“It’ll work for you this time, Rachel. I honestly believe that.”
Yes, she honestly did. I sighed, and she knew I was going to give in. “If I believed in miracles, I’d think this was one.”
But of course I didn’t. And as it turned out, it wasn’t.
3
ERIC THOUGHT HE had blown it. He was pretty sure of it, in fact. At first he’d been in oblivion, but then a sound had brought him back. The sound of the rat, scratching, biting. It wasn’t digging its way through the wall. It had escaped that prison. Eric had blown a hole through the wall. Into his own head.
So how could he be aware of anything, then? Aware but immobile, aware but in full sensory deprivation. What was this? Was this hell?
He’d intended to be dead, to kill the rat, not to let it out. But it was free. And scratching now to let him know it.
“I know it was my fault,” Jeremy said.
That voice, those words, snapped his attention away from the rat’s merciless, incessant claws inside him. His focus turned outside, as much as it could, anyway. He couldn’t see anything. His eyes were closed, and though he tried to open them, he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel much either, and he supposed that was a good thing, because he’d blown half his head off earlier today. Or was it yesterday? Or a week ago? Or a year?
Steady beeping, beep, beep, beep. The sound of Darth Vader breathing in his ear. A rhythmic thumping. And that voice.
Jeremy’s voice.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you for forgetting we were coming home. But you didn’t have to do this, Dad. You didn’t have to do this.”
It wasn’t your fault, son.
Damn, why couldn’t he tell him?
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
“Are you all right, Jer?”
That was Marie. She was standing close, he could tell.
“They’re gonna cut him up, Mom. How can you let them do that?”
Joshua’s sobbing, which he realized had been soft background noise, took a turn for the louder. He felt like joining his younger son. What the hell were they talking about, cutting him up?
“This is no place for the boys.” That was Mother. She was patting someone’s hand. From the location, he thought it might be his own, but he couldn’t feel it, only hear the sound. Smack, smack, smack. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better by you, Eric. I hope you’ll find peace in the afterlife.”
“Josh, Jeremy, it’s important that you guys understand something here.” That voice belonged to his kid brother. Mason.
Mason had been yelling at him earlier. He remembered that vaguely, but had no idea when it had happened and barely recalled what he’d said. Oh, right. He was mad that Eric had waited for him to get there to shoot himself. He had it all wrong, of course. He’d been trying to do it before Mason got there. He’d just run out of time.
Go on, he thought at Mason. Tell the boys something. Anything to make them feel better. You always know what to say.
“Your dad’s already gone.”
No! I’m not gone, I’m right here. And so is the rat. Scratching me bloody, the damned thing. Why is it so hyper? Why is it still tormenting me now that it’s free? It has what it wanted.
“He’s already gone,” Mason repeated. “Those machines are forcing blood through his body to keep his organs alive, but he’s gone. And what we’re going to do here, with the parts he left behind, is help other people. Your dad is going to save lives. He’s a hero.”
Oh, that’s a good one, Mason. But they must know better. Or do they? No one had mentioned the dead men. The confession. The bag of tools. Jeremy wasn’t asking Marie why his father had murdered thirteen young men who looked just like he looked. Why hadn’t he?
What did you do, Mason?
Then the rest of Mason’s words started to soak in, and he realized they were going to donate his organs. Well, that was good, right? He couldn’t feel anything, so there would be no pain, and he certainly couldn’t keep on living if they took out all his vital parts. Could he?
He would be free then.
Scratchscratchscratchscratch!
“Part of your father will live on in the people whose lives he saves today,” Mason said softly. “You should be very proud of that.”
Part of him would live on.
Part of him.
Part of him…
No, not that part!
A soft breath, close to his face. He heard it but didn’t feel it. “Bye, Dad. I love you.”
From down lower. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Goodbye, son.” That was Angela. Mother. Never Mom or Mommy. Mother. Cold. Like she knew.
