Night Blindness

by Susan Strecker

  A hard stone rose into my throat. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He opened the driver’s door, and I handed him the keys. “Wait until you see the pictures. You’re going to love it. I tried to send photos from Crete, but the Internet was too slow. How’s your old man?”

  I got in on the passenger side. Nic always drove when we were together. I glanced at a new brass thumb ring and noticed that his hair was longer. He had that exotic look people got when they’d been abroad. I felt plain next to him, boring. “He’s okay now.”

  “Now? What happened?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  He glanced at me so long, I thought we were going to get in an accident. “Is he still in the hospital? Do you want to go there?”

  “Yes, but not now. Jamie texted a few minutes ago. He’s sleeping.”

  “How about I take you to lunch, then? You’re too skinny.” He reached over, and I felt his fingers find my hand. He squeezed it. “I’m sorry I was MIA, J.”

  I didn’t say anything to this. “We can go to Penny Lane Pub. It’s right around the corner.”

  He held my hand while he drove and didn’t let go when he shifted. “You look worn-out.”

  “I was up all night.”

  “But you’re still beautiful.”

  I didn’t want to hear about how pretty I was, especially when I looked like shit. “My father almost died last night. But one of the doctors figured out he was having a bad reaction to his antiseizure meds.”

  “But he’s okay now?”

  “I needed you, Nic.” I watched the traffic behind us in the side-view mirror. “I kept trying to call you.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. I felt myself go warm. “I’m sorry, sunshine. I would have come right away if I’d known.”

  I tried to smile, but something in me felt hard as stone. I kept imagining him and Demetri playing guitar on the beach while I sat in a hospital room getting pale and ugly. It made me want to start a fight and throw things at him. But I kept quiet, and we drove the rest of the way without talking.

  Penny Lane Pub used to be a bowling alley. The jukebox was a giant bowling ball and the salt and pepper shakers were little bowling pins. I kept glancing at Nic while we looked at the menu. I didn’t know if it was the beard or his tan or how long his hair had gotten, but I felt like I was sitting across from a stranger. He still looked like that sexy sculptor I’d fallen in love with, but something was different.

  He folded his menu and reached across the table for my hand. “I missed you, J. Every single day, I‘d wake up wishing you were next to me.”

  Before I could answer, a skinny kid with spiked hair, black eyeliner, and bowling shoes recited the specials. I ordered a Swingshot Greek salad and Nic got a King Pin cheeseburger, fries, and a beer.

  “Are you glad you went?” I could barely be civil to my husband, whom I hadn’t seen in six weeks.

  “Very,” he said too easily. “But I missed you like crazy. I’m telling you, Jensen, the view alone will take your breath away.”

  I kept my hands on my lap and looked out the window. “Glad you had a good time.” The maples along College Street were starting to turn orange. Summer was ending without my even having realized it.

  “Hey,” he said. “Earth to my beautiful wife.”

  “Sorry, but I’m exhausted.” The waiter set down our drinks.

  He held his beer up to clink it against my water glass. “We’ll get you all taken care of when—”

  “Did you hear me? He almost died,” I snapped. “If you had been here with me instead of sailing around the Greek isles with Demetri, you would have known that.”

  He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

  I wanted to deck him.

  The waiter came back with our food. Will had always said they had the fastest service on the planet. Nic’s burger was fat and delicious-looking, with juice dripping into the bun. Day after day of sitting vigil had meant eating only the slop in the cafeteria or bags of pretzels from the vending machine. I would have given anything to eat his burger, quickly, greedily, all by myself.

  “I would have flown back. I already told you that.”

  I stabbed at an olive and didn’t answer.

  “Listen to me. I. Am. Sorry.” I raised my eyes and he held my chin. “I’m just so excited and so goddamn happy to see you.” He let his hand fall, and I didn’t look away. “You won’t believe the house I found for us. It has enough studio space for both of us and a garden, and you can even bring Hadley if you’ll miss him too much.”

