have been having an aura,” she said. Jesus, now she sounded like Luke. “It's a prelude to a seizure,” she explained.

I felt a wash of relief. Maybe it wasn't because I'd told. “If I'd known what it was,” I said, “I would have brought him in. I just thought we were so close to the end of radiation, he must be getting better.”

She ignored this. “We need to get him to radiology as soon as possible.” She held her breath for a moment. She was infuriatingly calm. “We'll run a series of tests.” She continued in her level voice.
Stop it,
I wanted to scream at her. “And then we'll have a clearer idea of what stressed his system.”

I knew exactly what had stressed his system. “Luke is with your mother at the cafeteria. She was very upset, and I asked him to take her out of the room. I'll check in again soon.” She walked purposefully down the hall.

“I'm going in,” I told Mandy.

When I pushed open his door, the room was dark and quiet. It smelled like ammonia. My dad was completely still, his face pale and waxy. His eyes were closed. I thought of what Dale had said:
Your father is very sick.
Leaning over the metal rail, I put my lips to his forehead just like he'd done to me a thousand times when I was a kid. He was really hot. Putting my ear against his thin hospital gown, I could hear him breathing.

I stayed like that for a long time, watching the lights go up and down on the screen above us, listening to that steady, hypnotizing heartbeat. Finally, I raised my head and pushed the lever that lowered the safety bar. I lay next to him. He didn't move when I wrapped my hand around his belly and put my head on his shoulder. His mouth was open a little, and I could hear a whistling sound through his nose when he exhaled. “Hey, Dad,” I said. Beyond him, the window shade was up. On the street below, cars sped through green lights; people stood at the corner of York and Legion, waiting to cross. I didn't think any of them could have known pain like this. Very softly, I touched his cheek, his wiry blond eyebrows, and the tiny veins in his lids. “I'm sorry,” I whispered.