Five
Sarah
Six weeks later
Islammed the door as a gust of wind sent snowflakes spiraling into my car. My nose and lips tingled from the bitter cold, but my eyes were warm, heated by emotions welling in the corners. I blinked and swallowed them back, the dam around my heart quivering under the pressure.
I had to be strong for him.
With numb fingers, I turned the ignition and clicked the heat to full-throttle, denying my need to look at Peter in the passenger’s seat. I didn’t want to see how much he was hurting. Blowing into my hands, I rubbed them together. “Want your seat on?”
“Yeah.” His voice was flat, monotone. And the sound landed like a cannonball against my weakening walls. With blurry eyes, I tapped his heated seat on. Then mine.
The long walk back to the car from neurology had taken us through winding corridors, down an elevator, and across a gigantic parking lot.
And even though Peter could walk, it was terrifying for him, and he wanted to be pushed.
So I pushed him in a wheelchair. After a long day on my feet giving deep-tissue massages, pushing my husband through a snow storm did me in.
I was empty—in so many ways.
So was Peter—in different ways.
And then Dr. Hollinger kicked us while we were down.
We were officially living out the worst case scenario every health care personnel had danced around for weeks but refused to just say.
In the course of Peter’s recovery, we had seen countless doctors.
And each one of them kept the insistent flame of hope flickering in our hearts with lines like, “it’s too early to say” or “healing could be gradual” or “there’s so much we still don’t understand about the brain. ”
They probably knew a long time ago.
I should’ve known a long time ago.
As soon as the ophthalmologist left his hospital bedside, declaring his eyes healthy, I should’ve guessed this would be the verdict.
Even today, while delivering the blow, the neuro-ophthalmologist said, “At this point, the vision loss appears to be permanent. The best course of action now is blind rehabilitation.”
At this point? Appears?
Why add those words? Why wouldn’t they just say it?
You’re blind, Peter. You’re blind. You’re blind. You’re blind.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my inhale wheezing down my trachea as if it were the diameter of a straw. At least Dr. Hollinger had the balls to tell Peter he needed rehab. We had held out on rehabilitation until hearing his prognosis and getting a referral. Now, we had one. Finally.
Dr. Hollinger might not have been as direct as I would’ve liked, but the implication in his words blinked like neon in the dark—he was blind for life and now he had to live with it.
Message received.
I had chomped at the bit for an answer. And now that I had one, my stomach angrily bucked against it—flooding my mouth with a sour taste, threatening to double me over.
How were we going to do this? The doctor said Peter could learn to use technology for his accounting and resume his job.
He said Peter could live a perfectly normal life and do everything a seeing person could do.
But the idea of learning…
Like base camp at the foot of Mt. Everest, the destination looming so far away we couldn’t even see it.
Summoning strength from deep in my resolve, I dragged my eyes to his.
And what I saw there carved a giant hole in my chest.
Nothing. Not one single thing.
His eyes stared past the windshield, glazy and blank. The last traces of his spark had vanished. Disappeared under the horizon like the setting sun.
And that was what scared me most of all.
Not the blindness. Not the new life. Not the impending struggle.
But his heart.
What if his heart died in the intersection that day? What if the man I loved never came back to me?
Silently clearing my thick throat, I put the car in reverse. It made sense to discuss what the doctor had said, but something in me held back. Maybe fear.
So I asked, “Do you want to get some takeout?”
He didn’t answer.
“Thankfully, it’s not Monday, so Taste of Tokyo is open.
” Keeping the tone of my voice light was a full-scale battle.
My insides went to war as I repeatedly hushed my need to crawl over the console and weep into the crook of his neck.
“We could grab some hibachi and then listen to the new crime episode—”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Oh.” Snowflakes, falling harder now, plinked against the glass and the wipers piled them into fluffy furrows. My last bite of food was before 7:00 am. At this point, I would eat gas station taquitos that had rolled on a warmer for twelve hours. “I may still go through the drive through.”
“That place takes forever on to-go orders.” He drew a long, shaky breath. “Could you just—eat something at home? I’m honestly ready to go to bed.”
“At 6 o’clock?”
“What else am I supposed to do, Sarah?” My spine straightened at his venomous tone, my knuckles turning white on the wheel. His words spewed. “It doesn’t matter what time it is. All I can do is sit in the dark and stare into space.”
I swallowed down my feelings in order to merge onto the freeway. “But we can still spend time together. We could play a game or maybe talk—”
“Talk?” In my peripheral vision, he shook his head.
“About what? About Dr. Hollinger finally ripping the bandaid off?” His voice rose to a volume not intended for the small confines of an automobile.
“About the fact that I’m going to be blind for the rest of our lives?
About the fact that everything we ever wanted is impossible now? ”
“That’s—that’s not true.”
“Stop, Sarah.”
“It’s not. That’s a lie you’re believing. Dr. Hollinger said rehab will teach you all you need to know. We can still travel and have a family—”
“Have a family.” Peter repeated the words as if they were crazy. “You really think we can still have a family?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t we?”
He didn’t respond, just rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“Peter,” I prodded him.
His violent exhale vibrated his chest. “How could we? Sarah, you’ll be the breadwinner from here on out. IVF is going to put your body through the wringer. And then what? You’re also going to take care of me and a baby? It’s too much.”
There were so many flaws in his way of thinking.
I wanted to correct them all, but he was grieving.
And who could blame him? It was normal for him to feel like he’d always be on the receiving end of care, that he could never learn how to care for another—let alone a baby.
Accounting probably felt like an absolute pipe dream.
And right now, he didn’t view himself as an equal partner, but one day he would—surely.
For the briefest moment, my heart flashed back to the tender love we shared that night at Meadowbrook—Peter’s fingers releasing the clips in my hair. His kisses as he led me into the shower. The whispered plans about our future family.
Gritting my teeth, I forced my brain away from that precious memory.
The consultation we had scheduled with reproductive endocrinology was in April. “Of course, we’ll cancel our appointment. But we are not counting it out for the future. I am not going to count it out. Rehab will help you so much. I know it.”
Peter turned his head toward the window, falling silent.
And my hasty promise echoed in the car the rest of the way home.
I know it.
But the placating words were just that—words.
Lifeless and flimsy. A silly offering when the truth was banging on our eardrums.
We knew nothing about our future. And every step forward—for both of us—would be a step straight into the dark. Where anything could happen.