Summer Light: A Novel (41 page)

“I know.”

May bowed her head, wiped her eyes.

“I understand,” Teddy said. “He’s facing something very difficult.”

“Then you know already—”

“I suspect, but I’m not sure of the degree. We’ll know by the end of the exam.”

“I’m so worried about Martin,” May said. “Please help him, Teddy. Please…”

“I’ll do whatever I can,” she said. Then, embracing May, she left her alone in the big corner office. The room had a view of Logan Airport across the black water, and there were planes taking off and landing. The office walls were covered with William’s beautiful pictures of lighthouses all over the world.

But May didn’t look at any of it. She stared down at the wedding album. It was filled with pictures of Teddy and William, Emily and Lorenzo Dunne, Aunt Enid and May herself, but most of all, Samuel and Abigail Taylor. Staring at the pictures of her father, May couldn’t take her eyes away.

He looked just as May remembered him. Tall and strong, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. He wore a gray suit with a blue tie—narrowing her eyes, May thought she could see tiny seagulls printed on it. She had given him a seagull tie for Father’s Day once. Grinning at the camera, he had one hand on May’s shoulder.

Staring at the picture, May’s eyes flooded. She was six or seven, the same age as Kylie. In every shot, she was no more than two steps away from her father. She had adored him, and the feeling had been mutual.

Love mattered so much. Family and old friends helped even when they weren’t there. Now May closed her eyes, shutting out even the pictures. She conjured up her parents’ faces. There was her father, smiling out at her. Since her visit to Serge, May had gotten her father back.

She thanked God for Martin, that he wanted to be a father to Kylie. Tears rolling down her cheeks, May wished Martin had
his
father back. She wished that no matter what this exam would reveal, Martin would have the strength and love of his father to lean on.

Martin had never liked doctor’s visits. As a kid, his mother had had to bribe him to go to the pediatrician. As he got older, his checkups had been restricted to team physicals and the aftercare for injuries sustained while playing hockey.

So, sitting in this high-tech doctor’s office, he had butterflies in his stomach. He wished May had been allowed in with him. The equipment looked like instruments of torture.

“How are you feeling, Martin?” Teddy asked.

“I’m great,” he lied.

“That’s good. I’m going to do a few tests today, a little more involved than we did yesterday, and I’d like you to try to relax.”

“I’m relaxed,” he said, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tight and knotted as wet shoelaces.

“Good, dear.” In spite of her motherly manner, the doctor’s movements were all business. She checked the dials on the instruments, made notations.

“I’m going to do a fluorescein angiogram,” she said. “It’s going to test any changes in your retina, but to get the best reading possible, I have to inject dye. You’re not allergic, are you?”

“No,” Martin said. Having undergone a myelogram to check his spine after a severe altercation with several New Jersey Devils five years ago, he had experienced contact dye. The mere idea of it made him feel bad, and Teddy noticed.

“It’s not fun,” she said. “Makes some people feel nauseous.”

“I remember.”

“Well, it will give me the truest sense of what’s going on—”

“Do it,” Martin interrupted her. “Whatever it takes, anything you say. I’ll do anything to get this over. Finish the tests, make the diagnosis, give me my medicine. I’ll take it, all of it, just to be ready for practice next month. Exercises, surgery, anything.”

“Martin—” she began.

Martin didn’t like to plead or beg, but he wanted to state his case clearly, so she’d understand. She was a hockey fan; she had probably treated other players at different times. “I have to get better fast,” he said. “This might be my last year.”

“Your last year?”

“To play hockey.” Now that he had started talking, he felt the words coming faster and faster. “I’m getting old for the game. My joints are giving out, but that’s just what happens when you’ve played as long as I have. I didn’t tell May this, but I’d been planning to retire this year.”

“You mean after next season?” Teddy asked, frowning.

Martin shook his head. “I mean after
last
season.”

“But you didn’t…”

“I couldn’t. I have to win the Stanley Cup first,” he said.

“You’re a great player, Martin. With or without—”

He shook his head hard. Maybe he’d been wrong; perhaps she didn’t get it after all. “It’s everything,” he said. “I’ve been playing for it my whole life. My father won it three times. Yep, three times. These last two years, ever since I’ve had May, I’ve been so close. Right there, about to win…”

“I watched you on TV,” she said.

“If I’d won Game Seven, I would be retired by now,” he said, his heart pounding. “That was my plan, but it didn’t happen. One more year, Doctor. That’s all I need. I know I can win this time. I’m positive I can do what it takes, if I can just hang on for one more year.”