He heard the boys’ shuffling steps, Mother’s clacking heels fading, the door swinging open and then closed. And then it was down to Marie and Mason.
Marie said, “He kept a part of himself closed up— always,” she whispered. “But I loved him, all of him. Even the parts he didn’t want me to see. I wish he knew that.”
The rat. You didn’t need to see that.
“I know. I know.”
But you saw it, Mason. You saw my rat in the end. Those driver’s licenses. God, what did you do? Did you cover it up?
A smacking sound, soft, near his ear. Had Marie leaned over to kiss him? God, he wanted to feel that.
A sob. “I can’t do this.” Running footsteps. The door.
It was just him and his brother now. Mason heaved a big sigh. Like he was almost too tired to stay upright. He sounded just about all in.
“I covered it all up, Eric. Your secrets are going to be buried with you. I just couldn’t put them through it.”
I should have figured you would do that.
“Maybe the lives you save now will at least start to make up for what you did. Balance the scales a little. I hope so, brother. And I hope to God you find some kind of peace now. I really do.” And then he went away, too.
There were feet, followed by the sound, not the feeling, of being jostled. And then Eric faded away for a while. When he returned, he felt different. Hollow. Empty. There were still others all around him, their voices muffled. More machines beeping. He was in an operating room. Had been for some time. He wondered vaguely what was left of his body at this point.
“Scalpel.”
He heard it. He heard the sound of his skin being sliced. It was like a very faint echo of butter melting in a skillet. Sssssssss. And then the horrifying buzz of the bone saw, and the cracking as his ribs were spread apart. No, no, no, he couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel it. He kept reminding himself of that. He was just imagining the pain.
“Transplant team, ready for the heart?”
“Ready, doctor.”
No! No, wait until I fade away again. I know, I know, I won’t feel it, but it’s still too awful too awful too awful….
Scratchscratchscratch!
More cutting. God! And then the squishy sounds as they pried and pulled and lifted what he thought was his heart from what he thought was his chest. Surely he couldn’t keep going now!
No. No, he couldn’t. He was fading, falling into a whirling vortex of darkness and turning his attention away from here toward there. A pinprick of light appeared far, far away. No more scratching. No more rat. He felt free of it, lighter than air without it weighing him down.
Believe me, pal, it’s mutual.
Eric spun around in his rapidly expanding consciousness, which was inflating like a balloon. He started wondering how he had ever fit into his little body to begin with. But still, that voice, the rat, got his attention. Where the hell was it? What was it doing?
Hey, you made this choice, I didn’t. I’m not going anywhere, buddy. Just because you shot your head, doesn’t mean the rat is dead.
And then it laughed and it laughed and it laughed, and Eric’s horror enveloped him. He couldn’t see that speck of light anymore. Nor could he hear the laughter. Or anything. He felt like an astronaut cut loose from his tether, floating through space, only without a spacesuit. Or a body.
Or any senses at all. He was adrift in a vacuum that was stretching him in all directions and dimensions, and he was thinning, and thinning, and wondering when he would simply become a part of the void.
* * *
THE NIGHTMARES STARTED my first night home, barely forty-eight hours after the bandages came off my eyes. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Because really, that was major, that day. It was fucking huge.
I hadn’t taken the bandages off myself. Not because the doc had warned me so sternly against it—like that would have stopped me. I wasn’t real good at doing what I was told. Or conforming. Or following rules. Or anything, really, except writing books telling people to follow their bliss. The more ways I could find to say it, the more books I sold. But the truth was, the whole premise—that you could attract good things to you by being good yourself; that a positive attitude would make life go smoothly; that belief could create fortunes and castles and bliss—was flawed. It had been drummed into me by the well-meaning adults around me ever since I’d lost my eyesight for good.
Look for the silver lining, Rachel.
Everything happens for a reason, Rachel.
Something positive will surely come of this, Rachel.
And I remember thinking, My God, they actually believe this shit!
