Blind

by Rachel Dewoskin

  Blythe turned around from where she was, at least fifteen feet away in the trees, so I barely heard her, but I did. Maybe my bat ears were on duty. She said what I knew she would: “Ask Logan.”

  “Emma, are you okay?” Naomi asked me in a tiny voice.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  We were starting to make our way out of the woods when Logan came up behind us.

  “Emma, wait,” she said breathlessly. “Please. Let me walk you home. Leah? Can I walk with Em? Can you guys go ahead?”

  “Okay, Emma?” Leah asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess so.”

  “We’ll be ten feet ahead, so if you change your mind, just shout,” Leah said. I nodded, and fell into step just behind Logan, who took the hand I was using to hold Spark’s leash and led him and me out of the woods. I let her. She used her other hand to pull branches out of the way and waited to speak until we were on the grass strip along the side of the highway. During that silent, thorny walk I was thinking how many hours we’d spent together in our lives, and how being quiet had never sucked before.

  “I have to tell you something,” she said as soon as we were out of the trees.

  “For a change,” I said. My voice sounded controlled, even though my brain was racing with painful guesses. I wished intensely that Sebastian and I were friends, that I hadn’t ruined that, too. Maybe I just wanted to confide in him whatever Logan was about to tell me, shed some suffocating, miserable lizard skin onto someone else.

  Lo’s voice was low and crunchy, like boots on rocks or bike wheels over gravel. “Blythe got the drugs from her dad’s office.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was there.”

  “You were where?”

  “It’s no big deal, Em. It’s just . . . so I went swimming with them a couple of times last summer. A bunch of times, I mean. And we met up with guys sometimes, and whatever, partied, but I guess Blythe and Claire were . . . whatever. I didn’t realize they were—we all hung out is all.”

  “Is that all Blythe meant by, did you tell me about last summer?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That you went swimming naked with them? And what else? Spent the summer doing drugs and losing it and telling them instead of me because you all know what a baby I am?” My voice was rolling into something dangerous and Leah shouted back to me, “Em? You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I called. We were past the statue. I felt my legs tense, and Logan felt it, too. “Don’t run away from me this time, Emma, please. Just listen, just hear my side for once.”

  I took the “for once” and filed it away with Sebastian and Dee and last year and the fact that I’m blind, under “unbearable if true.”

  “That is not what it was,” Logan said. “You are my best friend, not Blythe or Claire or anyone else. I just hung out with them sometimes, because—whatever. I felt bad about it. And I told them I was upset about you not being there, and they were nice about it. That was all. They got why it was hard. And with my parents. I needed—” She stopped, but I knew she was going to say “someone to talk to.”

  She tried instead, “That guy Brian was just . . . I met him because Amanda knew him, so that’s— Even if I hadn’t told them, he would have. I didn’t tell you because I felt like I couldn’t tell you part of it, because then I’d have to tell you all of it.”

  I slid my white cane side to side along the sidewalk with my right hand and felt Spark tugging his leash, which I had wrapped around my left hand. In step, back step. I walked forward, wishing I could disappear.

  “Emma, I wanted you to come with, I wanted to invite you. But I couldn’t, because . . . because, you know, it’s not safe or whatever. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like we were leaving you out just because—”

  “Because I’m blind,” I said.

  She was chewing her hair feverishly. I didn’t tell her to stop. Maybe she would devour herself bald. I thought of a poem Naomi loves, called “Hungry Mungry,” where Hungry Mungry eats the entire world and then his teeth have to gnaw on themselves once there’s nothing left.

  “I’m like your Jenna,” I said, my voice numb. “Like the toddler sister you’ve been hiding everything from. I’m the only one who—” I hated the pathetic sound of my dried-weed-yellow PBK voice even as the words straggled out.

  “No, no, Emma. First of all, since when do you hide anything from your little sisters? And anyway, that’s not what—”

  “Yes, that is what,” I said, because it was. It was a perfect description, and my voice was full of lava, my heart grinding and spitting into my throat and mouth. “Honestly? The only reason I know anything about you—having sex with Brian and whoever else, Zach; anyone else now, too?—is because Blythe—Blythe Keene!—forced you to tell me. You were never going to tell me any of it.”

