Chapter 35 #2
The drive to and from Chapel Hill formed an unexpected pleasure.
He left before dawn on Tuesday and came back Thursday after his final class.
Through the student office Colin found what the owner called a studio but in truth was a large bedroom with a makeshift kitchenette in one corner.
The prewar house stood two blocks off Franklin, the center of student life.
The nights he spent in Chapel Hill felt like stolen glimpses of a new phase.
He did not want to call it adulthood. He had no idea what the word meant.
Only that it unsettled and appealed in equal measure.
The studies required for his new directions threatened to overwhelm him. The software engineering course was a near-constant grind. He made progress simply by focusing on the math, the formula, and temporarily setting aside all the issues needed a more detailed study.
UNC Chapel Hill was totally different from the Wilmington campus.
For one thing, it was huge. Over thirty-five thousand students were enrolled.
The level of classwork, the intelligence of his fellow students, the demands made by his professors, everything about the place was several grades above what he had experienced thus far.
The music theory class was so difficult he feared for a time that he might even fail the course.
Even so, by the end of the term he began to see a way ahead. Not a clear compass heading. Not by any means. But there was at least a glimmer of light, a reward for four months of dark slogging.
Fremdt wanted him to stay on for summer classes.
“Econometrics,” he barked. “Econometrics is the ticket. You want to see your math applied, yes? So study how it works with money and how money rules the people out there.” He waved his hand at the sunlit window.
“See if you can make smart interpretations of all their foolishness.”
Colin knew his professor disapproved of him moving away from pure maths. Even so, there was a certain appeal to the man’s suggestion. “Maybe next year.”
“No, no, not with econometrics. You can’t see the depths of this when you mix it with other elements.”
“That’s just it, you see. I already feel like I’m just skimming the surface in music theory. And maybe the software courses as well.”
That stilled the big man. “You received an A in both.”
“I gave back what the teacher expected. That’s not enough. I need to see where this is going. I need to understand.” He shrugged. “That’s as clear as I know how to make it.”
Fremdt examined him a long moment. “So. This summer, you do what, laze by the pool? Count the clouds? A new drug of choice, perhaps. Or maybe there is a woman.”
Colin felt his face burn. His body was going through changes that at times threatened to overwhelm him.
Alien urges that had nothing to do with his mind.
He wasn’t ready to talk about them. Especially not with Fremdt.
“I’m going back over the course materials.
Really study them. See what directions open up. ”
“Software design and music theory. Together.”
“And the problems you gave me in calculus. They’re not together yet. But maybe they will be.”
Eight days later, a new Sojourn House resident entered Colin’s life.
Sofia Hernandez lost her mother at birth and her father at nine, the same year she entered Outer Banks Academy.
She had an uncle, but nothing was said about him except that Sofia would be spending the summer in residence.
She and Consuela had formed an immediate bond, which was very good, because that spring Sofia had begun having problems with her eyes.
All through the last of May and into early June, Colin watched the two of them go off to numerous doctors’ appointments. Then Consuela’s youngest came down with chickenpox, and out of desperation she asked Colin if he would help out. “The girl is an angel, and the situation is terrible.”
“Of course I’ll help.”
“She has another appointment at the UNC Greenville hospital tomorrow at three.” Consuela’s child began wailing in the background, accelerating her speech. “Make note of the miles. The school will repay use of your car. Take her to lunch. Anything she wants. Keep the receipt.”
Sofia’s passion was history. She was a silent child and spent the ride over and back and the time in the waiting room reading on her tablet.
Colin had no idea how to start a conversation.
They had shared several dinners together, at least in the sense that their two bodies had occupied the dining room.
But Sofia had rarely looked up from her tablet, and even then he wasn’t sure she had actually seen him.
She was not impolite, merely uninterested. But he had no problem with silence.
Three days later, there was another doctor, this one at New Hanover Regional, the main Wilmington hospital. The visit lasted so long they missed dinner. Colin asked if she wanted to grab something in the hospital cafeteria before they left. Sofia responded by looking at him. Really looking.
Colin said, “What?”
“Could we go to a Mexican restaurant I know north of the city?”
“If that’s what you like, sure, I guess.”
“It’s on 17, up toward Hampstead. Guelaguetza Oaxaca. My father used to take me.”
Colin had no real interest in spicy food, but he didn’t complain, because already Sofia was emerging from her normal withdrawn state.