  I imagined moving six thousand miles away with Nic. A million times we’d talked about living there, but there was something lonely about it, terribly isolated. “I haven’t talked to Hadley since he left for Croatia on his quest for photographers.” I thought of Hadley’s gallery, of the blue Santa Fe sky, and the square on market day, but it felt like a movie set I’d once visited. My whole world had washed away in the red-hot panic of my father’s illness.

  “What?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I kept studying his face. Something was different about him, and it wasn’t the beard or the tan. Maybe, I thought, something is different about me.

  “Look J., you know what I realized while I was away from you?” I shook my head. “I’ve been taking you for granted. I want to start over in Greece. We’re going to make it a lovers’ paradise.” He waited for me to speak, and when I didn’t, he said, “I love you, Jensen.” I couldn’t remember how long it’d been since he’d said that to me. “And I’m never going to let you go.”

  My phone beeped with a text message. “Hurry up and eat. My dad’s awake.”

  * * *

  We visited with my dad for a few minutes, but he was still exhausted. After he dozed off again, Jamie told me to take Nic to the house. “Get a good night’s sleep,” she said when she kissed my cheek. “Daddy will be home in the morning.”

  When we got home, Nic showered after I did and then he came and lay next to me on my bed. I thought he was going to kiss me, but he just watched me. Finally, he spoke. “Do you remember the first time I sculpted you?”

  I’d been so nervous. I’d taken my clothes off for plenty of boys since Ryder, but I’d never let any of them really see me. Nic was so intense with his work, choosing the smallest chisel for my cheekbones, sweeping the granite dust with a handmade down brush. I remembered him lifting my arms, tilting my hips, all the while talking to himself about light and shading.

  He pushed back my hair. “I chose you because you didn’t want to be noticed.” It was rumored on campus that girls lined up at his apartment to ask if he would sculpt them. Walking home that day, I knew I should have felt proud—I’d landed the sexy professor, the famous sculptor—but I didn’t feel anything except a vicious need to hide behind him. “Do you know why I used granite?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Because it’s beautiful but impenetrable. Granite is forever. Marble corrodes over time. Granite never does.”

  I felt his hands under my blouse. He unbuttoned my shorts, slipped his fingers inside of me. All through lunch, I’d wondered if we still had that one thing that had kept us alive all these years: the intensity we got when we made love. But as we started to kiss, I couldn’t find it. I didn’t feel that hot current that usually went through me. He was hard against my leg, and he flipped me over so I was on my back, and then he ran his tongue down the center of my stomach, stopping at the thin strip of hair between my legs. He took me in his mouth, sliding a finger inside of me. For one instant, it burned, it had been so long. But then it felt familiar, and I found my mind drifting back to the hospital, to my father waking up that morning and Waller saying it was just the medication. The scan was clean. My dad was going to be okay.

  “What’s wrong?” Nic touched my face; his fingers were rough.

  “Nothing.”

  “I get the f
eeling you don’t really want this.”

  I couldn’t imagine how he knew that. “Why would you think that?”

  He came up and lay beside me again. “Knowing what you’re thinking is my secret superpower. Everyone has one.”

  “Oh yeah?” I propped myself up on my elbow. “What’s mine?”

  He watched me. “Making people love you even when they shouldn’t.”

  “Ouch.”

  He tucked a few strands of hair behind my ear and then he drew me toward him. His skin was hot. The dark room around me was out of focus. I tried to squint, to make it come back, but it was all shadows. I settled, as best I could, into his chest. “I love you, Nico Ledakis,” I said defensively.

  He didn’t say anything. And before long, he was asleep.

  29

  The next morning, Nic and I let my mom out at the front entrance of the hospital and parked the car. When we got to my dad’s room, Luke, Jamie, Mandy, Dale, and Ryder were all there. Ryder glanced up when we came in the room, and I felt my face go red. My dad was sitting in a wheelchair. Behind him, ready to deliver him to Jamie’s car, was the male nurse who’d told me to eat a burger.