  I repeated, “You were never going to tell me.” I wondered how many times I’d have to say those words before I could make them lose their meaning. Logan’s lies stacked inside each other like nesting dolls: Brian, Zach, Blythe, Amanda, drugs, what drugs Logan had done, what other things I hadn’t done, would never do. A whole summer of nights whispering her life with other people while she acted like she cared if I came back. Why?

  “Come on, Emma, please don’t be like that. I’ve told you now. I didn’t think the part about Blythe and them was—”

  But she stopped, because Leah was calling for us all of a sudden, and then my mom’s voice came into our ears, shouting from the porch. Logan pulled me the last stretch toward my house, half running. Spark bounded up the stairs and I followed him, touching each step with the front of my foot, until I was standing right in front of my mom. My mind reeled and tangled. Did my mom know where we’d been? How?

  “Naomi, honey,” she said, trying to rein her voice in, “head into the kitchen for a snack. Sarah is in there waiting for you. Emma and Leah and Logan, come and talk to me for a minute.”

  Naomi dutifully marched to the kitchen, but I knew she would ooze her way back into the hallway to hear whatever it was Mom had to say. I tried to brace for the impact, found myself clamping my teeth together until my jaw began to ache.

  “I’ve been frantic,” my mom said. “I had no idea where you guys were. Leah, where were you?”

  I waited to see if Leah would lie, hoped she would, so it could be her fault and I could follow her lead, but she said, “We were in the woods.”

  “In the woods? With Emma and Naomi?” my mom asked, incredulous. “You took Emma and Naomi into the woods at night without telling me? Why?”

  “She didn’t take me, Mom. I took her and Naomi.”

  My mom was speechless for ten seconds. “Well, then maybe you can explain to me how you thought that was a good idea,” she finally said. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be in the woods at night? And how did you get there? Along the highway? Something terrible could have happened, Emma. I thought you had better judgment.”

  “Something terrible did happen,” I said. “But not in the woods or along the highway. When I was standing with Dad, you may recall.” I could hear my mom swallowing, and imagined the sobs, the pills, the words, the dread—everything she’d been driving down inside herself since my accident. Just like I had.

  I didn’t stop. “And then nothing bad happened tonight. Some of us met at the Mayburg place and argued about real stuff—in a conversation that for once isn’t completely and utterly full of shit.”

  “The Mayburg—the abandoned house on I-92? You thought it was appropriate to take Naomi there at night? Your ten-year-old sister?”

  Okay, so taking Naomi hadn’t been a good idea, maybe, but she had asked and I hadn’t felt like patronizing her, so I’d said yes. And Leah hadn’t intervened—she’d agreed to it, too. We had scared Naomi. Was that because I wasn’t capable of paying
attention to anyone other than myself?

  “Where are Jenna and Benj and Lily?” I asked, maybe wanting to show my mom that I had realized my mistake.

  “They’re asleep, obviously,” my mom said.

  “I wish I were asleep, too,” Naomi said then, from the hallway where she’d been listening to us. “Why did you take me to that terrible place? I wish I didn’t know anything about Claire or you and Logan and Blythe or any of it!” She scrambled by, whacking into me and tripping before rushing upstairs and slamming the door to our parents’ room. My mom got up instantly and followed Naomi upstairs, as she always does when one of us storms off. Leah went with her, and Sarah got up, too, but headed into the kitchen, probably to get something to eat. She has a mechanical heart. Suddenly the living room was quiet, just Logan and me.

  “Naomi’s totally right,” Logan said. “That was fucked up of us.”

  “She wanted to come,” I said. “And kids have a right to know what’s happening.” I spat the last part out.

