Maggie Shayne - Sleep with the Lights On

She was smiling and shaking her head, and crying, too, bending to hug me, but I pushed her away. “No, no, I want to look at you.” And then I clasped her face in my hands and stared at it. Smooth porcelain skin, and blue blue eyes, and laugh lines. My big sister, all grown up. I stared at her until I saw the girl she’d been in her face, in her blue eyes. Her hair was still curly, and I thought it was still gold, but it was too dark to be sure.

I turned from her to look at Amy by the foot of the bed. And I laughed and smeared tears off my cheeks with one hand, careful of my eyes. “You look just like I thought...only not as Goth and even cuter.” She was, short, a little more rounded than she wished she was, short dark perfectly straight hair parted deep on one side. I knew it was dark red—not auburn but burgundy; I’d heard her say so. But in the dimness it looked black.

“I usually am more Goth, but I toned it down for this,” she said, grinning, tears rolling down her cheeks.

And then I looked at Doc. And blinked. “You’re Asian?” I burst out.

She broke into laughter, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“Well, you could have told me! What the hell kind of Asian is named Fenway?”

“A married one.”

I looked at the laptop on the tray table beside the bed where BW was sobbing her eyes out from inside a little box on the screen. This must be the magical Skype I’d heard so much about. She had a predictable short, sleek silver hairstyle, but I couldn’t see her face, because she had dropped it into her hands and was bawling like the rest of us.

“God, BW, look up will you?”

She did. Man, she was a classic beauty, sculpted cheekbones, big brown eyes. And sharp. Even if they were weepy at the moment.

She smiled at me. Her teeth were so white!

“You’re gorgeous! You’re all gorgeous.” I couldn’t stop looking from one woman to the other. “God, everything is...brighter. Even in the dark.” Then I looked at Doc again. “Can’t I have a little more light?”

Nodding, she went to the window and opened the blinds just a crack, and I could see even more. If it was blurry, I didn’t know it. Since, aside from twenty-year-old memories, I had only darkness to compare it to, and the teasing glimpses offered by transplants gone by, it seemed perfectly twenty-twenty to me.

“This is amazing. Oh my God.” Please last, please last, please just fucking last this time. “When can I have full blasting sunlight?”

“In a few days. Here.” She leaned over and slid a pair of tinted glasses on my face. “You need to wear these—these, not your designer ones—until further notice, okay?”

I pulled them off and looked at them. “Oh, come on, these? Can’t I pick out a nicer pair? You know, something trendy, with spangles or—” I stopped and looked at Sandra, grinning like a loon ’cause I could still see her. “For all I know, these are trendy. Are they?”

“Not in the least,” Sandra said. Then she leaned over and picked up the top of the tray table, revealing a mirror.

And there I was, staring at myself. At me. Seeing me more clearly than I had in twenty years. It was so surreal my stomach twisted a little. “That’s me?” I leaned closer, tipping my head at various angles, touching my hair. “It’s like looking at a stranger.”

“A beautiful stranger,” Sandra said.

Amy added, “Yeah, but way more beautiful when you’re not in a hospital bed, post-op, no makeup, kind of pale and tired. Trust me, you look way better on your good days, hon.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off myself as I searched for the image I used to identify with, which I only now realized was a slightly older, slightly taller twelve-year-old. With boobs.

“We’ll go shopping for prescription glasses in any style you want the minute you get out of here,” Sandra promised. “But you really need to listen to the doctor and put those back on for now.”

I nodded but didn’t obey. “When do I get out of here?” I asked. Because I wanted to see everything.

“Later today,” Doc said.

I shook my head in amazement. Later today I was going to walk out of this hospital without a cane, without having to count my steps or listen for traffic. “I don’t see how life can get any better than this,” I said, sounding like one of my own books.

Almost as soon as I said it, I wanted to snatch the words back. And not just because they made me gag. It didn’t pay to tempt fate like that. I mean, maybe life couldn’t get any better or maybe it could. What I knew for sure was that it could definitely get worse.

And it was about to.

’Cause really, miracles are just fairy tales. And reality pretty much sucks.

4

Being able to see was so damn good, I almost started believing my own bull. I mean, really, you’ve gotta give me some leeway here. After being blind for twenty years, getting your sight back is a pretty big deal, and even the bitchiest of skeptical bitches would start to waver a little.

We had agreed to keep my “miracle” quiet for a while, which was great. I just wanted to bask in seeing for a little while before going public with the whole thing.

I had never seen my own house, and my first day home from the hospital all I wanted to do was walk through just looking at it, you know?

I rode home in Sandra’s minivan. Jim had to work, but the twins were in the backseat, chattering all the way about how I would now be able to watch Misty’s soccer games, and Christy’s cheerleading routines, and ohmygod the school play was next month. It was hard to tune them out so I could gaze out the windows at the scenery, but I managed.

We took the Whitney Point exit, left at the light and straight through the village, and I was taking it all in. The river, really wide and shallow, and pretty, the mix of nice and junky-looking businesses, the big brick school building that had probably been there for a century or so, minus the various additions. We took a right at the Mobil-slash-McDonald’s, and drove until the pavement ended and became the unpaved track that twined around the lake-sized reservoir. I lived beyond the backside of the dam, surrounded by state forest and the reservoir itself. I realized as Sandra drove just how far I had retreated from the world.

Made sense, I guess. I was in the public eye in my work. I liked to hide my private life away. I mean, I wasn’t paparazzi-bait famous, but still, I was a total fraud. Privacy was important when you were running a scam as big as mine.

When we rolled up to the gated driveway I sat there gaping. My house was like a fairy-tale cottage on crack. Steep peaks, curved clay shingles, some sections cobblestone, others rich maple wood. The windows were tall with red-stained shutters, and the front door was a like a slice from a giant redwood tree. My curving walkway was bordered in thick beds of mums...yellow, brown, red, orange. I got out of the minivan and stood there staring at them like a jackass until Sandra put her hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?” I looked past her at the tall, lean, pair of blonde cover models who were my twin nieces. My mental camera had totally malfunctioned on those two. I’d been picturing a pair of chubby twelve-year-olds with their mother’s dimples, I guess, even though I knew they were sixteen. Everyone looked way too serious and sappy-eyed. So I grinned, going for the kind I’d heard called shit-eating and said, “This is really fuckin’ cool.”

They laughed. Great. Sappiness averted. We all went inside.

Family party that first night. Amy, who I considered family, Sandra, the twins—still no Mott. And, of course, no Tommy. Sandra and the kids avoided mentioning his name, and when I did, the subject was gently, firmly changed. Sandra had been in touch with the police again. Still no news. Let’s focus on celebrating tonight. Tommy would want us to. End of subject.