by Lisa Fenwick
I felt bad that twice in a short time, she’d offered to come around and I’d dismissed her.
“If you want, I could come tomorrow and bring lunch?”
“Really?” My eyes lit up at the idea of it.
“See you tomorrow, and have a good night, Noah, or at least try to.”
“Thanks.” I wanted to say more, but I couldn’t, because I was so excited about having lunch with her tomorrow, a lot more excited than I should have been, and it scared me.
Chapter Twelve
Amy
The Past
October 2013
I thought Rocky was different. He didn’t seem to be weird about my blindness in the way so many other boys had been. Some of them clearly saw me as weak and helpless. Teenage boys weren’t good at hiding how they perceived people.
Some boys assumed I was completely blind—wall-of-black blind—and tried to take advantage of me. Between my ability to focus intently on what I could hear and smell and the grossly blurry vision that I had, it was an advantage that they didn’t know about. So, when they’d tried to gaslight me, a term I didn’t know at the time but a concept I learned to understand, I could see right through them.
When they realized I wasn’t as malleable as they hoped, they’d either get bored and seek out someone else, or they’d lash out at me. It was the latter crowd that worried me, because they were unpredictable. Being a good friend with the other girls at Birch Hills and going out of my way to be helpful to the staff helped a lot. It made me learn more about different types of people than I’d ever done in my life. At times, I had to fight off someone that decided to jump me. The only thing I could do was go full-on flying fists and banshee wail to get attention.
I had a reputation at Birch Hills and the neighborhood around it where we could sometimes go out on passes from the hospital. I was the crazy violent girl, the one that would turn into a screaming tornado at the slightest provocation. It made me sad for a while to have people think of me that way, but it protected me. When I got out of the hospital and was ready to start my new life as a teen, I carefully cultivated a sense of oddness that made me somewhat unapproachable, but I’d hoped that it hadn’t made me completely threatening or intimidating.
The other boys fetishized my disability. My blindness became an entity outside of myself that they were attracted to. Just like getting with a girl of a different ethnicity, bagging a blind girl seemed to be a box to check off on a list somewhere. That certainly wasn’t the first time that I felt my entire existence had been reduced to nothing but my eyesight, but it was probably the most severe. I was no fool. By the time boys started noticing me, I knew that most girls were reduced to naught but T&A. But to have even those most basic feminine qualities made secondary to my blindness was such a complete dehumanization.
Some of those fetishy boys were charming, and that was what made them dangerous. The ones that saw easy prey were never really subtle about what they wanted. The ones that wanted to experience a girl that couldn’t see them were full of compliments and sweet talk and gracious attention. They didn’t see me as something easy to take but something exotic to be won.
They were obsessed with talking about how beautiful I was, how lovely and stunning, how I put all other girls to shame in the looks department. The more a boy talked about how he saw me, the less I thought he actually saw me. The fixation on what I could and could not see betrayed them.
Rocky was in his late twenties, and he drove the hospital van that would take us out on day trips. Birch Hills was very careful about the men they hired to work with us. I’d never had a problem with any of them that had any business around the girls’ dormitory or that worked within the facility. Rocky was one of the handful of people that worked for another agency. The hospital didn’t have its own vans, so they rented time from the state government’s van pool.
Because Melissa and I were the only blind girls in our group, Rocky often had to lead me to and from the vehicle when we were out. Terry needed his help getting her chair in and out of the van, and I needed his help to navigate the first few steps between the van and whatever activity we were up to until one of the other girls could guide me, or I could drive Terry’s wheelchair while she navigated.
It was in those short moments that Rocky would deftly play the part of the consummate gentleman, kind, respectful, bright, engaging. Never once did he compliment my beauty or compare me to any other woman. He never, ever mentioned my blindness. He was well trained in working with people with disabilities, and he was able to effortlessly assist me with things.
I developed a certain fondness for him, one that translated into a definite longing for him. It didn’t take long for me to look forward to our outings, not because of where I was going but because I’d get some attention from Rocky. So, when he asked me one day if I might sneak out to meet him in the evening, I didn’t think anything of it. I liked him. I was attracted to him, and I was tired of being the dormitory angel. I wanted to be able to tilt the halo to the side and live a bit. A little stealth meeting with Rocky seemed like a pretty safe way to misbehave.
By the time I got to where we were supposed to meet, my heart was beating a million miles a minute. I’d never snuck around the dorm at night or tried to get out after curfew. I thought I might be late for our date, but I could only see the most general shapes, and I was trying to do it after dark. I thought I was going to get caught a million times. It was the first time that I’d really felt blind, and I realized it was because I’d never paid real attention to where I was going. I’d been living in a box, only going and doing things that I’d been familiar with and nothing more.
I barely had time to catch my breath, out behind the shed where we kept the playground toys for the pre-teen kids, when he came up behind me. I turned around and was barely able to make out his form as he moved between a distant light and me. Without so much as a single word of greeting, he put his arms around me, and his mouth was on mine. As part of my high school curriculum, I had a sort of vague idea of male anatomy, but I learned more in the first moment of that embrace than I had in a full semester of human biology and health.
