by K. S. Adkins
At this point I’d had enough. I realized she was lashing out, she had been scared and now she was pissed but so was I. “Until I met you I didn’t like to do anything! I get joy from watching my wife when she’s happy! I couldn’t have predicted a fight would break out and I saw what it did you. I am fucking sorry!”
“You shouldn’t have to be!” she absolutely shrills. “You should hold my hand because you want to! Not because—”
Pulling her to me, she doesn’t fight me, which I was grateful for. “Shush,” keeping her close I remind her why I asked her to marry me, why after only minutes of knowing her that I couldn’t bear being without her.
“Drum,” she cries into my chest, clutching me.
“I will always want to hold your hand, because it’s your hand, Time. It’s a way to connect to you. Don’t you ever think that I hold your hand because it helps you. I hold your hand because it helps me.”
When she releases my shirt, I expected her to finish yelling which was fine if that’s what she needed. It wasn’t what she needed, what she needed was me. “Let’s put our hands to good use then,” she says pulling my shirt off. Then she said no more until I was inside of her.
With so much uncertainty the one thing, the only thing, that ever grounded me was Drum.
The concert wasn’t his fault, my inability to handle it wasn’t his fault either. It was mine. I was on edge, the noise hadn’t helped and I panicked. I mean, I really fucking panicked.
He didn’t deserve to be yelled at. That was me lashing out, trying to shake off the anxiety. Once he calmed me enough that I could take steady breaths, I knew I needed him. Above me, below me, all around me.
Right there in the living room, on our couch, we undressed each other frantically. If I didn’t get his clothes off I would die, I swear I felt it happening until I felt his weight on me. I could smell his cologne, taste the mint from the gum he’d chewed an hour before. This, right here, was my real, he was my real and I was his.
“God,” I moan when he slides inside. “More,” I beg when his fingers dig into my hips for leverage. “Fuck me,” I demand when he slows down.
“You feel this, Time?” he asks biting my ear lobe. “You feel me rooted inside of you? This is where I belong, inside you. Don’t you ever forget that. The next time you feel lost, remember what I’m doing to you right now.” Picking up his pace I focused on his breath, the hairs on his arms and chest, the noise our skin makes when it meets and his words. “I am always with you.”
Refusing to cry, I dig my heels in and give him everything. When he flips me over, pulling me up to my knees I arch my back waiting for him to… gasping at the surprise I grip the arm of the couch and ride it out. Drum was on a mission tonight, whatever it was, whatever it meant, I was with him one hundred percent. Switching positions again, I straddle him wasting no time in finding my rhythm. With pleasure on his face I watch every move he makes. “Close your eyes,” he urges me. “Just feel.”
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Why not?”
“I need to see you,” I manage. “For as long as I can, I need to see you.”
Giving me the look of understanding, he leans forward to kiss me and I return the kiss never once closing my eyes. Moments later when we both came, he didn’t close his eyes either.
Six months ago, I married the woman of my dreams (legally).
It wasn’t a lavish ceremony, neither of us wanted that. We chose to renew our vows in Holland so Time could be surrounded by her tulips. She was beautiful as always and she made me the happiest man on earth. I sold my house in Rochester to live here in Detroit with her, in the space that makes her feel safe.
I’ve also taken her on as many adventures as possible. She’s swam with the dolphins, rode an insane roller coaster at Cedar Point, zip lined at Boyne Mountain, jet skied on Lake Michigan and stood on the ledge of the sky deck in Chicago, just to name a few.
My wife and I were having the time of our lives, but it came at a cost.
Time’s vision was deteriorating rapidly.
The days of her walking unassisted were gone. Recently, she started using a cane and I think it was harder for me to see her adjust to it than it was for her. Mostly because she refuses to sit indoors until I get home. Knowing my wife is out in the world alone, that she could get lost or hurt, was a heavy weight.
Lately, she’s had more bad days than good but she’s stubborn and never lets it get her down. Time is convinced she was prepared for her blindness.
Which worried me too.
At night, while she slept I went through all of my medical books searching for something…anything, yet coming up with nothing. There was no cure for retinitis pigmentosa. I knew that, but I refused to accept it. What good was being a doctor if you couldn’t help people? How many patients did I hand that folder to and wish them well? I had to help my wife, I had to help others. I’ve let so many down…
“I miss my husband,” she says from the door.
“I was just catching up on some work,” I lie.
“No, you were trying to find a loophole to help me and I love you for it.”
“You should be resting,” I mumble.
“You should be asking me questions,” she says making her way to the chair. “You should be learning from me so that we can help others like me.”
“You’re not a guinea pig,” I snap at her.
“We’re all guinea pigs,” she smiles. “I’m willing, Drum, look at how far I’ve come. I couldn’t have done any of this without you. We can help people.”
“I want to help you!” I yell tossing the useless book. “I want to do everything I can to help you!”
“What happens when everything has been done?”
Dropping my head at the reminder of a conversation we’d had before, I reached for her and whispered. “I’ll still be there to hold your hand.”
“When you’re ready, you come and ask me, Drum. It helps me to talk about it. If I can help just one person with their transition, I want that chance,” she says kissing the top of my hand.
