The Shoebox

by Lisa Fernandez

  “Not tonight!” Peter snatched up a towel. “Of all the nights.”

  He rubbed himself quickly and slipped his white terrycloth robe off its hook behind the door. As he tied the belt around his waist, he ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Maddy, how are you?” He shook his head. “How are you, Maddy? Maddy, how are you?” He sighed. “I can do this.” He sat on the edge of his bed dialed her number, and as the phone rang his heart raced. He tapped his foot nervously.

  “Hello.” Her voice was cool and distant.

  “Maddy—I mean Madeline. It’s me. Peter.”

  There was a moment of silence and then Maddy stifled a chuckle. “Peter, I know it’s you.”

  He gave a half-laugh of relief. “That will make my job a lot easier. Re-introducing myself. I mean. Showing you I’m not quite the jerk you think I am.”

  “I don’t think you’re a jerk.”

  “So that’s a start!” Peter laughed again, but he didn’t hear laughter on her end. He leaned forward over his knees. “You know, I was thinking last night about something you said. You mentioned when you first realized this was your fate, to live without your sight, you hated yourself, and you hated everyone. Did that include me? Did you hate me, too?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it did.” He unknotted his belt and slid his bathrobe off his shoulders. “And I can’t honestly blame you for it. After all, you were cut off from me—” He rolled his legs under the covers, the phone propped between his shoulder and ear.

  “We don’t have to do this.”

  “Maddy—” Peter hesitated at her name. “If we’re going to have the slightest chance of reconciliation, I have to be ready to confront anything—the truth, the rage, the resentment. The hate. Be honest with me. I can take it.”

  “Peter, I think—” She stopped.

  He pulled the covers over his lap. “Don’t hold back, Maddy.”

  “I think I hated you most of all. I hated myself for loving you and hanging on to some impossible fantasy that you could rescue me from what was happening to me, that you could be my hero. Remember Superman? I thought you’d find me and leave everything else behind for me, make things better, get my sight back—get my life back for me. I blamed you for not loving me enough to do that. You left me alone in my suffering and my hell.” He could hear her muffling the phone. “You failed me, Peter.”

  Peter’s arms lifted of their own accord, unable to reach out and comfort her. He felt every one of the miles between them, and he sat hunched holding back his own tears. It was the culmination of all these years, all the confusion and pain. Maddy and Tara, his parents, the letter, the lies and secrets and broken promises. There weren’t any words left to describe any of it. It was all over and done with. Now only regret.

  “Maddy.” Peter hesitated. “Tell me everything about it. Tell me how I failed you? I want to know about your suffering, your hell and what you went through. When you knew --”

  “When I finally knew I was blind?”

  Peter paused. “Yes.” He could hear her breathing change on the phone. He pressed the phone closer to his ear and held his knees tightly. “Tell me everything.”

  Maddy spoke slowly at first, almost a whisper. “I was in the hospital and I remember the sounds. It’s strange how the mind files these moments this way. I could remember hearing shoes. There were heels clicking across the hospital floor. My mother’s hands were there. She kept covering me with a blanket because she said I was trembling, even though I wasn’t cold. I heard metal, scissors or something on a tray, as the doctor began unrolling the bandages. Bits of dried blood pulled my face when he lifted the gauze, and it hurt. Someone touched my hand to let me know the doctor had removed the last piece, although I didn’t feel it. He laid a warm compress over my eyes, wiping little crusts, little bits of dried film from my eyelashes. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. It was as if my eyelashes were stuck. I was trying to rub my eyes, but the nurse held my hands. I heard my mother’s cry as the doctor’s hands moved away from my face. I couldn’t open my eyes, Peter. I couldn’t open them.

  “ ‘What is it?’ I cried out. ‘Why can’t I open my eyes?’ Nobody answered. Everyone was quiet. ‘Tell me what’s happening to me!’ I cried. Then my father’s voice was soft and quiet in my ear. ‘It’s okay, dear,’ he said. ‘We’re here with you.’

