by T M Bashford
“This room is huge.”
I browse over the area and wonder if it’d be better for her to stay in a smaller room, a smaller home. “I made sure Jamison got loads of shorts and tank tops, but it’s a bit cold for them at the moment. Will jeans and a sweater do?”
“Anything,” she mumbles.
“I’ll put them on the bed and leave you to dress. But I’ll be right outside to help you downstairs. Bring your cane. You need to start using it for when I’m not here.”
I wait for a reply, but she doesn’t even shift.
Walking out the room, I add, “I’m not leaving you here all day. You have five minutes to pull on some clothes, then I’m coming back in, whether you’re dressed or not.”
“How do I tell if I’m wearing clothes inside out or not? Or back to front.”
“Feel for the labels or something.” She doesn’t move. “Do you plan to stay there for three months, expecting Jamison to bring you food and drink all day because you can’t be bothered to even try?” Of course, Jamison wouldn’t mind, but Shae hates to put people out or to be dependent on others.
“I’m not hungry,” she says.
“No way, Drew. I’m not doing it.” Shae’s voice echoes in the cavern-like hallway. “Tell her not to come. I don’t want her help. I don’t want to be treated as if I’m—”
“Blind?”
Shae bristles. “Don’t say that word.”
We’d just navigated the stairs and she’s as mad as an alley cat because I refused to leave her suite until she got dressed and agreed to come out. I also guilt-tripped her, saying Jamison was sick and couldn’t bring her any food or drink today.
“She’s on her way already. Listen to me, please. I can’t always be here. You’ve stayed in bed for five days. You can’t live in your room for the next few weeks.” Or more. “You have to learn to get by. If you won’t even try to get around the house, then how will you ever go out?”
“I don’t need to go out.”
The doorbell rings followed by Jamison’s alert steps on the marble floor. “May I assume you’re ready for your guest?” he asks.
“Yes, Jamison,” I say. “But give us a few moments to reach the White Room.” I circle Shae in the direction we need to go.
“You should have asked me first, Drew. I’ll talk to her today as she’s already here, but only today.”
“Mr. Vega, Miss Love. This is Miss Tiger,” he introduces a petite, casually dressed Asian woman, her dark hair pulled into a thin ponytail.
“Lovely to meet you both.” Her shoes squeak with each step. “Shae, I assume?”
“Yes, I’m the invalid.”
“Only if you want to be.” Miss Tiger is painfully cheerful, but she’s exactly what Shae needs. I grimace apologetically. “Don’t worry,” she adds. “By the end of today, Shae, you’ll feel much better because our mood brightens when we can cope independently of others, doesn’t it?”
The sound of the tinkling of the rigging can be heard through the open doors. Shae glances toward them.
“Excellent. You’ve got your shoes off already,” Miss Tiger continues. “We must rely on our other senses when we’re missing one sense. Let’s start in this room. What you need to do is visualize your surroundings, imprint them on your brain so you can see them, if not with your eyes, but with your mind.”
“Sorry to interrupt you,” I say, “but I have to go to work, Shae. Miss Tiger is going to stay here all day, and Jamison, too.”
Shae looks slightly startled for a moment but then settles into her blank expression again. “You said Jamison was sick.”
I hate to leave her, but Miss Tiger suggested I make myself scarce to ensure better cooperation from Shae. Besides, I haven’t gone into the office for over two weeks and they’re getting touchy.
“Later, Mr. Vega,” Miss Tiger says. “We can’t wait to show you what we learned.”
“Please, call me Drew.”
“Okey dokey. Bye then. Shae, let’s consider all our sensory clues. First, the sense of this carpet under our soles. It’s different to the feel of the rug. Come.” She moves Shae a pace forward where her foot lifts the edge of a rug and she almost stumbles.
I head into the hallway, check my pocket for my cell, and pick up the briefcase I’d previously packed. Arnold is waiting in the car and I have four missed calls from Gavin.
When the phone rings again, I answer.