  Logan came closer to me. “Maybe,” she said quietly, “but timing matters. I mean, there are times when you can handle knowing things and times you can’t.” Her voice was amping up, because how was she going to justify all her lying to me? There was no way. She said, “It’s like Santa. There’s a moment when you’re ready to know that’s bullshit, but a lot of moments before when you’re not, and it’s like—if you find out before you’re ready, it ruins your whole fucking childhood.”

  “This isn’t my childhood, Logan. I’m your age. We’re the same age!”

  “I didn’t mean you, Em. I meant Naomi coming to the Mayb—”

  Sarah had come back into the room. “We’re Jewish,” she said in a bitchy way, setting a heavy mug on the table and sitting practically on top of me. I moved over, smelled coffee. “We never believed any of that absolute crap about Santa.” Logan stiffened next to me. She hates it when Sarah snaps at her.

  “Jews can’t understand a simile, Sarah?” I said, turning the force of my wrath toward her.

  Leah came back in and sighed. “She’s okay,” she said, about Naomi. No one responded.

  “Whatever, Emma,” Sarah said. “Make it all literary, as usual.” Sarah can never let anyone have the last word about anything. I was so sick of it.

  “It’s no surprise you never believed in Santa, Sarah; you never believed anything good about anything,” I said. My words felt like darts spinning toward a bull’s-eye. “Because you’re so self-involved you’ve never given one second of thought to anyone else. Ever. Honestly, it’s unbelievable that you’re Leah’s twin.” Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. Maybe because of Logan, I don’t know. But I kept going, like my brakes didn’t work. “I guess Leah just got everything good and God left you as a husk of a fucking person. It must be miserable to be you.”

  There was a half-second silence and then Sarah stunned us all by bursting into tears. She cries even less often than Logan, and hadn’t cried over Claire or any of the legitimately horrible things that had happened in the last two years. I’d always assumed Sarah couldn’t possibly care less what I thought or said or did, as long as it didn’t bankrupt our family or absorb too much attention. I was angry that she would cry now, as if this were the worst thing that had happened, and make me look as mean and ugly as I felt.

  “Jesus Christ, Emma,” Leah said. “What’s wrong with you?” And she went after Sarah the way my mom had gone after Naomi. My stomach flipped and started sinking.

  “Whatever,” Logan said, knowing Leah’s disapproval was terrible for me. “You were totally right; she needed to hear that.”

  I said, “I have to go to sleep. Maybe when I wake up, it will be from this whole nightmare.”

  I didn’t invite her to stay. It was the first time since we met—when we were four, both of us on the jungle gym at the playground, and Lo was hanging upside down and saying, “Hold my hand so I can jump!” and then, after I did, “Want to be best friends?”—that I had let her leave. Now I turned, pressed my hand against the hallway wall, and slid my way to my room. Spark hopped off the couch and followed me. I felt the chipped paint, the groove; reached down and turned the cold brass knob. Behind me, I heard the click of the front door shutting behind Logan, and wondered—worried about—where she was going. Home, to her empty house? Or who knew, maybe she was headed straight to Zach’s? Or to Brian’s, whoever he was? Maybe she’d go to Amanda’s, since I had been wrong at Lake Main. They had become close friends; I had thought everyone was just interested in me. Shame licked up at all my edges. Maybe Logan had gone back to the Mayburg place. Maybe everyone was still there, except Blythe and Dima and my sisters and me.

  I sat at my desk and shuffled through my treasures again: the new braille love note from Naomi, Mr. Hawes’s pen, the grapes, the rock, my photo envelope. I found the stack of Lo notes, our L&E book. My fingers caught the edge of Zach Haze’s cardboard valentine, which I could identify because it’s shaped like Spider-Man, and because Zach glued glitter to the back, mostly gone but with still enough scratch left to touch. I have probably run my fingers over it seven hundred times since the accident. Because I love it. I held the L&E book for a few minutes, along with the envelope of notes from her, and wondered what would happen to them over the years, how long they’d survive. They were still here, even though I couldn’t see them anymore, even though she had gone swimming every night last summer with Blythe and Claire, had known all about Claire and told me nothing, had been drinking, smoking, gobbling drugs, laughing, trading secrets in the lovely, safe-scary dark. Until it wasn’t safe. Did they blame themselves for what happened to Claire? What were their secrets?

