Chapter 41
Caitlin sits on our sofa with Chippy’s head resting on her socked feet. She has an oval gauze pad resting over her eye, secured in place with a papery tape.
“Want me to make you a hot chocolate with lots of cream and marshmallows?”
She shrugs her shoulder. Chippy licks his lips.
Sorry, pup, no chocolate for dogs; it’s toxic.
“Or I can make you some tea? Or chai? Whatever you want, Caity, let me know.” Turning, I head toward the kitchen to start a new pot of coffee, thinking if my hands are occupied, then my thoughts will be too.
“I want my sight back!” she cries, fists balled at her sides.
“I want to be like every other kid. I want to play sport again. I want to learn how to drive a car.” Her words dissolved into broken sobs.
The gauze might be soaking up any liquid from her left eye, but tears track heavy from her right.
They flow over her rounded cheek of pale freckles before being angrily swiped away.
Mom places a hand next to Cailin’s fisted one.
When she pulls it across her chest in a bid to close herself off, Mom looks up at me with her own tears pooling.
“Maybe we turn that coffee into Irish ones, Bub?” Fuck, she doesn’t have to tell me twice.
She double-checks that Cait has earbuds in before continuing.
“We had confirmation today that there is nothing they can do for the lost vision in her left eye. Where she used to distinguish where a light was, she now has nothing. Total blackness. The retina is detached and surgery isn’t an option. She’s blind.”
“But they can reattach retinas. I’ve looked into it myself.” In the early days of working at Mercer Media, I used any downtime to research what I could about progressive retinal vascular disorders. I read every prognosis and scoured the treatment options and medications used with mixed results.
“What about a scleral buckle? Did you show him the article I found?”
“Ah yes, I brought that up with her doctor. A buckle isn’t appropriate in her case.
It’s more for trauma, people injured in workplace accidents or car crash victims, that type of thing.
Because Cait has a condition where abnormal vessels grow and leak, the buckle can’t support the eye while the retina heals.
” She looks down at her hands. They are prominent with lines evident from years working them to the bone, then coming home to do the same for all of us.
She can’t fix this; none of us can. Me earning Mercer money can’t fix it either.
It’s the same thing Nic faced with Ava. Mercer money couldn’t buy suitable bone marrow, and Mercer money can’t stop abnormal leaking blood vessels.
She pours a generous splash of Redbreast 12 into each glass before topping up with coffee from the pot.
I scoop a generous dollop of whipped cream on top of the dark liquid, watching as the edges melt when the ingredients are introduced to each other.
“What happens now? “Will she need any more injections after today?” The thought of another needle puncturing her eye tissue galls me. Why can’t chronic and life-threatening diseases be thrust upon evil people?
“No, everything is on hold for the time being.”
“Oh?” I can’t be certain if that’s good news, or bad. I wish she’d get to the point.
“They are intent on leaving everything be while her inflammation in the right eye is low. If, and I pray to God it doesn’t flare, but if she gets those jellyfish blooms in her right eye to the extent she had them in her left, well, then they’ll have to formulate another treatment plan.”
“Fuck jellyfish,” I say, lifting my mug.
“Aye, fuck jellyfish,” she concurs, and we sip in silence. Cait has fallen asleep on the sofa with her hairy comforter resting his heavy head near her knee.
“Very nice. Excellent work.” High praise indeed from my framer.
The business in Flatbush has been in the same family for seventy-two years.
Monica knows them well. While most artists frame their own pieces, sometimes a gallery will have a specific look in mind: a clean, minimalist matte black metallic for modern work.
That’s the vibe I love. A thin band of flat black to border what I’ve spent over a hundred hours planning, sketching, blending, and shading.
These two pieces took me well over two hundred.
They were envisaged as a set and drawn together on adjacent easels in a secondary bedroom at Onyx One.
The first piece is a wealth of light and positive energy.
It’s the one picture saved from the day sailing in the Bahamas on a smaller-scale yacht than the one Mason owns: the illusion.
He’s relaxed, almost serene. Dressed in a light shirt and shorts, with Wayfarer sunglasses shielding his eyes from the sun, he appears to not have a care in the world.
One hand grips the yacht’s wheel, fingers firm around the metal.
His other hand shields his eyes as he looks toward the horizon.
It’s the picture Trystan selected and sent himself from my phone.
Now it’s all I have. Somehow, the pose is almost prophetic.
With his eyes on the horizon and a hand on the wheel, he was charting our course into the future.
He used the wind and the water to his advantage, making subtle adjustments when needed.
Mason’s features spoke of an assuredness; the look Trystan, and I found incredibly sexy and very him.
I had started calling this piece “hope” because the lighter tones and easy lines mirrored just how simple life was when he was doing something he loved.
Something as simple as skittering across the open ocean while the wind filled canvas sails brought this man joy.
The other piece was a direct contrast to its twin.
I called it “humility”. The dark tones and heavy shading are a juxtaposition of the negative space and light hand on the first sketch.
In it, Mason was sitting on the Karl R?tto sofa one night after an event he had been forced to attend.
His tie is absent, no doubt removed in the elevator up to the penthouse floor.
If “hope” radiates light and contentment, this one is heavy on self-reflection and pessimism.
Whatever was on his mind at the time was complex.
One arm is settled casually while the other rests just forward of his chin.
It appears he’s being swallowed by the darkness, and in a way, he was.
But side by side, the art shows just how happy he can be when he doesn’t conform to expectations and let their combined darkness consume him.
He can be hope and light; we both can. If only he manages to crawl from the space he’s retreated into.
“Three weeks,” the cashier says in a monotonous, accented baritone.
It’s always three weeks. Never two or four.
Nothing changes. Black and white, and shades of gray.
Three weeks. “Okay, perfect. I want them wrapped, crated, and sent to this address,” I say, providing the detailed paper.
Please add this envelope in with the finished pieces, and I’ll pay now, in cash. “Thank you, Serge.”
Serge doesn’t smile; he doesn’t nod. The six words he’s uttered are all I get.
The economy of the spoken word, the restraint of emotion.
In retrospect, “Very nice, excellent work” was, in fact, the last praise I received.
The light and hope I was praying would overtake the darkness were instead snuffed out and squandered.
Removed as if never there in the first place.