I managed to pull out of the sudden kiss, and said, “I thought the plan was to go out for dessert.” I was nervous and scared at the same time. Did he ask me to sneak out to have sex on the premises? No, I wanted more than that. I wanted a date. I needed to feel special, even if it was a lie. Just for once.
“Of course,” Rocky said. “I just wanted to let you know how happy I am to see you.”
My heart fell right through the ground below me. How happy he was to see me? Really? I was still so excited to do a little naughty thing, and he did step away completely and not push anything.
The entire way to his car, he guided me like he was a perfect gentleman, and no more was I stumbling but walking with confidence, even if I didn’t know where we were going. We talked and even laughed a little bit when he made a few jokes to lighten the mood. I was convinced, by the time I settled into his car and buckled the seatbelt, that my reaction had been overblown. After all, I had fantasized about kissing him, or more. I needed to relax.
The thing was, the lessons of Dad and of some of the foster families I’d been through had really stuck. It took just a few minutes in his car for me to start feeling things were off again.
“I thought we were going to Sammy’s,” I said. I liked to memorize the routes between different places in town by the feel of the road beneath me, the sounds different intersections made, tactile landmarks like railroad crossings or rough patches of pavement, the smells of restaurants and businesses. We were definitely not going to Sammy’s. I didn’t feel so helpless as the little things Birch Hills had taught me about being blind but paying attention to my surroundings had naturally fallen into place.
“We are.”
“You should have turned by now,” I said, knowing that he was lying.
“Yeah. I missed my turn,” he said. Yet, I felt the car go through tw
o more intersections, and he made no move to turned around and get back on track.
Fear. Cold, hard fear gripped me. One hand moved silently to the latch on my seatbelt, the other to the door handle. The next intersection we stopped at, I slipped free of the belt, opened the door, and tumbled out into the street in full tornado mode. I could hear Rocky screaming my name, but I knew that I had to leave him.
Everything about what he was doing wasn’t right, and I was a fool for thinking that he was older and would be better than the teenage boys I’d come to encounter when we had joint festivals with other homes or parties at our schools.
I had no idea where I was, just that it seemed to be near some businesses that were still open, judging by the amount of colored light around me. I got up and walked to the businesses. I told them my story about Rocky, and then I heard the police arrive. I relaxed as they told me that they were taking me back to Birch Hills, the place that I had snuck out of and the one place that I knew I was safe.
The Present
We never saw Rocky after that. I had to put up with a number of really unpleasant conversations about what had happened. Some of the staff were disappointed in me. I didn’t know what to do with that. The last time I’d felt the kind of disapproval that was rooted in genuine care was from Mom and Auntie Jean, back when I was too young to understand what it was. It hurt to know that I’d let them down, but it also touched me that somebody cared that much about me.
When I moved out of Birch Hills and to Berwick, I found there wasn’t much change in my romantic prospects. Men still saw an easy mark. Berwick, like many small towns, didn’t have prospects for young people who wanted to stay in town. Being single, young, and the owner of a house and cottage that were both paid for, I certainly caught the eyes of guys who wanted all the benefits of the small town without having to do the real work of making a living.
The others were all teenage sweethearts, and the other men were holidaymakers like Noah, passing through or running away from their own lives for a while but with every intention of going back to it.
When one of them started sniffing around, I got into the habit of trying to make any time we spent together as awkward and uncomfortable as possible. I wanted him to leave with no doubt in his mind that he’d never last long enough with me to get a ring on my finger and a claim on my property.
Some of my tenants at the cottage had tried to make something happen now and again. A few had been really bad news like Peter, the last tenant I'd had before Noah. A few were at least honest and straight up said that they wanted sex whilst in Berwick. One outright offered me “the best sex of my life” in exchange for a cut on his rent. Some were just lonely men passing through, and they’d take a liking to any woman who crossed their path.
None of them were anything I was interested in. Certainly not the bad-news guys, certainly not the one who was so full of himself that he thought he was packing something worth a couple hundred dollars a month.
I’d accepted that I wasn’t willing to lower my standards enough to have a realistic chance of finding love in Berwick, and I didn’t see myself leaving here. My heart held out dwindling hope that the right man would come along some day. My body had never had the experience of a man, and I took care of things in that department. With every season that passed, I become more resigned to the fact that someday, I’d be Berwick’s old spinster. But some part of me still wanted something different. And on very rare occasions, I crossed paths with somebody that made me think that was still possible. Noah had done that, and it made me smile.
Chapter Thirteen
Amy
The Present
Despite the bad news, I was happy that Noah had called. He’d accepted my offer to have lunch together. I pulled one of the containers out of the refrigerator and put it into a shopping bag, along with a little bit of fresh fruit and a couple of slices of bread. I hoped he was good on beverages for himself and maybe something for the bread. I figured he had to be.