“You’re coming in today, Drew?”
Irritated, something snaps inside me. “Yes. I said I was.”
“It’s important you do this time.”
I acknowledge Arnold and climb into the vehicle. “What’s going on, Gavin? What’s happened?”
Silence follows and I check my phone in case the reception is bad.
“You’ve been absent a lot, Drew. Firstly, after your father died, and everyone understood that. And we comprehend it wasn’t your intention to be kidnapped by Eddie Riley. However, your long absence was noted. Then you got delayed in England—supposedly it’s because of the same woman as before… Shae Love?”
“I’ve explained why though. She’s blind, for Christ’s sake.”
“I understand, Drew. But this is business not a romance novel and...” His pause becomes awkward. “There are rumors.”
“There are always rumors.”
“Some more dangerous than others. These allude to a growing number of both board members and shareholders working toward a vote of no confidence… in you. In addition, Lucas has had some contact with the company directors—”
“What? But he hasn’t done the paternity test yet.”
“True. But that hasn’t stopped him from suggesting that he would make a better CEO than you, ready for when he does prove his claim. He’s the CFO of Olden Holdings, a big player in the retail and real estate market. Let’s just say, people are listening to him.”
A memory of a disappointed expression on my father’s face hits me. I’m letting him down again. What if I’m responsible for losing the company he spent his life building if Lucas mounts a hostile takeover? “I’m on my way, Gavin. I won’t drop the ball again.”
“There’s one more thing.”
I grip my jaw, trying to remain calm.
“We’ve failed to stop Lucas from exhuming your father’s body.”
Shae
I bang my shins on the table in the White Room and recall how it’s as big as a bed.
“I’ll do an overview and then we’ll go through each room of the house you tend to use, okay?” Miss Tiger’s words interrupt my thoughts. She’s too cheerful, and I almost roll my eyes. “Tell me, what other sensory clues do we have in this sitting area, Shae?”
“The sound of the yachts, the waves, the birds, the breeze, the lawn mower, and the scent of Mrs. Jones’ pumpkin soup for lunch.”
“Oh, wow. You are good at this. What you need to do is connect those sounds and smells to each room.”
I gift her with a smile.
“Rooms also sound different when you speak. Crazy, isn’t it? This space will carry your voice differently to the windowless sitting area through there and bathrooms will echo.”
We spend the day testing rooms for sensory clues; it’s a matter of cataloging them in my mind so I know where I am. She describes the spaces—the ticking clock is on the mantel of a fireplace, but the ticking clock in the hallway has a much deeper ‘tocking’ sound. The kitchen door is padded while the others are wooden. I step out the distances in the kitchen, counting the paces between destinations by following the sounds of the fridge, a running tap, the dishwasher. We count stairs, find the height of handles and light switches. The hardest skill to learn is ‘feeling space’. I’m told I’ll begin to sense the space of doorways and windows.
“You’ll experience a sense of being closed in because the walls will bounce sounds to you more quickly. But in a large room, sounds aren’t as sharp, and they fall away from you. It takes practice, but your visual memory will develop.”
<
br /> After her tutoring, I feel safer and more confident, and slightly less pathetic. Less broken. Less dead inside.
“On Monday, we’ll work on tactual sensitivity,” she says, “to ensure you don’t clean your teeth with an antibiotic cream or put mustard on your food instead of ketchup.”
“Farewell, Miss Tiger,” Jamison says. I’d heard his footsteps on the marble and knew it was him because he marches with small, quick steps. I hear the front door click shut. “Mr. Vega is home. He’s waiting for you in the White Room.” I listen to Jamison’s shoes squeak as he swivels and treads in the direction of the kitchen.
“Drew?” I call, afraid to move without someone by my side.
“I’m in the White Room,” he calls. He wants me to get there on my own. Something in his voice is grave though, rather than teasing.
