Night Blindness

by Susan Strecker

  She stroked my hair. The glass was cool. But I didn’t drink.

  “Mom,” I said.

  She kept running her fingers through my curls.

  “Mommy,” I said again.

  I heard her rings clink against her glass. “Yes, sweetheart?”

  Her fingers caught in my hair. The slight tug was soothing, like pressure on a wound. It almost made me not want to talk again, but I said, “It’s not Daddy’s fault.”

  I heard her swallow, could smell the whiskey. “Of course it’s not.” She sighed the sentence, as though she’d said it but didn’t believe it.

  “You can’t blame him.” I was trying to say it quickly, before I lost my nerve.

  “I don’t,” she said, but I’d heard them through their bedroom’s thin wall. Jamie had been insisting she’d never wanted Will to play football, though it was she who put his games on the calendar at the beginning of the season, made cakes shaped like footballs, wore his jersey to games.

  I opened my eyes. Even though her makeup was perfect and her hair made her appear doll-like, I knew my mother was flawed. She’d been a runway model, married at eighteen to a polo player in Argentina. She met him at a shoot and ran off with him. Her parents showed up in Buenos Aires months later, after she’d lost a baby, and took her home. My dad married her two years after that, and then she had Will ten months later. She sang us Beatles songs at bedtime and let us sleep with her when we had bad dreams. She drank a little too much and flirted with my dad’s friends. She was hardworking, ran a modeling agency, taught underfed adolescents how to walk the runway with their hips out and their chins in. Still, she wasn’t perfect. If anyone would understand, I remembered thinking, Jamie would.

  “That boy from Hopkins didn’t do it,” I said carefully.

  She was just about to bring her drink to her mouth, when she stopped and glanced at me. If she’d never worn makeup again, my mother still would have been beautiful. She couldn’t hide it. She wore beauty and vulnerability in the same haunting way. Patting my hand, she gave a little laugh, like she did when my father called her on a third glass of wine at dinner. “He didn’t do it on purpose,” she said. “Will hit his head on the ground when he was tackled.”

  “That’s not what happened.” My voice sounded robotic.

  She put the drink down. “What in the world?”

  That same darkness crept into the sides of my eyes, and I thought I might pass out. My chest was fluttering like a bird was stuck in there, trying to escape. “Something happened—”

  She leaned in quickly and put her finger to my lips. “Jenny,” she said calmly, but her eyes were moving frantically, searching my face. “Your brother is dead. My Will is gone.” She called him “My Will” as if he were hers alone. “Don’t make this about you.” Then in one swift motion, she stood and picked up her glass. I watched her move through the room and do what she did best. She left.

  “Whobaby.” I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there with the scrapbook in front of me. Suddenly, I noticed my father standing under the archway between the kitchen and the living room, his sweatpants hanging loosely on his hips like they always did, wearing A Will to Live T-shirt and rubbing his eyes with his bear-paw hands. He’d called me Whobaby since I was a little girl, with no good reason why. But I loved it.

  “Hey, Daddy.” I snapped the book shut, feeling as if I’d gotten caught snooping through his wallet.

  “When did you get here?” His head was just inches from the crown molding, and he ducked through the archway when he came forward, like a cat that measures if it can fit under a chair.

  “Late last night.” I jumped off the stool and ran to hug him. He smelled like laundry fresh out of the dryer. He kissed the top of my head, then took a step back. “Whobaby at the homestead. Jesus Christ Almighty, I’ve missed you.” He took my hand and pressed our palms together, lining up our fingers. His hand was warm and so much bigger than mine. “Were you always this gorgeous, or did someone hit you with the pretty stick?” He squeezed my fingers.

  “Daddy.” I rolled my eyes. “I just woke up.”

  “Sleep okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I said. Not at all. “You?” Had his cerulean eyes turned a little grayer?

  “Okay, considering.” He started toward the coffeemaker.

  “How do you feel?” I asked, following him.