  “Obviously, we’ve taken him off the Keppra,” Dale said to Jamie. She never looked at me anymore. Then to my dad, she said, “I think one more radiation treatment is all that’s necessary, since your scans are clean. I dare say after that we’ll declare you cancer-free and good to go.”

  “What about surgery?” I stared at Ryder. “I thought you were going to resect the tumor once radiation was over.”

  He grinned at me. It made me want to kiss him. Or kill myself. “There is no tumor to resect. It’s over, Jenny. Your dad is as good as new.”

  “Oh my God.” I swallowed. “I didn’t realize. It’s really over?” My father really was healthy.

  “How in the world can we thank you?” Jamie held her hands out to Dale and Ryder.

  “No need to thank me,” Dale said, squeezing my dad’s shoulder. “It’s my job.”

  Please. I turned my head so she wouldn’t see me roll my eyes at Mandy, who rolled her eyes back.

  Jamie threw up her hands. “Sterling, you’re cured. Can we please go celebrate?”

  “Technically,” Dale said, “Sterling’s not cured.” I sucked in my breath. “He’s in remission. But that alone is cause for celebration.” The room erupted in a cheer, and everyone hugged and clapped and high-fived one another. Ryder and I weren’t looking at each other, and I could barely stand to be next to Nic. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  * * *

  In the parking garage, my dad’s gait was steady, and his cheeks still had that healthy color. He hadn’t looked this good since I’d been home. Mandy kissed him good-bye and said she’d stop by later in the week to check on him. “Good to see you, Nic.” She gave him a quick, annoyed smile. “How long are you staying?”

  “Actually, I’m off to New York in a few days to set up my fall show at the Chelsea Gallery. From there, I’ll fly back to Santa Fe and wait for my beautiful wife to get home.” He squeezed my hand.

  “Yeah,” she said. “We’ll all hate that, no offense.”

  My dad opened the passenger door. “Let’s charter a boat,” he said.

  Luke was waiting in the Navigator with the window down. “Now the man’s talking.”

  “Today?” I glanced at Jamie. “Don’t you think you should go home and rest?”

  “I’ve been sleeping for ages,” my dad told me. “Some fresh air will do me good.”

  Luke chimed in. “Screw the charter. I want to see if that teak ketch we’ve been eyeing is still anchored at the River Museum in Essex.”

  Jamie got in on the driver’s side and kissed his arm, gazing at him as though they’d just gotten married. “Your father’s thinking of buying a boat,” she said to Nic and me as we climbed in the backseat. She never once took her eyes off my dad.

  “Well, can’t he do it tomorrow?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he take it easy?”

  “Yes, Whobaby.” My dad strapped his seat belt. “I can.”

  And then I remembered that we hadn’t talked about Will. For once, I was glad Nic had come. I didn’t think my father would take me aside and try to talk about it with Nic in the house. As we drove out of the garage, I wondered if my dad realized I’d never even told my husband. The only person on earth I’d told besides Mandy was him.

  30

  I asked Nic not to talk about Greece in front of my parents. I wasn’t ready yet to break the news, and we wouldn’t be leaving until after Thanksgiving anyway. A couple days after my dad got out of the hospital, I dropped Nic off at the train station.

  He sat in the car with one leg out of the door and one leg in, kissing my hand. “You sure you can’t come to New York?” People were heading onto the platform in droves, and for some reason, I didn’t want anyone to see us.

  “I should spend a little more time with my parents before I head out,” I told him. He was wearing his new leather and brass jewelry from Greece and a pair of suede pants.

  He kissed my fingertips, which were peeking out of the gauze bandage I’d just changed. We’d spent the day before grinding winches on the new boat, getting splashed by the Connecticut River. I’d been trimming the jib when the wind ripped the sheet through my hand, taking some skin with it. As I wrapped it up, it reminded me of Ryder the night I hit my head on the crash cart. “One week,” Nic said now, “and we get our life back. I can’t wait for Greece.” I didn’t want to pick a fight then. But the words were rising up in me like a tidal wave.

