Night Blindness

by Susan Strecker

  The boy doctor came back, carrying a plastic caddy. “Dr. Anderson,” he said. “This young lady took a spill in the corridor.”

  “I’ll take it from here.” Ryder took the supplies from him and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. Neither of them moved. “Really, Jeff.” He sounded annoyed. “You can go.” The door closed. “Residents,” he said impatiently. He never would have used that tone if he were a pediatrician.

  When I tried to sit up, he gently pushed my shoulders back, and I watched him fill a bottle. “Saline.” He squirted it at my head; I jerked away. He waited until I stopped moving, then sprayed again.

  “Something’s wrong with my dad.”

  “He’s sedated now. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, I’ve been in the OR with the victim of a motorcycle accident.” The dream came back to me, how we’d been in that dugout, his lips on mine. He untied his mask, set it beside him, then filled a small syringe and flicked it with his finger. “This is going to sting.” The hot pain immediately faded, and my head started to tingle.

  A month after Nic and I moved in together, I came home one night burning with fever. He ran a cool tub and sat with me as I shivered in the water. He’d put me to bed, and all night whenever I woke from a sweaty, disoriented sleep, I would find him next to me. I was so thirsty, but too weak to move. I’d wanted to wake him, ask him to bring me water. But I was afraid he’d be annoyed. So I shivered and dozed until morning, when my fever broke and I could get my own drink.

  “You don’t have to do this.” I poked my forehead above my left eye. It was already numb. “Doogie Howser could have handled it.”

  He laughed. “Twenty-nine and still gets carded.” He threaded a needle, a miniature version of what I used to repair buttons. “Close your eyes and try to relax.” He sat motionless until I did. Every few seconds, I felt his hands lightly brush against my cheek. He was so close, I could smell his deodorant, could feel his breath on my forehead while he stitched. The rhythm of him working, tugging gently on the thread, two quick pulls, then the pressure of the needle, was almost hypnotizing.

  “Why aren’t you a pediatrician?” I asked. “You used to want that.” I opened my eyes.

  “Shut them,” he said sternly. “Believe me, you do not want to see a needle coming at you like this.” He waited a few seconds, and then I felt a gentle tugging. He worked without answering me. Finally, he said, “Okay, you can open.” He snipped a few ends with a tiny pair of scissors. I patted at my head to find the stitches, but I couldn’t feel anything. He drew my wrist away. “Don’t touch it, unless you want a scar.” When he tossed the gloves in the trash, I saw they were covered in blood. He grabbed a square bandage and a roll of white tape from the caddy. “I do good work,” he said, positioning the gauze over the cut and securing it with tape. “Give it a week; the stitches will dissolve, and no one will ever know.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Seven.” I stared at a bunch of dying daisies crammed in a cheap plastic vase. Their stems were crooked and the petals were browning, as if someone had broken their hearts. “Are you going to tell me what really happened?” He handed me a wet wipe.

  “When you tell me why you’re not a pediatrician. It’s all you ever wanted.”

  “Are you going to tell me why you quit the piano? It’s all you ever wanted.”

  He used to ask me to play while he and Will were studying, said it helped him relax. “Piano’s not the only thing I ever wanted,” I said quietly.

  He glanced at me, those dark eyes soft for a moment, and then he took the wipe from me and threw it in the trash. “You’re going to need some clean clothes.” I pulled at my blood-covered shirt. He went through a few cabinets until he found a stack of pink scrubs. “Medium’s all we’ve got.” He tossed me a top and pants.

  They looked big enough for two of me. “Thanks.”

  “No one uses the lounge this time of night, but just in case.” He locked the door. “After you clean up, we’ll check on your dad.”

  I went to the sink and ran hot water over a paper towel, squirted soap on it, and wiped blood off my face and neck. Then I took the scrubs to the other side of the room and pulled off my clothes. I could hear Ryder behind me, tapping on his phone. Stitching those sutures, he’d been so close to me, I’d felt my breath quicken and would have sworn his had gone screwy, too. Standing in my bra and underwear, I turned just slightly so I could glance at him, then turned away. He looked up, and then, just as fast, he dropped his eyes. But he’d seen me. That was the thing about Ryder. He was the only one who’d ever really seen me. I wrapped the drawstring around my waist, tying it tightly so the pants wouldn’t fall down, then slipped the scrub top over my head.