All that was left was to walk over and pray that the quick stew I’d made was as tasty to him as it was to me.
“Smokey, come,” I said.
The big dog very audibly yawned from the living room, and he plodded over to me so I could harness him. Poor guy must have been deep asleep. If I felt confident making the whole walk over, I would have just let him sleep. On the other hand, he was about to get another visit with Boy, so I couldn’t really feel too guilty for waking him.
For his part, Boy was happy to abandon whatever he had been doing with his afternoon to come bounding over the fence to greet us.
“Hello, Amy.”
I waited until I could make out Noah’s snowman close to me. “Good afternoon. Are you still up for a bite to eat?”
“Yes, please. Come in.” I heard him open the front gate. As soon as we were inside, I freed Smokey up to go run. “You’d never know they got to see each other only yesterday,” I said.
“Well, their visit was cut short a bit,” Noah said.
“Yeah. About that. I’m sorry I bailed out on you the way I did.”
“We both shared a lot together. I think that we were both feeling emotional. Are you feeling better now?”
“I am, thank you,” I said. “I wouldn’t have offered to bring this over if I wasn’t.”
I handed him the shopping bag.
“Would you like to stay a bit?” Noah asked, as we stepped into the cottage. “It feels like you have enough for two here. Besides, I thought that you said we were having lunch together., not that you were bringing me lunch.”
“I’ve brought over enough for you to have a couple of meals if you needed. I didn’t know if you wanted company?”
“If you’re up for it, I’d rather share it with you.”
“Great, Noah, I would love that. As long as you understand that I have never in my life cooked for anybody else before. I think I do well enough for myself, but I have no idea how my tastes compare to what other people might like.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. What’s on the menu?”
“Chicken, lentils, and fresh vegetables. I used mostly sweet curry powder to season it, with just a dash of hot curry right at the end. Livens it up on the tongue a bit when it’s fresh out of the pot. The leftovers don’t quite get the subtle kick, but they don’t suffer for it either.”
“I’ve never thought of trying that,” Noah said, pulling dishes down from the cabinet. “I don’t use microwaves—I tend to avoid them, so do you mind waiting a little longer for me to heat this up on the stove?”
“Not at all. I feel the same way. Food tends to lose its flavor when heated in the microwave.”
“Good,” Noah said, pulling out a chair. “Sit. You did most of the work and walked over here. I’ll do the rest.”
I smiled and took a seat at the table.
“Beer, wine, water?” Noah asked.
“Do you have a white wine?”
“No, but some decent red.”
“I’ll have some of that.”
He poured me a glass and set it on the table. It didn’t take long for me to hear and smell the stew starting to simmer on the stove.
“I still haven’t found out when I’m leaving or coming back yet. As soon as I do, I’ll make arrangements to kennel Boy. Do you know of a good one around here you’d recommend?”
“I know this woman named Amy Martin…” I said.
“That is a generous offer,” Noah said. “And I thought about it while you were on your way over, but I’d rather get him set up with a reputable kennel while I’m gone. Not that I don’t trust you with my dog. I just don't want to burden you.”
“It won’t be a burden,” I said.
“Remember that Boy is a city dog. He’s used to going to a puppy hotel now and again if I’ll be away for a few days. He does quite well boarding at a good kennel, being around other dogs, and getting to play.” He paused to go get silverware and set it on the table. “Thing is, I can tell you’ve invested a lot in trai
ning Smokey. Boy’s got his Canine Good Citizen and some extra training to help me out with some tasks, but he’s nowhere near up to Smokey’s standards. I wouldn’t want him to be a bad influence around the house. Also, Boy is used to living with somebody that can see and not hear. He’s trained to approach me with visual cues if he needs something. He communicates in the exact opposite way of what you’d need.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. Secretly, I was relieved that Noah had turned me down. I’d love to be able to watch Boy for him and let Smokey have the company in his off time, but it would be a lot of work to have a second dog not trained like Smokey in the house. Just the thought of walking them both together gave me a bit of a headache.
“The funeral is going to be hard enough as it is. I would feel better not having to worry that my dog was making your life really difficult.”
“I understand. Thank you for being more level-headed about it than I have been. In some ways it would be hard, but then lately seeing Smokey and Boy together, I wonder if I’m being selfish not having Smokey around other dogs.”
“Don’t worry about it, Amy. People pay me a lot of money to be the level-headed guy in the room sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?” I asked, wondering what he was like. It was as if I wanted to know every single thing about him.
“Yeah. They need me to be cool and collected while I’m assembling a case, but if I’m in front of a judge or jury? I took acting lessons for that. I could bring levels of drama you would not believe.”
“I can’t believe you could be a drama queen,” I said.
“Believe it.”
“Prove it,” I teased, as he set a bowl in front of me.
Somewhere in his life, he’d learned how to set a table for a blind person, because he told me exactly where everything in front of me was relative to everything else. With my dark dishes against the light table, I had a sense of it, but it was appreciated.