  “One thing at a time. Let me get out west first. Then we can talk.” I hesitated, watching a young couple kissing by the escalator. “I’m not sure I’m ready for Greece. It’s so far away.”

  He opened his mouth like he was going to speak, but then he pressed his lips to my forehead.

  My parents were eating lunch when I got home. I sat across from them at the kitchen table. My dad put the newspaper down. “I went against the rules of sailing and renamed the boat. Miss Majestic will from now on be known as And She Was.”

  “I love it,” I told him. “It’s so profound, in a Zen sort of way.”

  Jamie poured lemonade into three glasses and handed one to me. She was wearing white clam diggers, a blue-striped boatneck shirt, and docksiders. Her belt had tiny anchors on it. “Thank you, Mrs. Stubing,” I said.

  My dad laughed. “Prettiest captain’s wife I ever saw.” He pushed his chair away and put his arm around her.

  “We’re taking an afternoon sail. You want to go out with us?”

  “I’m good,” I told them. “I have to do a few things.”

  “Ready, darling?” she asked my father. Jamie’s eyes were bright.

  “I was born ready,” my dad said.

  * * *

  I’d wanted to weed the whole garden before they got back, but forty-five minutes into it, I was covered in sweat, and I couldn’t pull out any of the stubborn chickweed roots. I needed a trowel to dig them out. I was in the garage, looking for one, when I heard the doorbell ring. Wiping my forehead with the back of my hand, I ran through the kitchen to the front hall and opened the door. And there they were: those red pumps, the red pumps.

  Dr. Dale Novak was standing on our front steps, as beautiful as if she’d just stepped out of a Talbot’s catalog. “I’m so glad you’re home,” she said. She had perfect posture.

  “Dale.” I touched my ratty ponytail. “What are you doing here?” I was wearing a hand-me-down Yale T-shirt Ryder had given me when we were teenagers. “My dad’s not here.” My toenail polish was chipped and I wished I’d gone to the spa with Mandy.

  “Actually, I came to see you.” Her voice got softer. “May I come in?”

  She followed me into the house, stopping at the photographs in the foyer. I felt as if she were eyeing me naked. She paused the longest at one of Will and me sitting on a tree branch. Seconds after it was taken, I’d fallen off, and Will had laughed so hard,
he’d peed in his pants.

  Dale and I sat on opposite ends of the living room couch. “This is Ryder’s favorite song.” She pointed at the overhead speakers. I’d forgotten to turn off the iPod before I went outside. “She sits on the porch of her daddy’s house / But all her pretty dreams are torn,” Springsteen sang. I got up and turned it off, then washed my hands at the kitchen sink.

  When I sat back down, she was glancing around the room as though she were deciding whether to buy it. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and twisted through itself. She clasped her hands together and I put mine on my dirty knees. “I had a whole speech planned out,” she said. “I even rehearsed it in the car on the way over.” The diamond ring was gone from her finger.

  “Why don’t you just tell me whatever’s on your mind,” I said.

  “Can I have something to drink?”

  “I made lemonade this morning.”

  “Do you have anything stronger?” She touched her wrist, straightening her charm bracelet. “Like whiskey?”

  I disliked her a little less at that moment. “Sure, come with me.” We went to the dining room, and I pulled down a bottle of good bourbon and two highball glasses from a shelf by the sideboard. Then I walked to the kitchen. “You can sit at the counter if you want to.” I took a boiling pan out of the cupboard. “Old-fashioned?”

  She nodded hesitantly. I gathered she didn’t know what an old-fashioned was. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I took a couple of oranges, a carton of cherries, and a can of ginger beer out of the fridge. We’d stocked up so we could celebrate. Old-fashioneds were my dad’s favorite. I felt sort of sorry for her, sitting there in her catalog outfit with her nails and hair all done up like she was going to a wedding. I dumped a few spoonsful of sugar in the pan, took the grater out of the drawer, and peeled plastic wrap off the cherries.

  “Are those gray cherries?” she asked.