That next morning, I left for work and parked up the street like I’ve done every morning for months. Like clockwork, I watched my wife exit the house with her cane to head for the bus stop. I had money, plenty in fact, but she refused a personal driver. She demanded her independence and promised to tell me when she could no longer do it on her own.
Following at a distance, she reaches the crowd at her stop and when the bus arrives, the commuters rush forward. I was stuck in my car watching as one motherfucker knocked her down. Not one person stopped to help my wife. Running from my car over to her, I pause just before reaching her. She slowly stood up, brushed herself off and boarded the bus never seeing me. When it drove away with my wife aboard, I couldn’t describe what I was feeling. This wasn’t the first time this has happened either, but in the past she was able to recover more quickly. Day by day it’s getting harder for her to recover at all. Time still has a sliver of her vision but refuses to do any of the exercises I’ve mentioned to help her when she doesn’t. She has yet to grasp that the moments of blindness she’s experiencing now will one day cease. That one day like a switch she will simply not be able to see at all.
That day terrifies me.
At dinner, I asked her about the scratches on her palms. With a shrug she says, “I fell, but I got right back up.” Bullshit, she was shoved down and struggled to get back up, I saw it.
“I have another adventure for us,” she announces while reaching for her glass to the right of her.
“Do tell,” I smile wondering what she came up with this time.
“I’d like to meet your father.”
This declaration was met with silence. The automatic response on my tongue was, no. But I promised her no adventure was unattainable, I refused to break that promise. Because I loved her more than life itself, and my wife never asked for much, she says my love was enough.
“I’ll call him,” I tell her w
hile doing my best to bite my tongue. To say we didn’t get along was an understatement. The fact was, we didn’t like each other and I was his biggest disappointment. Which worked for me, since he was a disappointment to me too. The man who was supposed to take care of my mother, didn’t. When she needed him most, he wasn’t there.
“Drum?” she says softly. “I never had a father and even if yours doesn’t like me, I’d like to see him, just once.” Again, she humbled me so for her I would do this but if that bastard so much as looks cross at her, I’d knock him out. That night I called my father, the conversation lasted about thirty seconds. I told him there was someone I wanted him to meet and that it was non-negotiable.
We’d see him in two days.
The following afternoon, Time turned a corner. It was a milestone that was bound to happen and I was right to trust her to know when it would be. When I pulled into the driveway and saw her on the porch staring out into nothing I thought to myself, this is it. But it wasn’t, not yet anyway.
Taking a seat next to her, she rests her head on my shoulder and asks about my day. I had a bomb to drop but I needed her to go first because something was wrong. “I was lost today,” she says evenly. “I was sure I was dropped off at the stop closest to Whole Foods. Turns out I was two blocks south. But I didn’t know that until someone told me. I was confident I knew these streets like the back of my hand. Drum, I didn’t know where I was.”
“Time,” God dammit she could have been hurt or taken or…
“If you could make the call,” she says in a sure voice. “I’m ready for my leader dog now.”
“I can do that,” I manage but I wanted to fucking scream for her. She must have been out of her mind with fear. I hadn’t even known she was gone and that scared me too. “I’m proud of you, you know that, right?”
“I do,” she says kissing my cheek. “I totally do.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“It was quick,” she says. “I was positive when the dimming set in it was permanent but I forced myself to calm down and a few minutes later it receded enough for me to find my way home. I wasn’t ready for it to be lights out yet, Drum. Honestly, it scared the shit out of me.”
The dimming for Time is like taking a photo, then blurring the edges around that photo to black. She can focus on a portion of the image but nothing outside of it. As her disease progresses, the dimming will not recede, it will continue to grow until the day her world becomes dark and remains that way. The simplest way to explain her struggle is by using your hand to make a fist, start off by making a lens with your index finger meeting your thumb. Now focus on a picture on your wall. Tighten your grip and when you get to that sliver, just before your fist closes, that’s what Time sees. Everything outside of that sliver is dark, it’s dimmed; only my wife can’t open her fist and restore her sight.
“I have a bomb to drop,” I tell her. “Do you want to hear it?”
“Well yeah,” she laughs. “Anything is better than wandering the streets of Detroit with a cane and a confused look on your face.” Only Time could find humor in a dark hour.
“I closed my practice today,” when her breath caught I cut her off. “Before you lose it, I sold the business to an associate so we could open another type of business.”
“It’s not a strip club is it?”
“No,” I laugh tickling her side. “It’s The Time Center for the visually impaired.”
“What?” her breath was a puff while her body went still.
“You’re my first patient,” I tell her proudly. “Well my only patient, but I have a feeling—”
Tackling me to my back on the porch she kisses me all over my face and neck before bursting into tears. “I love you, Drum,” she wails. “I’m so proud of you! Oh God, we have so much to do! What can I do?”
Making my wife smile was my favorite color of all because it was pure gold.
Drum did not mess around. The next morning he had us scheduled to meet the Labrador retriever that would be my eyes while mine continue to fail me. He or she would be my guide in the seeing world when I left it. As he explained on our way over, this animal would be an extension of me, an instinctual part of who I would become when I lost my sight.