  “I heard Dr. Turner’s voice. ‘Your eyes are open, Madeline. Can you see me? Can you see my hand?’ ”

  Peter muffled the phone as he held back a sob. No sound came from the other end for a long time. He waited, listening to his heart beating.

  Finally Maddy gave a small gasp. “ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’ I was struck with the most unexpected, most overwhelming feeling of pure panic. I was pulling at my mother’s sleeve as the nurse tried to steady me on the other side. Suddenly my mother’s sleeve was gone, and there was some kind of commotion—a weight hit the ground, my father was calling my mother’s name. The nurse put her arm around me as the doctor’s voice called for help from the floor. My head was spinning, and I knew my heart was going to leap out of my chest. I opened my mouth, and this screaming came out. I didn’t even mean it to. It was simply all I could do. I screamed and began swinging and slapping my arms around me, slamming anything I could reach. I hit the nurse; I hit the metal tray. There was a terrible, echoing noise, and I heard small bits of metal skittering across the floor. Then hands were holding me down, holding me hard, and I was fighting them, out of control, like an animal. I felt a sharp pain in my arm, and my father’s voice became weird, muffled and strange. He was calling my name. ‘Madeline, Madeline.’ I could hear the tears in his voice, and I wanted to comfort him, but I couldn’t. ‘Madeline,’ I heard him call to me, ‘We love you.’ ” Maddy paused. “And that’s all I remember.”

  ‘Maddy, Maddy.’ Peter heard it as well, but in his mind it was his own voice echoing throughout the years. ‘Maddy, I love you.’

  “Thank you,” he finally whispered into the receiver.

  There was a silence. After awhile, Maddy spoke gently. “What for?”

  “For being honest with me. For telling me that and for being open and trusting me again .It breaks my heart what you went through, but I needed to know. That’s all I want, Maddy.”

  “I don’t mean to cause you pain, Peter.”

  He shook his head. “My pain is nothing compared to yours. I loved you and lost you, Maddy. It tore me apart. But that was completely different from what you’ve been through. You lost me too, I know. We lost each other.” He sank lower, his knees rising higher in front of him. He rested his cheek on his kneecap.

  “Maddy,” he said softly, “I know you will never know what I felt throughout the years or what I went through, but I know what it did to me, how it altered who I am now. At first it was all just a mystery, and I felt terribly intimidated and frightened. Then it turned into anger and resentment because I was at a loss for facts and the truth. I let my own impulsiveness and immaturity get in the way of doing what needed to be done. I know now that I should have used my brain, been reasonable, and held out against the fear so I could handle things like an adult. But I was young and headstrong and reckless. That’s a bad combination. Maybe if I had been more mature I could have found you. Maybe I could have helped relieve something, any tiny part, of the suffering and hell you were going through. But I didn’t.” He stopped and breathed for a moment. “I’m so sorry, my Maddy. I didn’t.”

  Maddy moved quietly on the other end of the phone. “It doesn’t do any good to beat yourself up over the past, Peter. You couldn’t spare me my blindness. We might have driven each other crazy if you had tried.”

  “You’re so giving,” he whispered. “Your heart is so open. I know, you’ve listened to me apologize and apologize, and after awhile ‘I’m sorry’ begins to just sound like babbling. I want to spare you
that. I can’t change the fact that you’ll always see me as someone who failed you. I can’t change the fact that I’ve lived all these years thinking you abandoned me. All I hope to gain now is trust and clarity. Although I am dreadfully far from ever being perfect, and I know I have plenty of shortcomings, I hope you discover I am willing to surrender everything just to have time with you, to get to know you again.”

  “Peter, you think I don’t know who you are? Deep in my heart of hearts I knew you were the same person I’ve always known.”

  “When did you realize that?” Peter pulled a pillow to the side and lied down, cradling the phone. He reached to switch off the bedside lamp, and moonlight fell in strips through the venetian blinds onto the floor.

  “At the coffee shop. When I spilled the coffee and you wiped my chin.”