  The halls were quiet as we walked to my dad’s room. I wondered where the Ryder was who listened to Phish, who wore flip-flops year-round, who loved kids. My father was sleeping on his side. Ryder picked up the chart at the end of the bed and flipped through a few pages. “He hit the pharmaceutical trifecta: He’s on a sedative, a sleep aid, and an antipsychotic.” The chart clanged softly against the metal rail when he put it back. “He’ll be out till noon.”

  I sank onto the cot; I just wanted to sleep. “Why did he suddenly go crazy?”

  Ryder straightened an IV line and pressed a button on the monitor. “Depending on where the tumor is, it’s not uncommon for brain cancer patients to experience psychotic episodes.” He sat on the arm of the couch and rubbed his hand over his face.

  “If he’s medicated up the wazoo, is it safe for me to go to sleep?”

  “Kind of. You can sleep for only about an hour at a time.”

  “What?” I lay back on the cot. “Why?”

  He came over and stood above me. “Did you lose consciousness?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “See stars?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes.

  “Nauseous?”

  “Fuck.” I opened them. “A concussion?”

  “Yep.”

  I closed my eyes again. And then I felt him smoothing the covers over my shoulders; it gave me a lazy feeling. I was having a hard time staying awake. He flicked off the lights and sat on the couch. “I’ll wake you up every hour.”

  I rolled over and tried to see him in the darkness. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “The nurse can do it; you should go home.”

  “I’m here anyway.”

  * * *

  I heard Ryder’s voice and felt his breath in my ear. “Jenny, open your eyes.” I thought I was dreaming and wanted it to last a little while longer. “Jenny.” I felt his fingertips on my cheek. I never wanted to wake up. “Get up or I’ll lick you.”

  I opened my eyes and in the dim light saw Ryder leaning over me, his fingers tracing the outline of the bandage on my forehead. I tried to sit up, but my head throbbed. “Did you just say you were going to lick me?” I sat up enough to see my dad sleeping on his side, one arm flung off the bed.

  “Don’t you remember? You used to tell me—”

  “To help me with my chemistry or I’d lick you.”

  “And to share my Pop-Tarts or you’d lick me. And to choose songs for your recitals or you’d lick me.” He pulled a penlight out of his breast pocket and held open each of my eyelids while he gauged how my pupils reacted.

  “That was the beginning of it for me.” It was easier to talk in the near darkness. “The beginning of us. I actually had visions of licking you, tasting the salt of your skin. And then you and Will starting teasing me because I went through that growth spurt and ate more than most girls. But I have to tell you: I loved the attention.”

  “You ate more than most football teams.” He smiled as he held up a finger for me to follow with my eyes. “You were known to eat entire pizzas by yourself.”

  I felt my cheeks color. “Let’s be fair here. They were small pizzas. But, yes, I could eat. Will used to say that he’d never have to worry about you going for a girl who could put away seven hot
dogs during one episode of Seinfeld. But, I secretly thought that would have made you like me more.”

  “It did,” he whispered. “I liked you for so long before that night at the baseball field. But I just couldn’t betray Will … right up until I did.”

  “We loved each other. That’s not betrayal.” My dad shifted restlessly. “Is he going to wake up?” He told me no, so I kept talking. “Why do you think Will was so against us dating?”

  “Because we were always together. The three of us. He was afraid if we were a couple that we’d eventually break up and then things would be weird. He was just trying to keep the band together. How’s that for irony?”

  Laughing hurt my head. “Did he tell you that?”

  “Yep. About a week before the accident.”

  “You talked to him about us? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  My father rolled onto his back and mumbled something in his sleep. Ryder waited a few seconds before he spoke. “Because I lied to him, Jenny.”

  “About what?”

