“‘Compromise,’” Jack mimicked. “Is that another word for blindness? Do you plan to tell her?”
I pictured Bonnie, like one of Linnaeus’s swallows, blindfolded, wintering beneath the ice. “Should I?” I said.
He asked if there was anything she could do that would make a difference. I said no. Her only hope, like his, lay in research.
“Then I’d say leave her in ignorance. Does she know you have the hots for her?”
“I’m her doctor,” I said stiffly. “We’re both married.”
“And I’m a jerk.” He began to describe his latest research. He’d discovered this remarkable and obvious thing: people who are blind from birth have no images in their dreams. “They just have sounds and smells,” he said. “And touch. Whereas people like me keep dreaming in images for a long time. And another interesting fact: the blind dream about transportation four times more often than the sighted.”
Before I could ask if this was true of him, his phone buzzed. His voice rose hopefully as he excused himself, and sank into ordinary politeness: only a student.
On our way home, after we had dropped him off, Trina said, “Jack’s sad.”
“Yes, he is,” I said. Marcus was in the backseat, engrossed in his phone.
“Why?” She eyed me gravely.
“It’s hard being blind, and sometimes it’s harder than others.”
She was silent for a few seconds. Then she announced, “He’s like Nabokov. He’s lonely.”
During the busyness of homework and supper, I kept thinking about her simple insight: Jack was lonely. Doubly so, in his blindness and his estrangement from Hilary. When the children were in bed, I asked Viv if she’d spoken to Hilary. She said they hadn’t talked in nearly a week.
“Maybe you should go by her house,” I said. “She told Jack she wasn’t feeling well.”
Viv said she would go tomorrow, and I went to bed, thinking I had done my best to help my friend.
DAY BY DAY I had been teaching myself to usher Bonnie out of my brain whenever she appeared there. Now Jack’s questions had undone my lessons. Once again, on the pretext of doctorly interest, I dialed her number. Once again she answered promptly.
“Dr. Stevenson!” She had been about to ring my office. The bandages had been removed and the shadow was gone, but her surgeon said it would be six months before they knew how much vision she would recover. Was there anything to be done about her glasses? she asked. I said we had an opening at three that day. If she took a taxi to the office, I could give her a lift home on my way to pick up Marcus and Trina.
Which was worse, I wonder now: my posing as a Good Samaritan, or my using my children to do so? My offer did not harm them, it did not harm Bonnie, but something I couldn’t name was harmed. At the time I gave these subtleties no thought. I went to tell Merrie about the appointment and, wanting to distract her from the unusual fact of my dealing directly with a patient, asked about her friend, the teacher.
“Oh, it’s been a nightmare,” she said. The girl had contradicted herself several times but still clung to her story. “I don’t know if Ginny will ever recover.”
I echoed her outrage. All that morning I was especially diligent, and there as my reward, when I came into the waiting room at ten minutes past three, was Bonnie. She was standing beside Nabokov’s cage, talking to Merrie.
“What’s Nab telling you now?” I said.
Merrie smiled. “He’s urging us to lie still and think of England, which, if you don’t have a dirty mind, is pretty good advice.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever thought of England,” said Bonnie.
She was still wearing her ugly tortoiseshell glasses, but her hair was pulled back in a way that framed her face; her slender gold earrings moved as she spoke. Once she was sitting in the chair with the lights off, she announced that there was something she wanted to ask me. The machine was between us, hiding her expression; only her hands, fluttering above the armrests, were visible. Just for an instant I imagined her saying, Dr. Stevenson, you’re all I’ve ever wanted.
“This is stupid,” she said. “Greg says it’s stupid, but I keep worrying about Alice and Suzie. What if they’ve inherited my problem? Alice is crazy about basketball. I worry all the jumping up and down will ruin her eyes.”
My ventricles resumed their normal activity. I said that wasn’t stupid. I didn’t know the answer, but I would consult a colleague. In the meantime she should have her daughters’ eyes checked, just to be safe. “Put your chin here,” I said.