  He opened a few cupboards until he found the mug Will had made for him in kindergarten, a brown circle with white lines splashed across it. “Well, right now I’ve got a whopping hangover courtesy of the Maker’s Mark Luke brought last night. He’s on some goddamn health kick, but once in a while”—he put the mug on the counter—“he falls off the tofu wagon.” While he poured himself coffee, I challenged the tumor to show itself, but his head was still perfect, no lumps or bumps. His color was good. He didn’t look sick.

  “So.” He faced me, his big frame blocking the picture window. I hoped he wouldn’t ask me about grandchildren, like he did every other time I talked to him, but he said, “It took a golf ball in your old man’s brain to get you home.”

  I sipped my coffee. It was cold. “It didn’t seem like Jamie was going to be able to handle this.” That sounded hard, aloof, and I wished right away I could take it back despite its truth.

  He took off his glasses and chewed on the arm. “How you doing? You holdin’ up out there in the great art mecca of the Southwest?”

  “I wish you’d visit more,” I said.

  “Me, too, sweetheart. Your mother has a hell of a time getting away from those runway gazelles.”

  Why don’t you just come alone? I wanted to ask him.

  He sipped his coffee. “You ever play that piano we bought you when we were out there?” This was something else he always asked. When he and Jamie called on the phone, he sometimes said, “Play us a little something, will you?” But I would find a good excuse not to.

  “Sometimes,” I said, lying.

  He watched me over the rim of his cup. “Ah, knowing my Whobaby, you’re probably a famous Santa Fe pianist by now and too modest to tell me.” Before I could answer, he said, “Nic okay?”

  I had a feeling my father didn’t care for Nico. “Nice shirt,” I said. “How’s the foundation doing?”

  He touched his front, as if to remind himself what he was wearing. “It’s great. The kids are amazing.”

  I hadn’t been to A Will to Live, the charity for underprivileged kids he’d started after Will died, since I was in college.

  “Warren left about a month ago, but Sid’s finding his way,” my dad said.

  “Sid’s the director now?” I felt like I’d started a book a hundred pages into it. “Not bad for a high school football coach who swears it was his idea to put peanut butter and jelly together.”

  My dad laughed. “I think it was chocolate and peanut butter. But the kids love him, and the board unanimously approved his appointment. That’s never happened before.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  He crinkled his nose at his coffee. “I know you have your doubts about Mommy because of what happened after Will—” He didn’t finish. “But she takes good care of me now.”

  I dug my fingernails into my palm, hoping for a tiny sting, but my nails were too short. “I’m staying for as long as it takes to get you better.”

  “Aw, Whobaby.” He touched the raised scar where his helmet strap had split his chin so long ago. He looked weathered suddenly, old and tired, my big bear of a dad. “Come here,” he said. I stepped forward and leaned into him again. Outside, the red maples were in blossom. Spring was in full bloom. “It’s good to have you home.” He kissed my head three times. “I don’t care what it took.”

  4

  “Dr. Anderson is ready for you.” Ryder’s receptionist had a space between his front teeth so big, I could’ve pushed a quarter though it. “My name is Scott, and if you follow me, I’ll take you to him.”

  I cracked the door to the hall. “Are
you coming?” I asked Jamie.

  “Of course I am.” She slipped her phone into her handbag and touched her finger to her mouth as though spreading lip gloss. Guilt traveled across the crease in her forehead the same way it had when I went to her apartment as a teenager and found her lover, Julian, sitting at my practice piano in his underwear. It made me wonder now whom she’d just been talking to.

  My parents and I followed the skinny, perfectly dressed man down the hall. RYDER ANDERSON, M.D. was stamped on a gold plaque on the door. “Come in.” Scott turned the knob. I thought of Hadley and wondered if this guy had a boyfriend. “He’s waiting.”

  Floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with medical texts covered the walls. Ryder was standing behind a chestnut desk, wearing a white lab coat. Looking out the window behind him, I could see tiny people hurrying along York Street. New Haven was busier than I remembered, and on the way there, we’d passed two new coffee shops and a vegan luncheonette. I wanted to drive by Yale to see how different it’d become since Ryder and I had toured it.