  “Us. He caught me signing the peace symbol to you at the jazzfest on the New Haven Green. And I flat out lied. I told him that he was drunk and didn’t see anything. I sat on the grass across from Richter’s Pub and told my best friend that I wasn’t screwing around with his little sister.”

  My stomach hurt. “That’s why he got so mad that night.” I heard Will yelling at Ryder about all the other girls he’d been with. It was so unlike him to take shots at anyone or to get angry like that. “All this time, I’ve never understood what set him off.”

  “I’m sorry I never told you.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.” I’d meant it to be kind, but it came out accusatory. “Am I okay to go back to sleep? I’m really tired.”

  He didn’t say anything more and we sat in the dark for a long time, until finally I lay down and went back to sleep.

  * * *

  Ryder woke me three more times before dawn, asking my middle name, my date of birth, the town I lived in, and how many fingers I had. We didn’t talk again about Will.

  In the morning, light filtered around the window shade, my father was gone, and Ryder was reading a sailing magazine on the couch. I thought of those Madman comics he used to collect. “Where is he?” I sat up. My mouth felt like I’d slept with a sock in it.

  “Radiology.” He tossed the magazine aside and got up. “He’ll be back in an hour or so. “How’s your head?”

  I touched the bandage. It was squishy with blood. “Hurts.”

  Four Styrofoam coffee cups were scattered on the floor. His eyes were bloodshot. “You look as bad as I feel.” I lay back down. “I’m so tired.”

  He pulled the covers over my shoulders. “I hear ya, sister. Between you and the motorcycle guy, I was running back and forth all night.”

  I patted the space behind me, not sure if I was dreaming. “You can sleep here,” I mumbled. “There’s plenty of room.” And then I was gone again.

  I dreamed I was at the beach, watching lemmings scramble up the dunes. They gathered at the top of a cliff and, one after another, jumped, disappearing into the ocean. My father was one of them. He was perched on the ledge when I woke.

  “Morning, sunshine.” It was Nic’s voice. I opened one eye and saw him standing in the doorway, holding a bouquet of stargazer lilies in front of him like an offering. I thought maybe I was still dreaming, but I could feel the weight of Ryder’s arm on my shoulder.

  “Nic?” My pillow was wet with drool, and it hurt to move my head.

  He came in the room and glanced from the empty bed to me. And then he looked behind me, at Ryder. “What the hell?” he said quietly.

  I pushed myself up, but my head was spinning, and my limbs were suddenly cold. I watched him start to back up. “Gallery Lazelle is this weekend? Oh God, I forgot.” I started to get up, but I felt weighted to the cot. “Stop, please.”

  But he kept going, reaching for the door handle, tossing the flowers in the trash. Before he opened it, I saw how he was looking at me. It was the same as when I’d finally told him, two years after we’d been married, that I’d had a brother, a brother named Will, who’d died. He’d looked at me like he had never seen me before.

  13

  “Please,” I said to the skinny attendant in the Plexiglas booth. “My dad was rushed here by ambulance yesterday.” I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview. The bandage on my head had slid down and the threads stuck up like tiny antennae. “I didn’t get a ticket when I came in.”

  “Honey.” He leaned his scrappy arms on the windowsill. “I sit in this booth nine hours a day, five days a week, people watching.” His T-shirt read, I USED TO HAVE A HANDLE ON LIFE, BUT IT BROKE. “And I know you got bigger worries than paying some stupid ticket.” When he smiled, I saw he was missing a bottom tooth. “You’re all set.” The digital display flashed a big yellow zero.

  This felt like a glorious act of kindness. When I waved, he was already pressing a button on the screen and signaling me on. The yellow gate rose above my car.

  I drove the back roads into Milford, then took Merwin Avenue along the beachfront, the radio on high, trying not to think about the expression on Nic’s face. I hadn’t run after him. I couldn’t in those huge hospital clothes, and anyway, my head was throbbing and I was exhausted. How could I have forgotten he was coming today? I wondered. After he’d slammed the door, Ryder had lifted up on his elbow. “That was bad,” he’d said.