By the time we emerged, Merrie had Nabokov ready to travel. I went to warm up the car and came back to get him and Bonnie. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I felt a rush of exhilaration. At this busy time of day the journey to her house might take as long as twenty minutes. In the confines of the car I could smell some fragrance: her shampoo, or hand cream. From the backseat, Nabokov began to recite a railway timetable.
I told Bonnie that my father had worked for the MBTA, and she said she’d wanted to drive a train when she was little. “I always wave to women drivers on the subway. Did you get to drive one as a kid?”
“No. My best friend and I wanted to be pilots. Then I had a brilliant biology teacher.” We were behind a bus; I made no effort to pass.
“Lucky you,” said Bonnie. “I was planning to go to college, but my dad died and there was no money.”
“Your girls are growing up,” I said. “You can still go.”
“I hope so—I want to be a good example for them—but sometimes things happen.”
Before I could ask what things, she told me to turn left and pointed out the supermarket where Greg worked. His cooking had improved while she’d been out of action. Soon she was directing me to stop in front of a small green house. A neatly shoveled path led to the front door.
“Doctor—,” she began.
“Please call me Donald.”
“Donald, this has been an ordeal, but you’ve made things easier. When I’m up to speed, I’ll bake you and Merrie my famous chocolate cake.”
I was saying there was no need when she leaned over and kissed my cheek.
I HAD SEEN BONNIE only three times, spoken to her on the phone only twice, and yet for several hours she had displaced any thought of my old friend, alone in his private darkness. But Viv was already acting on her promise. After another failed phone call, she drove to Hilary’s house and found the sidewalk piled with snow. She knocked, she rang the doorbell, she shouted and got no answer. She decided to walk around the house, banging on the windows and calling Hilary’s name. “The snow was so deep,” she told me later. “It was like swimming.” She was at the back of the house when she heard a faint answering cry.
Hilary had been in bed for almost a week, with only Diane, who was at school all day, to take care of her. Viv set to work. She made soup and tea; she changed the sheets; she did laundry, loaded the dishwasher, emptied the trash and the cat’s litter box, went through the fridge, ordered groceries. From Hilary’s house she drove directly to the stables, and from the stables to her book club. Not until she was getting ready for bed did she tell me what had transpired. The next morning at the office a patient was waiting. It was almost 11:00 a.m., thirty-six hours after our conversation at the pool, when I at last phoned Jack with what I hoped was good news.
He didn’t answer, and it was only later that I heard how, with the help of his regular driver, Carlos, he had already embarked on his odyssey. He stopped at a florist’s, a liquor store, a jeweler’s, and finally at Hilary’s, where Carlos led him to the back door and wished him luck. If Jack didn’t reappear in ten minutes, he would assume the best and drive away.
“After you took me to the pool,” Jack told me, “I thought and thought and what it came down to was, I could give up on Hilary, or I could go for broke. Both were terrifying. Then in the middle of the night I woke up and I heard a voice saying, ‘Ask her to marry you, you numbskull.’ I couldn’t walk away from the best person I’d met in year
s without even trying.”
He knocked. Hilary, wearing her clean nightgown, opened the door. He drew a discreet veil over what happened next. Did he ask her immediately? Did they go to bed first? Did she say you’re all I’ve ever wanted? Whatever the route, by the time Diane came home from school, they were standing on the same ground.
19
AS A SCHOOLBOY IN Edinburgh I learned the rhyme, “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe . . .” The logic of the poem, the idea that a small thing I did in our house, on our street, might make a large difference in some distant place, fascinated me. Even now I cannot list all the factors that contributed to the events of that night in early March when, as swiftly as if someone had severed my optic nerve, my life changed. The snow, Viv, Mercury, Charlie, Jack, Hilary, my well-meaning mother, me—we all played our parts. And there were others—Claudia, her boyfriend, her great-aunt—of whose role I learned only later.