  “Thank you, Scott,” Ryder said. When the door closed, he stepped forward and kissed Jamie’s cheek. “Thanks again for dinner last night.” She whispered something I didn’t hear. When my dad shook his hand, they kept their eyes on each other a beat too long, as though some unspoken agreement passed between them. I wondered what had happened the night before, what Ryder had said to him. “Take a seat.” He nodded to the two leather chairs facing the desk, and my parents sat. Jamie crossed her ankles. I stood there dumbly, leaning into my hip, easing a blister on my heel. I was in tall leather boots I’d found in my closet and a suede skirt from Santa Fe that I’d bought at some upscale shop for too much money. I felt stupid standing.

  Ryder went back behind his desk. “Jenny.” He looked like a wax museum rendition of himself. “In case I didn’t tell you last night, it’s really good to see you again.” He sounded businesslike; there was no trace of the boy who’d lain naked with me and had spent more time at my house growing up than at his own. I’d been home less than a day and wondered for the millionth time what had happened to him over the past thirteen years. But then I thought of me running halfway across the country and reinventing myself in the art world. And I knew exactly what had happened. Will happened.

  “She prefers Jensen now,” Jamie said quickly. “Jenny’s a little girl’s name.” Was she mocking or defending me?

  “Okay,” Ryder replied.

  “You can call me Jenny.” I wasn’t sure he’d heard me; he kept flipping through my father’s file. Jensen was all wrong for him. I’d ridden on the back of his ten-speed, jumped off the Breakneck cliff in my red bikini to impress him. My dad patted the space beside him, and I perched on the edge of his seat. His warm hand on my back made me want to cry. Everything about being home made me want to cry.

  We all sat there watching Ryder reading the file notes. I didn’t know how there could be so much information when my dad had been so healthy, but maybe I’d missed something all those years I’d barely been home. Ryder looked so grown-up and doctorly. There was something confusing about it. The last time I’d seen him, the night before I left for Andover, he’d worn ripped jeans and a sweatshirt. I’d stood at my window, watching him get out of his car in the rain. Jamie knocked on my door and said, “Sweetheart, please come down for a minute.” But I wouldn’t. I stayed in my room until I saw his headlights come on and heard his car leaving. Now I watched his hands: a surgeon’s hands—capable but gentle. It was weird to think they’d touched me. Nic had hangnails, calluses, sculptor’s hands. I wondered if Ryder ever thought about that first night at Hamilton field, my lips on his neck, his hands on my hips.

  He glanced first at Jamie and then at my father. “I’m going to tell you what I see,” he said carefully. “And then what I think we should do.” Jamie’s pretty satin shoe bounced up and down. “The MRI shows a tumor growing near the base of the brain, pressing on the pons.” I felt myself go very still. Beside me, my father didn’t seem to be breathing. “A meningioma.” Ryder’s eyes were unreadable, his lips had gone pale, but his voice was calm. I stared at a half-hull replica of an America’s Cup sailboat above his desk and imagined grinding winches instead of thinking about what a meningioma might be.

  “Malignant?” my dad asked quietly, as though he were saying the name of someone who had passed away. Jamie sucked in her breath.

  Ryder dropped his eyes. “Yes, but the survival rate is very good.” When he glanced up again, he looked smug, and I wanted to slap him.

  “Well, goddamn,” my dad said, squeezing my shoulder. “I knew this was nothing to worry about.”

  Ryder held up his hand. “But the location of the tumor concerns me. The pons is in the pneumotaxic center, which controls respiration, breathing.” The words malignant meningioma were going around and around in my head. My boots were buttery soft. They’d cost $350 at the York Street Bootery thirteen years ago. Malignant. I’d stolen them, walked right out of the store wearing them, my ballet flats in my bag. Malignant. After Will died, I’d gone into stores, made myself invisible, and had taken things. Malignant. Malignant. Malignant.

  “So, what’s the treatment plan?” my dad asked in that hearty, fake voice he used when someone had just said something awkward.