I asked all the questions like, was I allowed to pet him? Play with him? Could he snack on table food, stuff like that. He answered some but wanted to ask the handler the specifics. In this, Drum was learning right along with me.
As an ophthalmologist, his hands were tied when it came to blindness. In cases like mine when the disease is progressive and without cure, he can only act as a facilitator and he found that wasn’t enough for him. Drum wanted to help prepare others like he’s helped to prepare me. We both knew that at least in Detroit, our resources had been limited but, no more. With the center coming along one day soon, others would have the assistance they needed. Although, we skirt the topic, I wasn’t optimistic that I would see the finished product.
Drum would never know what having him in my life meant to me. It was impossible to voice. If it wasn’t for him, I would likely be preparing myself for assisted living, not a life in the seeing world. Certainly never married to a man I love more than my sight, a man I love more than life itself. Drum has given me the world and would continue to do so even when I could no longer see it.
When I made the decision to ask for the leader dog it was for two reasons. The first being, I needed to remove some of the stress that was forced onto Drum due to my limitations. He worried about me constantly; it literally kept him up at night. I needed the guide to be my eyes so I didn’t have to rely on his. The second was, this was another step toward my future without sight. To have independence, I needed to accept help when it was available in order to live a productive life.
Yesterday when the dimming stole my vision, I panicked.
I wigged so much I actually wet my pants.
The dimming had never stolen my sight before. Muted it, yes. Dimmed my surroundings, sure. But never total sight deprivation, there was literally nothing but black for several minutes. Those minutes felt like a lifetime and I swear to God I never wanted to feel like that again.
My first thought was never seeing Drum’s face again followed by being chopped up and tossed in a dumpster with piss in my pants, news at eleven. When I got home and changed my clothes, I sat on the porch knowing this was it. One day soon, my world, would in fact, go black and I wasn’t nearly as ready as I should be.
I had to do everything in my power to make this transition as easy on Drum and myself as possible. He was my husband, not my caregiver. This wasn’t a handicap, it was an adjustment.
Knocking on the handler’s door, a sweet older woman answers eager to let us both in. Before I could do the polite thing and speak with her, I spotted my dog. For some reason I assumed my dog would be male, I was wrong. I knew she was mine, she had to be because she was perfect for me. Her mane was golden with a shine to envy. Her nose was jet black and sniffing the air. She looked excited to see me too, like she had been waiting for me.
“Her name is Bella,” she tells me. Bella meant beautiful, and she was. “Time,” she says stealing my attention. “Ask Bella to come.”
Clearing my throat, I give the command and she came to me as if she was born to recognize my voice. Looking up at Drum, I didn’t let the tears fall, not yet. “May I… touch her?” I ask wondering what’s allowed.
“Of course,” she says prompting me to get on my knees. Following her lead, I do and Bella wanted to be touched as much as I wanted to touch her.
“She’s so soft,” I comment when my hands sink into her fur. “She’ll really be able to help me? Won’t she get tired? What if…”
“Time,” she says covering my hand. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know and once I do, Bella will take care of the rest. You two will quickly become more than just owner and guide, you’ll become family. Trust her to take care of you.”
“But I want to take care of her too,” I
tell her trying to sound reasonable.
“You will,” she says smiling at me. When I start to get emotional she tells us we’re due to come back for two days of training before she can come home with me. Of course, I wanted to start now but had to settle for tomorrow.
I hated waiting.
Drum reminded me that we had an appointment with his father, although I called it a visit. Saying goodbye to Bella was extremely difficult, but I held it in and told myself that I’ll see her tomorrow.
“I’m in love with her,” I tell him in the quiet of the car.
“She’s in love with you too, Time.”
“We’ve got an hour to kill right? So why don’t you break your silence and fill me in on your father.” Drum has never said much when it came to his dad. I tried not to ask too much because I could tell it was painful for him, but I was stubborn. He molded my husband into the man he was today. There had to be some good in the guy, I mean look at who I married.
So I asked him for the details and he shocked the hell out of me when he told me. Let it be said, Drum was not a fan of his father. Seeing an opportunity, I asked him about his mother.
“I don’t discuss my mother,” he says tightening his jaw. “Ever.”
Noted.
Time asked about my father so I told her.
I shared my childhood in detail, how I disappoint him at every turn and why I expected this visit (as she calls it) to end in disaster. “But you have me,” she says still buzzing from meeting Bella. “I’m great with assholes.”
Just like that, I laughed the hardest I had in years. She always says the right thing in a tense situation. “You have no idea how right you are,” I tell her when the tears stop.
“What does that mean?”
“Before he retired, he was a proctologist.”
“You’re shitting me,” she gasps. “Oh God the ass jokes are piling up in my head, we’re in deep shit.”
I left myself wide open for her to ask about my mother. With more bite than I intended I shut her down. Respecting my decision, albeit not happily, she didn’t push and for that I was grateful. I wasn’t ready to discuss my mother, especially when I was about to come face to face with the man that killed her.