And when they started getting me books—audiobooks back then, though now it’s ebooks with text-to-speech enabled, because let’s face it, braille is kind of passé these days—that spouted the same bull, I realized they not only believed it, they wanted to believe it.
By the time I was sixteen I had figured out that these Pollyanna idiots would pay any amount of money for any product that supported their inane beliefs, because those beliefs were so flimsy they needed constant reinforcement. One stiff gust of logic or common sense would blow them to hell and gone. Hence, the self-help guru explosion of the first decade-and-a-half—so far—of the new millennium. Entire companies have been born and built around the idea that one could create one’s own reality. Those companies produce books and DVDs and card-kits created by authors who pretend to understand quantum physics, and use their brand of pseudo-science to support their claims that you are what you think and all that crap.
Eventually I figured, why fight it when I could make millions off it instead?
So that’s what I did. That’s what I do. Being blind makes me even more popular among the sheep—I mean masses. Silver lining? No. Smart thinking.
But back to the subject. No, I didn’t take the bandages off. I was an obedient conformist for the first time in…well, ever. I waited because I was scared shitless. I had not seen in twenty years, not really. The post-transplant unveilings of the past had been little better than the blindness that had preceded them and of course, short-lived. And before I’d lost my sight entirely, there had been a solid year of slow fading, so the final unforgettable image I’d seen—my brother, Tommy—had been dull and dark around the edges.
Point is, I was too scared to take the bandages off myself. I don’t even know what I was scared of, exactly. That the transplant hadn’t worked and I would still be blind, maybe, or maybe that I would be able to see again and it would be terrible.
I know, stupid, right? How can seeing be terrible? I guess it’s like anything else in the human psyche. When we don’t know what to expect we’re all alike: terrified. And frankly, I probably would have gotten over the fear and yanked the eye patches off myself if I’d had to wait very long for the doc to do it. But I didn’t. Just overnight.
So I was sitting up in the bed, listening to the clock tick and my sister yap at me in an effort to try to distract me from my impatience. My breakfast tray was still there, wafting aromas that weren’t really bad but were making my stomach turn anyway. Amy was there. She was unusually quiet. Barracuda Woman was there via Skype, on a laptop beside my bed. The twins were at the mall. Sandra wisely thought maybe I’d like to see them for the first time with just us four.
Mott hadn’t even shown up. Him and his idea that being blind was something to be proud of. Like we should have a freaking parade. Blind Pride. Fuck that. If I could see, I damned well wanted to.
And there it was. My hopes were high. I hadn’t intended to let them climb up there, but they’d ascended to the point where they were making me dizzy. God, I was a glutton for punishment.
And then there were the footsteps and the smells that told me Doc had finally arrived.
“About time,” I said.
“I said nine. It’s only 8:30.”
“Left my braille watch home. Feels like noon of next year to me.” My voice was shaking. Why the hell was my voice was shaking?
She came closer, moved right up next to the bed. Sandra was on the other side, and she slid a hand over mine, closing it tight, and said, “I’ll probably look like an old lady to you.” She was shaking, nervous and hopeful, and near tears.
“Shit, I’ll probably look like an old lady to me. At least you had all morning to do hair and makeup. I’ve never smelled so much hairspray in my life.”
She laughed softly. “It’s true, I did. Spent an hour and a half. It’s not every day your sister sees you for the first time in so long. God, I was what, sixteen?”
Doc’s hands were at the back of my head, and she started unwrapping the gauze, layer by layer.
“Don’t worry,” I told Sandra to lighten the mood. “I wasn’t expecting you to still be three feet tall and wearing bunny jammies. But you’d better have kept the dimples and curls. I’m probably a hag. It’s unfair.”
“You’re beautiful, Rachel. You’ve always been beautiful.”
“Yeah, that’s the ticket. Make me cry so I can’t see shit even with my new eyes.”
I wasn’t even kidding. Really.
“Don’t expect too much,” Doc said. “It’s going to be better than the last times, but still a little blurry for a couple of months. But it will improve. Every day it’ll improve.”