  “We have a few options.” Ryder clicked his pen. “Usually, we’d go in and take the mass out, then repeat the MRI to see if there’s a need for radiation. But this tumor is in the rostral area of the brain, a place we don’t like to operate. I’d rather shrink it with radiation and then do another scan to see where we stand.” He was watching my father in an intense way that made me think they were peers, equals. Where was the boy who said he’d wear shorts to work and give his patients lollipops? Ever since I could remember, Ryder had wanted to be a pediatrician who made kids’ tummy aches feel better. Not a brain surgeon operating on adults who were probably going to die anyway. “If necessary, I’ll go in and remove what’s left of the tumor after radiation.”

  “But normally you’d do surgery first,” I said. Normally.

  Ryder’s smile was somehow comforting and condescending all at once. “Yes, normally I’d operate right away. But normally a meningioma would be in the temporal lobe, away from all the important stuff. So I’d like to see if we can radiate the area daily for eight weeks and then repeat the scan. Meanwhile”—he shifted his gaze to my father—“I don’t want you driving or doing anything even remotely risky. Just lay low while we work on this thing.”

  If Will were here, it’d be so much easier, I realized. We’d get coffee somewhere, talk about what we were going to do. He’d kept us all together, a hinge of humor and invincibility that made sure we didn’t fall apart.

  “No driving for eight weeks?” Jamie blinked quickly. She never cried, and I silently dared her to cry now, dared her to steal this moment. But she wrapped her fingers around my dad’s. “I’m supposed to leave for San Paulo in five days.”

  Is this why she’d wanted me to come home? To take care of my dad so she didn’t have to? “I’ve got it, Jamie,” I said coldly.

  “Well.” She used her hurt little girl voice. “I just mean…” She looked at Ryder. “Do you think I should go or…”

  “Of course you should go,” my dad said. “I’ve got Jensen here.” He squeezed my shoulder again.

  “But Jensen can’t drive at night,” Jamie said. “She can’t see in the dark anymore.”

  “Oh, right.” My father tousled my hair while I sat there wanting to punch her in the head. “Well, I have Luke and Sid and…” His voice trailed off.

  “We’ll take care of him,” I said, sitting back against my dad. “Go.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Just go.”

  “Jamie, if I were you,” Ryder said, setting the chart down, keeping eye contact with her, “I’d stick around. Nothing is ever sure in a case like this.” The room felt charged, tense. She took a package of tissues out of her pocketbook.

  “My beautiful girls,” my d
ad said. “This is good news. I could have been given my walking papers today.” I listened for an edge of sarcasm in his voice, but he was smiling, really smiling. “I feel like skydiving!”

  Ryder cleared his throat. “Slow down, Sterling. Your prognosis is excellent. You’ll probably outlive us all. But I want you to rest. There’s no need to kill yourself jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.” He flipped through his calendar book. “I’ve already scheduled an appointment for you with the radiation oncologist. In the meantime, if the blood tests tell us anything different, I’ll let you know. Questions?”

  My mind was in a freeze. I had a feeling Ryder hadn’t told us the whole truth. I wanted him to guarantee that the tumor would shrink with radiation. That it didn’t matter if it was malignant. That waiting on surgery was the right thing to do. I definitely didn’t want to hear about skydiving. “Is there anything we should be doing now?” I asked.

  “Just sit chilly until your appointment with Dr. Novak next Monday.”

  “Monday?” I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Can’t we see him before then?”

  Ryder held my eyes. “Were you planning on going somewhere?” We stared at each other.

  “I’m sure Ryder did the best he could making the appointment,” Jamie murmured.

  “I’m right here,” Ryder said evenly, “if anything happens between now and then. Dr. Novak can tell you a lot more about what’s going to happen from here on in. But educate yourselves as much as possible, so you know what questions to ask. The Internet can be a great resource, but sometimes the good ol’ library is more reliable. If you do use the Internet, don’t panic if you come across confusing or scary information. Just ask. I’m always available.” He sounded like a stranger, a walking textbook on how to be cordial to your patients.