“You are so transparent,” I say, and twist to the sound of his voice. I walk slowly, counting, and note when the marble becomes the brown cord-like carpet of the dark sitting room. Then I count steps away from the sound of the clicking clock on the mantle. The carpet in the White Room is fluffy. I put out a hand to fumble for a sofa and sink into it.
“I’m exhausted,” I say.
“I’m impressed. Could you have walked here on your own this morning?” His footsteps halt and the leather hisses as he slumps onto the sofa opposite me. Then there’s the sound of feet huffing from shoes and each shoe thudding onto the rug. I hate that I can’t see him, and now he’s sitting on the other sofa, so there’s no chance of a casual touch or of catching his scent. The thought surprises me.
“Who’s paying for Miss Tiger?” I ask. “She’s not going to be cheap.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t want to sponge off you.” I hear his long sigh in response.
“Seriously,” he says, the grave tone returning to his voice, “money is the least of my problems.”
I wait for him to continue, but there’s only the tinkling of the rigging outside. I picture him in his suit, as I’d seen him on TV the first time he stood with his father. He resembled a movie star rather than my barefoot backpacker. A sense of longing for him, or us, the way we were in Samoa and on Sassy, strikes me across the chest.
Jamison approaches, his shoes clicking abruptly until he hits the carpet. “I have the champagne you requested this morning, sir.”
“Thank you. But please take a seat, Jamison. I have something to tell you. It’s… it’s not good news.”
“I’d rather remain standing, if you don’t mind, sir.”
“Fine. To keep this short, someone is claiming to be the son of my father. He was born a decade before me, but he has documentation to substantiate his claim. He’s been awarded the right to… exhume my father’s body in order to perform a DNA test.”
No one speaks for a few minutes.
“His intention is to prove his right to inherit my father’s estate—”
“Where does that leave you if he succeeds?” Jamison’s voice is soft and unusually feeble.
“Lucas would inherit half my father’s shares in Vega Corp., and he could mount a hostile takeover if he can get enough support. Also… it’s complicated because he wasn’t named in my father’s will, but he could contest it and receive half of everything.”
“Where’s the honor in digging up a man’s grave?” Jamison says. His words tremble with anger. “It’s inhumane. Anthony Vega has been laid to rest and that’s where he—”
I hear Jamison’s quick footsteps retreat, then a door slamming.
“Are you okay, Drew?” I ask.
“I hate seeing Jamison upset. I’d better tell Mrs. Jones to put dinner on hold. I have to go into the office. I’m sorry. The board is worried about my shares potentially being split in half, meaning I would no longer have a controlling share. They’ve called an emergency meeting.”
I can’t believe this is how Drew lives these days. No more working behind a bar, volunteering for the dog shelter, no more rebuilding villages, walking everywhere barefoot, or cycling on the beach. The familiar tightening in my belly stretches. We’re back to square one where I’m wondering if I can fit into the lifestyle of a billionaire, and he’s assuming I can. Do I want Mrs. Jones to cook my meals every day with Jamison constantly appearing as if by magic at my side? I recall the media circus at the airport. I know I don’t want that. Not even Drew’s fortune can buy me an invisibility cloak.
I sense Drew slip farther from me, but I should let it happen—it’s inevitable, like watching a sunset fade.
“Have you spoken to Brett since I told you what he did?” he asks, nearing me.
“I don’t need to check what you said.” I’m conscious of him standing beside me. “I believe you. Brett has it in him to do that. His crush on me is something twisted and possessive.”
Drew places his palm on my shoulder. Even his innocent touch sends a tickle of desire through me. “I never left you, Shae. Neither one of us hurt the other—it was all Brett. I never stopped loving you.” His voice is gruff and strained with emotion.
“Please, Drew. Don’t push me. I can’t think of the future. I can’t think of an us. Not until I’m me again. If that never happens, then I won’t let you compromise your life by staying with me. Besides, you’ve got to focus on fighting for your inheritance. You don’t need me in the picture.”
It’s the only time I’ll ever be glad I’m blind—I don’t have to witness Drew’s reaction to what my words have done to him.