“Thanks for the warning. Will you hurry up, already? What are you, rolling the gauze back up to reuse as you go along?”
“You are such a bitch, Rachel,” Amy said. But she said it with love, and her voice was thick with tears already.
The gauze was gone. I could feel it. Now there were just two thick pads over my eyes. Doc said, “Keep them closed until I tell you to open them, okay?”
“You want me to wait longer? Yeah, what the hell, it’s only been twenty years.”
She had her fingertips over the pads, just in case I got antsy, I guess. “Amy, can you get the lights? Sandra, the blinds? I want it dim in here for this.”
They moved. The light switch snapped; blinds whispered shut.
And then the pads were being peeled away. “Not yet, Rachel. Keep them closed. Just for a few more seconds.” Doc dabbed my eyes with something warm and wet. Then it moved away. “Okay.”
Okay, I can open them now.
No, I can’t do it.
“Go ahead, Rachel. It’s all right. Open your eyes.”
Just do it already. What are you gonna do, walk around with your eyes closed for the rest of your life?
God, why is this so hard?
I made myself do it. And you know, as much as you might think you can open your eyes slowly, you can’t. You really can’t. Try it, go ahead. There’s just no way. Eyes are either closed or open. Mine were closed.
And then they were open.
And it was dim, but…I could see. I couldn’t believe it. Had to double-check.
Am I really seeing, or is this imagination?
No, no, it was real. I could see people in the room. Yes, blurry, I guess, but consider what I had to compare it to. Women, three women, and I almost panicked, thinking I wouldn’t know who was who and would hurt their feelings.
Duh, you knew who was who before, didn’t you?
Right. Sandra’s on the left, holding my hand. I shifted my new eyes to her, and then I clapped my hand over my mouth and the tears started up. “I can see you,” I said behind my
hand.
She was smiling and shaking her head, and crying, too, bending to hug me, but I pushed her away. “No, no, I want to look at you.” And then I clasped her face in my hands and stared at it. Smooth porcelain skin, and blue blue eyes, and laugh lines. My big sister, all grown up. I stared at her until I saw the girl she’d been in her face, in her blue eyes. Her hair was still curly, and I thought it was still gold, but it was too dark to be sure.
I turned from her to look at Amy by the foot of the bed. And I laughed and smeared tears off my cheeks with one hand, careful of my eyes. “You look just like I thought…only not as Goth and even cuter.” She was, short, a little more rounded than she wished she was, short dark perfectly straight hair parted deep on one side. I knew it was dark red—not auburn but burgundy; I’d heard her say so. But in the dimness it looked black.
“I usually am more Goth, but I toned it down for this,” she said, grinning, tears rolling down her cheeks.
And then I looked at Doc. And blinked. “You’re Asian?” I burst out.
She broke into laughter, wiping tears from her cheeks.
“Well, you could have told me! What the hell kind of Asian is named Fenway?”
“A married one.”
I looked at the laptop on the tray table beside the bed where BW was sobbing her eyes out from inside a little box on the screen. This must be the magical Skype I’d heard so much about. She had a predictable short, sleek silver hairstyle, but I couldn’t see her face, because she had dropped it into her hands and was bawling like the rest of us.
“God, BW, look up will you?”
She did. Man, she was a classic beauty, sculpted cheekbones, big brown eyes. And sharp. Even if they were weepy at the moment.
She smiled at me. Her teeth were so white!
“You’re gorgeous! You’re all gorgeous.” I couldn’t stop looking from one woman to the other. “God, everything is…brighter. Even in the dark.” Then I looked at Doc again. “Can’t I have a little more light?”
Nodding, she went to the window and opened the blinds just a crack, and I could see even more. If it was blurry, I didn’t know it. Since, aside from twenty-year-old memories, I had only darkness to compare it to, and the teasing glimpses offered by transplants gone by, it seemed perfectly 20/20 to me.
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