My mother, as our discussion over her new bookcase made clear, was worried about my marriage. In an effort to give Viv and me what she thought we needed—time alone together—she invited Trina and Marcus to go bowling on Saturday. They would stay the night, and on Sunday she and Larry would take them to the Museum of Science in Boston. I did not want to spend another evening listening to Viv talk about Mercury, but I dutifully made a reservation at a nice restaurant. Perhaps, later, she would turn to me. I had just got home from taking the children to my mother’s when Viv phoned. Samson had colic: she was going to walk him for another hour and see how he progressed.
“Why don’t you use the reservation with Jack,” she urged. “I don’t know when I’ll be home.”
My first impulse, if only I had acted upon it, was to get some take-out barbeque, open a bottle of beer, and watch bad television with Nabokov, but that seemed too pathetic. I rang Jack.
“Let me ask Hil,” he said. “Diane’s with her dad.”
I had forgotten that Jack now came with Hilary. Our private conversations of the last few years were going to be hard to come by. On the drive to Il Giardino I lectured myself about trying harder with her. Perhaps she had made the same resolution. From the moment she kissed my cheek and thanked me for suggesting this, I could tell we were in for a jolly evening.
We ordered several appetizers, and Jack posed as the blind food critic with the amazing taste buds. “This baby octopus comes from the cold waters of Labrador. Note how it embraces the marinade. Though actually,” he added, “research shows that we blind have no better sense of taste or smell than you sighted. We just pay more attention.”
“So what do you think the shrimp is spiced with?” Hilary asked.
“Coriander. Perhaps a touch of fennel?”
“Donald and I need to close our eyes too.”
We did and made silly guesses. Jack joked about the challenge of fancy restaurants: finding your portion on the plate. They described the film they had watched the night before. Hilary said that if Jack knew the setup, he could follow most of what was happening. In fact he often figured out the plot before she did; he wasn’t distracted by trivial details like clothes and hair.
We were on our second bottle of wine when a text came from Viv: Samson OK Going to bed xo V. I passed on the news and we raised our glasses to Samson. “The ultimate advertisement for the importance of hair,” Hilary joked.
Not until we were having dessert did she bring up Mercury. One afternoon while she was sick, she had dreamed about him. “You know how some dreams are so real,” she said. “They seem like they’ve just happened? Or are just about to? I was back in Ontario with Michael. Mercury had escaped, and we were searching for him along the railway line that led into town.”
Slowly, as if she were again walking along the tracks, she described the scene. “Michael was very calm. He had a stick he was clicking against the rails; I suppose that was Jack’s cane? But I kept feeling that Mercury was in danger, that he needed our help. Then I heard the rumbling of a train, and suddenly we were both running, stumbling over the sleepers, trying to reach him. I woke up feeling wretched. I haven’t been to see him in weeks.”
I said Viv was taking good care of him.
“I’m sure she is, but I wish we could go there now. Michael believed that at night we can hear what animals are thinking, and vice versa.”
“We can,” I said. “We can go there now. I have a key.”
Somehow, as we drank the last of the wine, the three of us agreed that this was the best possible plan. We finished our crème brûlée and chocolate bread pudding. I insisted on paying the bill. A month later my credit card statement showed we had spent $270. I drove us to my office, and while Hilary and Jack waited, I collected the keys from the back of the drawer and checked the code in my appointment book.
When I returned to the car, Hilary had put on one of the CDs Fran had sent me for Christmas. She and Jack were in the back, sitting as close as the seat belts permitted. “This is so nice of you, Donald,” she said.
“I feel as if I’m going on a mission with my friends,” Jack said. “When I was a kid, almost all our bad behavior started with a car at night.”
“My bad behavior occurred on foot,” said Hilary. “We just passed Diane’s school.”
Outside of town the sky was filled with high white clouds. I said that they made me think of Russia.
“Or Ontario,” Hilary said. “Somewhere with large skies and low temperatures. We’re on the main road to the stables. Michael was always high. That was part of what went wrong in Kentucky. I used to lend him money, ‘lend’ in quotes, until I realized he was spending it on speed.”
“Michael took drugs?” I too, I realized, had put Mercury’s owner on a pedestal.
“I think it’s quite common in the horse world,” said Jack. “Certainly among jockeys.”
I was still grappling with this revelation as we turned off the main road. “We’re passing the paddocks,” Hilary said. “No horses and lots of snow.”