  I forced myself to imagine Logan lying back, Zach kissing her neck, taking her clothes off, having movie sex with her, whispering I love you, I’ve always loved you, the whole time. Had she risen from his bed and gone straight to her real, grown-up, undamaged friends to gossip and celebrate? Or cry? Had they all felt sorry for me out loud, Emma Sasha Spinster Silver, trapped forever in the worst year of my life, my “horrific tragedy,” no longer a part of their glorious society, where girls could giggle and swim and see. Where they could have sex. And tell each other about it. Girls like Claire, I guess. Claire’s life had been so lovely, no matter what had been wrong with it; it was so much better than my life, with everything she could see—but maybe she couldn’t see that.

  What if I just decided to kill myself? Is that what happened with Claire? Was she like, “This is too much—too miserable, too impossible. I’m out”? But if I were going to do that, wouldn’t I have done it the summer of my accident? Or that terrible fall I spent on the couch—wouldn’t I have stopped thinking, I’m going to die, and actually died? But I didn’t. So does that mean I won’t? At what point can you say someone is safe from herself?

  The next morning, I took the L&E book, the clay lump with its X’d out button eyes and wire glasses, the dog and stick I’d made, and a bunch of cutout paper I’d been gluing into a book of tiny braille notes and headed to the kitchen, still quiet. I chucked everything into a paper lunch bag. I grabbed a small rectangular box from the middle drawer, where my mom keeps the secret cigarettes we all pretend not to know she smokes. I went out into the bright morning and stood at the edge of our backyard. My fingers prickled and then ached. I felt the heat of my breathing, changing the air around me, and slipped a stick out of the matchbox; felt its scratchy red bulb like the glitter on Zach’s valentine. I held the other end between my index finger and thumb. Then I whisked it along the side of the box and heard the thump of the tiny flame, smelled the sulfur, and felt my heart swell and ignite in my chest. It was the first time I’d lit a match. I said, out loud, “Focus in, Emma,” then set the paper bag down and held the match to it. Immediately I felt and smelled the fire, heard the crackling as the bag went up, saw the flames, the smoke, the end of my shitty project, the pretense that I could create “memoir art,” our r
ule book, the paper bag, Logan’s and my childhoods. I stood, wondering if I might throw up, inhaling the smoke, thinking, This is what fire looks like to me, waiting to see if it went out or burned me and the entire town to the ground, thinking, How afraid am I now?

  “Emma?”

  Benj was there, and I heard splashing, popping. He was pouring water on the flames, which sizzled so quickly I knew they had been a joke, not even a dangerous, real fire. How afraid had I been? And of what?

  “Benj?”

  “What are you doing, Emma?”

  “I was making a little fire,” I said.

  “I ended that fire,” he said, scared. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay. It was a good idea to put it out.”

  “It’s cold,” he said. He bent to set something on the ground, a watering can, maybe, or pitcher—whatever he had used to pour the water on my embarrassing fire.

  I reached down and felt his little face as he stood back up. Then I slid my hands down to his neck and shoulders, realized he had on nothing but cotton pajamas and a cape.

  “You’re right. We should go inside, Benj. You’ll freeze.”

  “That’s why you made a fire, right, Emma? You were cold?”

  “Sort of. Actually, I made it because I was feeling kind of blue,” I admitted.

  “I’m feeling blue, too,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Do you remember that rabbit, Bigs?” he asked. We began walking toward the house. I held his hand, felt him move Champon the turtle into his other hand and then flop the raggedy thing against his face.

  “Of course I remember Bigs. We all remember her.”

  “She eated that plant and died and we had to bury her and later she was going to be another rabbit but she never was and we never saw that rabbit. And then we also never seed Bigs again, either. That made my heart blue.”

  “I know,” I said. “I can see why you feel blue.”

  “Why are you blue, Emma?”

  “It’s something smaller than Bigs,” I said, and Benj laughed his noisy, shouting laugh.