  “I have to go.” I’d scrabbled around on the floor, looking for my clothes. “Damn it, where’s Jamie?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll stay and wait for your dad until she gets here. Just go.” And then Jamie breezed through the door, throwing her Barbour coat over a chair, saying it was raining so hard, the old railroad bridge was already flooding, and Ryder jumped up and sat on the couch, trying to pat down his hair. “Where’s Sterling?” she asked.

  “Radiology,” Ryder replied.

  I was sitting on the side of the cot, holding my head.

  She startled when she saw me. “Oh, sweetheart, I just saw Nic. He was in such a rush, I hardly had chance to say hello. What a nice, um”—she smiled briefly and glanced at Ryder—“surprise. I gave Nic my extra house key just in case he wants to go home or…” Her voice trailed off, and no one said anything else until finally she told me I should go home and get some rest. I got up, dressed again in my bloody clothes, and left before she could ask what had happened to my head.

  I drove around in the rain for twenty minutes before I parked across the street from Cambridge, Jamie’s brownstone. I hadn’t been there in years. The elaborately carved doorway and its enormous acanthus leaf brackets still seemed to be collaborating with her need for space, her constant wish to be away from us after Will died.

  Since I’d been home, Luke had been urging me to practice there because, he said, it had the best piano. But I had found a thousand reasons not to, avoiding the brownstone at all costs. And then a day ago, before I’d taken my dad in for radiation, Luke had called. “Tomorrow we’re going to play that Steinway.” His voice was serious, the way it had been when he took me to lunch at Cuomo’s before I left for Andover and told me that the things you run from in life hunt you down, trap you in a lifestyle of running, until your feet forget how to form roots. “Be at Cambridge tomorrow or else.”

  I’d been running along the sound when he’d called, and I’d stopped. “Or else what?” I’d watched a butter-colored yawl take down its sails.

  “Or else I’m sending you to a great therapist I know.”

  I’d given him a scoffing laugh. “And I know how effective they are,” I’d said, but something had risen in me, a panicked feeling that maybe Luke did have that much power, that maybe he could make me go.

  When we acquired it, the Steinway was worth over $65,000. Before Jamie bought the brownstone, Sylvia Winters, a ninety-year-old opera singer who’d been famous in her day, had owned it. Her kids were happy to sell the piano with the place if
we paid a little more. When Luke first saw it, he almost fainted. It was a Model M in a Louis XV scalloped case with ivory keys, and it had been fully restored, new soundboard and bridges, a rebronzed harp, new agrafes, pin locks, strings, tuning pins, hammer shanks and leathers. Luke sent a tuner every six months to work on it, and now my hands were itching to play it, but I’d thought coming here would remind me too much of that time right after Will died. Jamie’d told us she needed the apartment because she thought redoing it would help keep her mind occupied. And, she said, my father and I should be spared her grief.

  Trying to avoid the puddles, I walked up the marble steps and worked the key in the lock. Jamie had given me a spare when Luke said he wanted to practice here. The door swung open easily. That white carpeting was as bright as the first time I’d been there. On the wall was that same Victorian mirror, and on my left, a half flight of stairs, leading to the master bedroom. Directly across from me was the piano. Without thinking, I took a muddy step toward it, but then I realized my mistake and pulled off my sandals. I stripped in the middle of the hall and carried my clothes upstairs.

  The master bedroom was all white and clean, with a big fluffy bed under a wide window overlooking a brick courtyard. I wished I could lie down on it, but instead I went into the bathroom, also white, turned on the hot water, and peeled the bandage from my head. In the shower, I sat on the marble bench. The water was too hot to sit under, really, but I stayed there all the same, watching my skin get red. I kept thinking of Nic walking in with those flowers, of Ryder’s warm body against my back, and then for some reason I thought about the day I’d auditioned for the Vienna Conservatory’s summer program. It was the December after Will died, and I hadn’t played since before his funeral. I sat at the piano on the stage, in front of Monsieur Mercier and a recruiter from Vienna. “An honor,” he had said, “that I give you because you are, my dear, a rising talent.” His pointy nose and even pointier chin smelled of coffee and curdled cream. He didn’t say anything about how I’d missed weeks of lessons.