Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I don’t need to go to the eye doctor, Mom,” Izzy tried for about the seventh time that morning.
“Maybe,” Cadence said, because this had proven to be the path of least resistance. Also, her daughter’s claims had become increasingly unconvincing. “But the doctor will be able to tell us for certain. Besides, sometimes you have to get checkups even when you’re healthy too.”
Izzy sighed, slumping in her booster seat.
“Okay, fine,” she said.
Cadence shared a sidelong glance with Tyler from where he was sitting in the driver’s seat. They had decided that this was an outing best taken by all the members of the family.
When Cadence had first told Izzy that they would be coming to this appointment, Isabelle’s reaction had more or less definitively confirmed that Mary’s guess about Izzy’s school woes was correct.
“Uh, why?” she’d asked, not making eye contact. “That’s for people who need glasses. I don’t need glasses. I don’t even know anybody who needs glasses.”
As far as lies went, it had not been overly compelling.
Cadence had been pleased to learn that there was actually a pediatric optometrist who worked a few towns over.
She’d made an appointment there, even though it meant a slightly longer drive, because she figured that a doctor who specialized in kids’ eye care would know a little bit more about dealing with reluctant glasses-wearers too.
Plus, the office sold frames right inside the building, and they carried far more kids’ sizes than most glasses stores.
The instinct to make the effort was rewarded whenever Izzy’s expression lightened at the idea that she could pick whatever glasses she wanted.
“If I need them,” Izzy had added, albeit with decreasing ferocity.
“Of course, honey,” Cadence kept saying.
Now, as they approached the building, Cadence could tell that her daughter was nervous.
Fortunately, the office inside was cheerful, clearly decorated to add to children’s comfort.
The staff greeted them warmly and gave Izzy a little activity book tailored for her age while Cadence and Tyler worked on the requisite paperwork.
Izzy worked on the maze and word search, but Cadence noted that she kept darting glances to a pair of younger girls, twins, who both already wore glasses and looked not at all worried about their upcoming appointment.
Izzy’s shoulders relaxed, just a smidge.
Soon, the Meadowses were called back into the examination room.
“Hi, Izzy,” the doctor said. She was young, perhaps thirty, and she had curly red hair that instantly reminded Cadence of Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus books. “I’m Dr. Miller. I’m going to look at your eyes today and see if we can help you see a little better. Okay?”
“Okay,” Izzy said, kicking her feet nervously against the chair. “Will it hurt?”
Dr. Miller’s smile was small and reassuring. “There is a part where I have to put some drops in your eyes that stings a little. But it will be over very fast, and it will help me look inside your eyes to see what’s going on.”
“How much will it sting?” Izzy asked suspiciously. Cadence pressed her lips together against her smile. Dr. Miller seemed totally unfazed by the question.
“Less than getting shampoo in your eyes,” the doctor said. “Maybe about as much as getting a drop of salt water in your eyes if you’re swimming in the ocean. Has that ever happened to you?”
“Oh, yeah,” Izzy said with all the confidence of a kid who had grown up in a seaside town. “All the time. That’s not even that bad at all.”
“That’s what I think too,” the doctor agreed. “Now, the weirdest part is that, after I put the drops in, the light in the room will look really bright, so I’ll take you to a dim room to wait for the drops to work…”
Isabelle seemed entirely taken in by the doctor’s warmth and easy competence, and she was very brave as she accepted the dilating drops in her eyes.
She squeezed her parents’ hands as the stinging drops went in, but didn’t make a sound.
The family was then taken to an appropriately dim secondary waiting area, but they weren’t left there for very long before the substance took effect.
Soon after, they were brought back to the examination room, where the doctor patiently explained every step to Izzy before she did it.
“So, this contraption is actually like all different kinds of glasses at once,” she explained. “It’s called a phoropter, which kind of makes me think of dinosaurs. Tell me which of these settings helps you see better, setting one… or two… ?”
Cadence and Tyler sat quietly in the corner while Izzy and the doctor went through all the steps of the exam. When they were done, the doctor sat back and addressed her patient directly.
“So, Izzy,” she said. “I do think that some glasses will help you see better, just like the way you could see when we used the phoropter. It will help with your distance vision, like seeing the board at school or watching television at home. Did things seem clearer when you looked through the lenses than they do now?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Izzy agreed, although she sounded much less opposed to the idea now that she’d made it through the exam.
“Well, the good news is that there are about a billion cool choices for frames downstairs in our shop,” the doctor said brightly.
“So I’m confident that you and your parents can find ones that you think look cool.
There are some that I walk past every day and then feel disappointed that they don’t make them in adult sizes. ”
Izzy basically had stars in her eyes over the idea of being seen as cool by this doctor, whom she clearly adored.
“Okay!” Izzy said brightly.
The Meadowses thanked the doctor, then headed down to the glasses shop. On the way, Cadence looked down at her daughter, whose eyes were obscured by the giant, disposable sunglasses that the doctor provided to protect their patients’ eyes after dilation.
“Izzy, honey,” she asked delicately. “Can you tell us why you didn’t want to admit that you were having a hard time seeing?”
Isabelle looked more than a little sheepish. “Nobody in my class has glasses,” she said, as if this explained everything… and in a way, it did. Change was hard for kids, and being different made that change even more intense.
“But Dr. Miller thinks I’ll look awesome,” Izzy reported, as though her parents hadn’t been present for everything. “So it probably isn’t that bad.”
“Probably not,” Tyler agreed. Behind Izzy’s back, he squeezed Cadence’s hand. Their relief was positively overwhelming. It felt so good to know that Izzy’s troubles were on their way to being resolved.
Izzy spent more than a little time looking at the different frames available in every shade of the rainbow.
After the kind of deliberation that was usually reserved for negotiating peace treaties, she selected a pair with translucent plastic frames.
They were pink at the top, then faded into an orangey, peach sort of shade in the middle, before becoming yellow on the bottom.
They were absolutely adorable, and as Tyler and Cadence went over to order the prescription lenses that the doctor had recommended, they watched Izzy pull faces in the mirror while still wearing the sample frames.
She cheesed at her own reflection, then stuck out her tongue, then frowned dramatically…
though this expression didn’t last long, since she was too clearly enjoying herself to hold the unhappy emotion.
Cadence released a sigh that she felt like she had been holding for weeks. There was, after all, nothing a mother wanted more than to know that her child was happy. And, looking at Izzy right now, there was absolutely no way to doubt it.