She turned off her tablet and watched the road, the buildings, people, the gathering night.
The restaurant was a simple place in a local strip mall.
The exterior wall was painted with purple Day-Glow cacti wearing bright orange sombreros.
Sofia ordered in rapid-fire Spanish, then told Colin, “The chef is from Guadalajara. He says his specialty is torta ahogado.”
Colin told the man behind the counter, “I’ll have what she’s having.”
The night was so mild they ate at a picnic table set beneath a neighboring oak. The food was fantastic.
Midway through the meal, Sofia said, “You’re at university, yes?”
“Right. UNCW.”
“But you also go to Chapel Hill every week, yes? Why do you stay at Sojourn House?”
He shrugged. “Nowhere else to go, really.”
“Your family …”
“Is it okay if we don’t talk about them?”
“Sure.” She bent back over her meal. “I don’t like my family either.” Another bite, then, “What do you study?”
“Right now, I’m struggling. Trying to tie together some different subjects. The school calls it interdisciplinary.”
“That must be nice.”
“It doesn’t feel that way now. Maybe someday. If I can make sense of it all.” He risked asking, “What’s the matter with your eyes?”
“I have dysplastic nevus.”
“I don’t know—”
“They’re like freckles. On my retinas. They’re growing.” She pushed her plate away. “The doctors are worried because that’s a sign of worse things. Choroidal nevus. And melanoma.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. “If it’s the one thing, I’ll probably go blind. If it’s the other, they have to take out my eyes.”
He struggled then. Trying to find room for breath. And the news. And the look in that young face.
This time, he was the one who needed the silence. It took him all the way back to the campus, and inside Sojourn House, before he could manage, “Whatever you need. Day or night. I’m here for you.”
She climbed three stairs, then turned back. Her eyes held a most remarkable darkness, and a depth too great for her young years. “Nights after the hospital. They are so very hard.”
“I could come read to you, if you like. I mean …”
She did not smile. Not really. But the look warmed him just the same. “That would be so nice.”
Thirty minutes later, he knocked on her door. “Come in.”
She was tucked away in a bed identical to the one he had occupied for over seven years. Only with her the bed seemed vast. Colin left the door open and pulled the room’s lone chair over close to her bed. “What should I read?”
She indicated the tablet on her bedside table. “It’s already drawn up.”
He turned it on, read the title page, “‘The Silk Road: A New History of the World.’”
“It’s wonderful,” she told him. “The writer, he looks at history as if the center of the world was Asia. Not the west.”
Colin had to smile. “So you don’t want to hear a story about a princess trapped in a tower with her teddy bear.”
She snuggled deeper, watching him. “Read.”
And so it began.
Two, sometimes three nights each week, he entered her room and read.
Grant stopped by a few times, just checking through the open door, then retreating.
Consuela occasionally stayed on after dinner and sat with them as well.
Holding Sofia’s hand, pretending the history fascinated her like it did the child.
The first week of July, it all came to a head.
He and Consuela both accompanied Sofia to New Hanover Regional that day.
When the doctor summoned them into the conference room, they kept firm hold of Sofia’s hands.
The light-panel covering almost the entire side wall held a dozen images of her eyes.
The doctor stood at the far end, as if wanting to distance himself from their tension. He announced, “Benign.”
Colin felt as though he had forgotten how to breathe.
Consuela asked, “You’re sure?”
“I, my colleagues here and at Greenville University Medical. We agree. The tests all indicate the same thing.” He tapped one eye, then the other, moving down the line.
“Here and here and here. All of them. Dysplastic nevus. Freckles. No malignancies.” He seemed unable to accept the news himself.
“What is more, the growth of these freckles has slowed to almost nothing. Young lady, you are beyond fortunate.”
Sofia flung herself into Consuela’s arms. And wept.
Colin asked, “So, she’s done? We can go?”
“We need to monitor the nevus, make sure they do not extend so far as to mar her sight.” He found it easier to study the images.
“At this stage, the mind will overcome these blocks in her retinas, just like it does for the point where the optic nerve connects. But if she begins to notice any deterioration, or cloudiness …”
They celebrated with another Guadalajara feast. One so joyful not even the occasional tear could mar the event.
Through the rest of that summer, every now and then a small hand would knock on his door. And he would climb the stairs and enter the narrow room. And read a young girl to sleep.