Out of habit I parked in my usual place behind the trailers. Another lost nail. If I had parked outside the barn, my car in plain view, there would be no need to write this story. As we approached the door, the security lights came on. I remembered the code; the key worked; we were inside. I turned on the lights, and the two rows of stalls stretched out before us, the main one by the bank of lockers, and the other, farther from the door, with the stalls on either side. I led the way towards the latter, where I had found Mercury at New Year’s. Jack commented on the smell, and Hilary said, “In five minutes we won’t notice it.”
Mercury was in a different stall, near the middle of the row. He was standing at the back, wearing two coats, one slung over the other.
“Do you think he’s asleep?” whispered Hilary.
Neither Jack nor I answered.
“Mercury,” she said, and then again, louder, “Mercury.”
At the sound of his name he looked up, his dark eyes gleaming. Two ropes, a red and a black one, were looped around the door and the bars of the stall. Hilary hung them on the saddle post and slid open the door. She stepped inside. Jack put his hand on my arm. We followed, and I slid the door closed. Hilary reached out to stroke Mercury’s neck.
“Are you awake? Good boy. Were you dreaming of nice pastures and sunny days? We’re here to see you. Jack and I need your blessing.”
Mercury shifted from hoof to hoof. She continued to talk, and I led Jack over to stand beside her. We were all slightly drunk, Hilary and Jack perhaps more than slightly, yet the occasion had a solemn feeling. None of us mentioned Michael, but it was clear that Hilary was trying to lay her regrets about him to rest. Mercury gave a half snort, half sigh. Hilary took Jack’s hand and placed it on the horse’s neck.
“Talk to him,” she said.
“Mercury,” said Jack, “you fucking amazing horse, you emperor of quadrupeds, you king of equines. You represent what’s noblest in us. No, that’s not right. You embody what’s noblest in us. If you’re thinking tonight, thi
nk noble thoughts. If you’re dreaming, dream noble dreams.”
Mercury snorted again, more vigorously, and Jack stepped back. “I’ve asked Hilary for her hand in marriage,” he went on, raising his own hand. “I hope you give permission. We’ll get married in a field so you can—”
There was a loud, precise, frightening noise.
Mercury reared in a mad scramble of hooves.
Hilary screamed.
Jack stumbled against the wall of the stall and fell to the ground.
In the confusion neither Hilary nor I stopped to think about the dangers that lay outside the stall. Our only thought was to get away from Mercury, to get Jack away. Somehow we dragged him into the corridor. On all sides the other horses were whinnying, kicking, screaming. Viv had told me that horses scream in anger, or pain; now I heard the sound for the first time.
As soon as the stall door was closed, I dropped to my knees. I knew little about gunshot wounds, but I had to make sure Jack didn’t bleed to death. “Where are you hurt?” I said. “Can you tell me?”
“My arm,” he whispered. “Or my shoulder.”
Beside me Hilary, also on her knees, was crying. “What happened? My God, did someone shoot us? We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”
“I need to make sure he’s not bleeding.”
Mercifully Jack fainted as I tried to get his arm out of his jacket. In the dim light I saw that the wound was bleeding steadily but not furiously. I stood up with the thought that I could use a wheelbarrow to get him to the car. And then, at the end of the row of stalls, in the gloom, something moved. Viv was standing by the last stall, holding a black object in both hands. In less than a heartbeat, less than a saccade, I understood that Viv, the woman I loved, my wife of almost a decade, was holding a gun, and that she was pointing it in my direction.
Our eyes met for a brief, appalling moment. Then she lowered the gun and stepped back into the shadows.
Hilary noticed nothing; all her attention was on Jack. With her help, I hoisted him into a wheelbarrow. We hurried along the corridor, she steadying him, me pushing, Jack groaning. At the door I ran to get the car. Between us we lifted him into the backseat. Then we were spinning away over the snow. The CD Hilary had put on was still playing. “Give me bread and give me honey. Fill my wallet and fill my boot.” I did not think to turn it off. Jack kept groaning.
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