  “Suave move.”

  “Pretty suave.”

  Peter laughed, his heart sore. “If I’d only told you then. That was my intention, I swear, but your father beat me to it.”

  “If my father hadn’t interrupted us, when would you have told me? Be honest. Please.”

  “My intentions were always honorable.” Peter sat up against his headboard, the pillow in his lap. “But you have to understand it from my perspective—”

  “Your perspective?” Maddy’s voice rose.

  “Yes, mine Maddy.” Peter sat up on one elbow. “There I was, sitting with the woman I’ve loved my entire life, the woman I knew spiritually and physically, and it was almost impossible to keep from—from pouncing on you! It took every bit of strength I had to watch how I responded every time you smiled and your nose crinkled or I stared at your lips as you spoke. I was falling in love with you all over again. It was ecstasy, but it was agony too. I was withholding from you the one thing I most wanted you to have. To think, just a few words could change all of that, and maybe I could lose it forever? It was killing me to try to break through it, to face that risk. Can you understand?”

  “I can try.”

  Peter smiled and felt a sudden rush. He wrapped his arms around his knees. “Can I bring up something? A memory? About the time we first made love. Would you be all right with that?”

  Maddy sighed. After a moment she spoke so quietly he could hardly hear her. “Yes.”

  “When we were on the beach, and you kept asking me to tell you if I loved you or—if I remember correctly—just how much I loved you, I told you. Maddy that moment was the purest moment of my life. You could see perfectly clearly into my soul. I felt such intense vulnerability in that passion. It was genuine and beautiful. Then to be able to express my love to you without words, to feel your body next to mine without holding back—I’ve never experienced another moment like that in my life. Ever. Now it kills me to know I wasted so many years thinking I had lost that ability. You must know I have never felt that way with anyone ever again.”

  “Peter, you were everything to me. I used to lie in bed and picture you next to me. I couldn’t stop thinking of us together on the beach. I felt pains in my chest.”

  “I felt them, too.”

  There was silence. Then her voice came to him in anguish. “Peter.”

  “Maddy, I want to feel you again. I want to experience all of that with you again. I know I said I was going to wait, and I will wait, I want to wait, until I can win your trust again, truly, I do. But all I really want is to fly to Colorado and take you in my arms right this second. I want to make love to you, and hold you all night, and wake beside you tomorrow morning, and know we will never be apart again.”

  “This is so much.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m doing everything I said I wouldn’t do. I don’t want to pressure you or make you feel uncomfortable—”

  “But you’re not.”

  Peter straightened, her words echoing. His heart beat so rapidly he put his hand on his chest. “Maddy, I need to see you.”

  “Peter, I don’t know.”

  “At some point, whenever I can.”

  “I don’t think I’m ready.”

  “I understand. Oh, if you could see how badly I want you to know I understand! What about if we talk every day? Let’s pick a time. We can play things by ear. I know I can get carried away. I don’t want to push you. Okay? All right? Let’s just sit with this for awhile.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Great! Good. That sounds good.” His hand knotted involuntarily in his hair.

  “Peter.”

  “Yes.” He sat perfectly still.

  “You didn’t push me. I just want you to know what you said, being so candid and all, it didn’t feel like pressure. It made me—” Maddy paused.

  He stopped breathing.

  “—It made me think of things I haven’t let myself think about in a very long time.”

  Chapter 28

  Solitude

  Aisle twelve was Peter’s favorite aisle in the Food Master supermarket. Aisle twelve was the fixer-upper aisle or, as Jake called it, ‘the he-man aisle.’ Aside from his small list of groceries, Peter stocked up on electrical tape, duct tape, light bulbs, and batteries.