Drew
I’ve always compared Shae to a frightened fawn, easily scared off. Now I grasp she’s more like a wild horse, objecting to being coaxed and determined to come closer in her own time. I must trust she still loves me and will eventually choose to come to me. When I neared her the other evening, her breath caught in her throat and her toes curled into the rug. I kissed her goodnight on the cheek, and her face reddened all the way to her chest.
Who am I kidding? My pulse had skidded hard enough that I had to go for a swim at ten o’clock on a cold winter night.
It’s Saturday morning, another week of work over, and I have breakfast brought up to me so I can catch up on more paperwork. I have to admit to falling behind because I’d found it impossible to concentrate this week—my father was exhumed and reburied. I was advised not to attend, as it could be upsetting, but that didn’t stop me from imagining it happening. The internet talked of coffins breaking apart, of maggots and skeleton bones shaking loose, and those images haunted me. The funeral director I consulted said it couldn’t happen though, given that he hadn’t been buried long. It also meant the paternity test could take place and those results would dictate my future.
I’ve decided to keep office matters separate from Shae, including the Lucas issue—she’s got enough on her plate without my baggage. While I work, I listen to footsteps and the muffled sound of voices and feel comforted by Shae’s presence. But I won’t go out there and crowd her.
It’s late morning when I take an economics book into the White Room to read. Jamison has opened the concertina doors. The walls retreat and the outside intrudes and becomes part of the room. Shae is on a sofa, her feet up, listening to her iPhone through ear buds. She probably didn’t hear me come in.
I pluck a bud from her ear and she jumps, grips my elbow as if she’s falling.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to make you jump.”
“S’okay.” She doesn’t put the bud back in.
“I decided to do some reading,” I add. “I’ve got a lot to catch up on in the world of economics.” I walk past her and sit in the other sofa. “This was my mom’s favorite room. We used to call it Mom’s Lounge before she died. Dad named it the White Room when it was too hard for either of us to say ‘mom’.”
Shae pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them, staring into space. Her eyes had once made her easy to read but now they are blank and dead. Maybe it’s how she feels inside. I can hear the song she was listening to—something old, from the six
ties. She pops the bud back into her ear.
I sprawl on the sofa and we stay there in a comfortable silence until lunch time.
“Are you bored?” I ask while I pass her a plate of sandwiches. Jamison had deposited a platter on the table for us.
“It’s not as if I can go sightseeing.” At first, I believe she’s making a joke and nearly laugh but then her mouth scrunches and works to straighten. A pebble lodges in my throat and I stop myself from going over to comfort her.
“What about taking a swim? The pool’s not far. You could count your strokes so you don’t hit the end. Or do breaststroke. Or simply float.”
Shae returns to her ear buds, asking Siri to play an audio book. After she finishes her lunch, she pushes to her feet and slowly makes her way out of the room. I haven’t finished my next sandwich before she’s back, wearing a white bikini. Her dark hair swirls over her shoulders and across her breasts to her tanned, taut stomach. She takes my breath away.
She suddenly appears uncertain. “I need… someone to help me out there. I need to map it out so I can go independently in the future.”
“No problem.” I could hug her to me. Instead, I take her hand. “The entrance is a door next to the study. It’s a straight passageway, then turn left, and then a couple of stairs. Easy.” I lead her forward and count steps with her.
On the poolside, Shae sits on the edge, her feet dangling in the water. She lifts her chin to the sun and smiles up at the sky. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen in weeks. My girl is not an indoor girl. I have to get her outside more. For the next forty-five minutes, she rips up meters in the pool. She’s a great swimmer, even doing proper turns at each end. She has no trouble counting strokes and avoids crashing into the wall. Jamison arrives with towels and gives me a nod of approval.
After a while, Shae floats on her back, her arms moving in and out, making snow angels in the water. There’s another smile on her lips rather than the blank expression that’s been there since the hospital.