Teddy stood there in front of him, her arms at her side. Martin’s eyes were so blurry, he could hardly see her. “It’s getting worse instead of better,” he said, the words flowing out. “I wake up in the morning, and I can hardly see.”

“I know,” she said.

“Fix me,” he said. “Give me one more chance to win—”

“Martin,” she said gently. “We don’t know what we’re going to find here tonight. I promise to do my best, and it’s wonderful to know what a willing patient you are. You have no idea how important that is.”

“I’ll do anything,” he said.

When she didn’t reply, Martin stopped talking. His face felt red, and his vocal chords hurt as if he’d been yelling. He closed his eyes, pulled himself together the way he did during the toughest games. The doctor was going to do her best. He felt her hand on his shoulder, and he looked up without blinking or smiling.

“I’m ready,” he said.

The testing began.

Through keratoscopy, concentric rings of light were projected onto his corneas. Teddy then did corneal topography, explaining that she was using the newest equipment to make a map of any subtle underlying structural defects. To measure the cornea’s thickness and any possible swelling, she used a pachymeter.

Martin willed himself to sit still, not move a muscle. He focused on the exam as if he was driving for the goal. He told himself this was the most important game he’d ever played, that if he got through today, he’d make it to the Cup finals next spring and have another chance. He felt sick to his stomach, and his eyes stung and ached.

Teddy explained that gonioscopy was the procedure by which the anterior chamber angle of the eye is evaluated, that ophthalmoscopy allowed her to view the optic nerve, retina, blood vessels, choroid, and a portion of the ciliary body—the point of attachment for the ligament of the lens as well as the cells which secrete the aqueous humor.

“The eye is a camera,” she said. “But we actually see with the brain.”

She explained that the clear forward part of the eye allowed light through the cornea, pupil, and lens. The retina acted as film—tissue covering the back. Containing cones and rods, the tissue transformed light into electrical impulses that carried data through the optic nerve to the brain. From the data, images were formed by the brain.

“My right eye’s fine,” Martin said, tightly holding the chair arm. “I know my left eye’s weak, but I can see through my right—”

Teddy told him to breathe deeply as she injected the dye, and Martin felt waves of nausea. He pictured Jorgensen out there jeering, and it steeled him to get through Teddy recording the retinal changes with a special camera. The flashes startled him, just like photographers waiting outside the locker room when he least expected them.

The light bursts unlocked an ancient memory: Martin at four or five, walking down a long corridor with his father. It was after a game, and his father’s team had won. Martin remembered a deep sense of pride, of knowing his father was the best hockey player in Canada. Carrying his father’s skates, Martin had felt nothing would ever tear them apart. His mother had surprised them, snapping their picture.

Martin still had the photo. Years later, when Serge had won his first Stanley Cup, Martin had come across the picture buried in his bureau drawer. Estranged from his father by that time, Martin had felt the misery of rage mixed with pride.

Sitting there, he thought of Game 7, of how much he had wanted his father to see him win. He thought of May’s visit to Serge, of the letter he had received and not opened. Martin exhaled, to get rid of the thoughts.

Images flashed on a computer, and Teddy printed them out. Martin had to use the rest room, and she pointed him down the hall. She asked if he needed help getting to her office. He said no, and she told him she would see him in a few minutes. He just wanted the news, to get started on a plan of action right away. To fix his eyes.

Waiting for Martin, May had continued looking through Teddy’s old pictures. Her wedding had taken place one June morning at the Old North Church, and because she and William had had no young children in their lives, May had been the flower girl.

“Your family was very good to me,” Teddy said, walking into the office.

May’s stomach dropped at the greeting. Why hadn’t she mentioned Martin? If it was good news, wouldn’t she have said right away? “You mean my mother and grandmother for planning your wedding?” May asked slowly.

“All of them. All of you. You were such an important part of that day.”

“Thank you. We didn’t often attend the weddings we planned. Yours is one of the only ones I remember.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so glad you came to me,” she said steadily. “For this. So I can help you and Martin.”

For this.
Two words. Teddy didn’t smile as she said them. She had an edge in her voice, as if she was warning May of something that had to be done. May heard the little sound escape her throat, and her mouth was dry. May questioned her with her eyes, but Teddy was settling herself at her desk, arranging a sheaf of papers and printouts, looking up as Martin came through the door.

Dr. Theodora Collins sat at her desk. There were two Windsor chairs set in front, facing her, with May sitting in one. Martin crossed the room and took his place beside her. Squeezing her hand, he heard himself breathing as if he’d just climbed a steep hill. His mind raced with questions, all of them elaborate and confusing. Teddy put on half-glasses, ready to start.