  Peter was thumbing through extension cords when he heard a voice laugh quietly behind him. He turned to see a man with silvering temples and strong cheekbones pushing a cart next to a woman with long black hair over the shoulders of her cream-colored trench coat. She whispered something in his ear to make him blush. Peter turned away and continued to look through odds and ends of the fix-it aisle, but he was intensely aware of their presence. They crossed behind him, carefully excusing themselves as Peter moved out of their way. He smiled and put the extension cord he happened to be holding into his cart. He tried not to stare as they paused nearby, and the man with the silvering temples slipped his hands around the woman’s waist under her trench coat. She laughed. The man leaned back so that she could lift a box of laundry soap from the shelf, then he whispered in her ear, and she slapped his arm, laughing and whispering, “You’re terrible.”

  Peter pushed his cart down the aisle past them, struggling to keep his eyes off them. Finally they turned the corner and strolled to the next aisle. Peter paused and wiped his forehead. He crossed back to further aisle for English muffins and a pre-packaged roasted chicken double-pack with a small square of cornbread. He sighed as he glanced at the tag: “Meal for One.”

  It wasn’t that he missed Tara. He understood that she had a commitment to her family, and he had a ton of work to do. It wasn’t that at all. In Boston circles, Peter knew he appeared to have it all. What bothered him with an ache deep inside his soul was what he had just witnessed on Aisle Twelve and the fact that he had that once.

  Peter folded his last brown bag and placed it under the sink among the other grocery bags. The microwave chimed, and he removed his “meal for one.” He shoved his work plans aside to sit at his round oak dinette table. He took a sip of cabernet and gently placed the glass on the table as he lifted a leg of chicken and touched the cornbread. The last time he had eaten at Jake and Amanda’s, her mashed potatoes and gravy had made him salivate before he had even sat down at the table.

  He stared at his over-cooked store-bought chicken.

  Jake had it made. Peter wanted to come home after a long day of work and phone calls and plans and deadlines and collapse in his favorite chair to the sound of voices speaking and laughing in the other room, coming closer, his own children climbing into his lap.

  Peter smiled at the image of Maddy, her nose crinkling and her smile lighting up the room.

  After dinner, Peter dried his plate and set it back in the cabinet, wiped and dried the counter and placed the small cutting board down on the side of the sink. He turned off the kitchen light and loosened his collar as he went along the darkened hall. Peter stopped in the doorway and looked at his bed. The sheets were still down from the night before.

  It all felt so lonely.


  He walked to the closet, pulled his favorite sweatshirt out of a stack of folded shirts, and pulled it over his T-shirt and plaid pajama pants. He glanced at his laundry bag, and there was the shoebox on the floor back in the corner. Peter grunted and picked it up. He threw himself on his stomach across his bed and twisted to rest his head on the headboard with a pillow under his back. He turned the shoebox over and poured the contents onto the white sheet by his side.

  He leaned forward and opened his wallet on his bedside table. Carefully he slipped out the photo he had taken to work with him every day since he’d found the shoebox. It was the photo on the beach. He looked at it deeply, trying to memorize every part of her face.

  “Maddy,” he whispered.

  He laid the photo facedown against his chest and closed his eyes. He could see that day so clearly in his mind. The sand and the sea, the wind whipping Maddy’s brown hair around her face as she laughed up at him.

  When he opened his eyes again, he turned to the contents of the shoebox on the sheet and lifted the postcard Maddy had once sent him from the Outer Banks. The pink lipstick was till intact. He pressed his lips to it.

  1965

  It had been a hot summer afternoon. Ann Marsden and Maddy’s sister Kate stood by the open trunk piling bags into the back of their white Chevy Impala, while Tom threw a rope over the top of the car to hold down his fishing poles and gear. Maddy ran across the hot asphalt of the street in her flowered shorts and sandals to where Peter stood watching in the shade of the Michaels garage.

  He held onto her fingers, unable to let go. “What am I going to do without you all weekend?”

  She stood on her toes and kissed him, laughing. “You’ll think of something.”

  “All my thoughts have you in them.”

  She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him long and deep, and then pulled her chin back to meet his eyes, her own twinkling.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.” He tightened his grip around her waist. “That kiss wouldn’t even get me through tonight.”