Lance Olsen: Girl Imagined by Chance

As in an x-ray.

Three.

How everyone possesses a blind spot, a small, circular, visually insensitive region in the retina where fibers of the optic nerve emerge from the eyeball.

You learn there is something you cannot see in every scene no matter how hard you look.

You’re in my thoughts and prayers , the condolence card another relative sends you reads. Rest easy in the bosom of the Lord .

Floaters are specks or small threads in the visual field, usually perceived to be moving, that are caused by minute aggregations of cells or proteins in the vitreous humor of the eye.

The retina, it turns out, containing about one hundred and twenty-five million receptors.

All that information.

All that data flooding in.

Every instant your eye is open.

It is difficult to think straight, once you become aware of such a fact.

Now you stroll through the front door late one drizzly afternoon, unzipping your light blue windbreaker, and come across Andi talking on the cordless.

She is lying on the couch, one hand behind her head, feet on the armrest.

She listens and talks, listens and talks, reminding you of a teenager after school.

You hang up your jacket, wander into the kitchen, wash your hands, explore the refrigerator for interesting items, return to the living room carrying a carrot from your garden.

Chewing, you pick up the latest Newsweek and begin thumbing through it.

The mice at Hanford have begun eating the radioactive ants, thereby becoming radioactive themselves, and moving into the community.

Cats eat the mice.

Children play with the cats.

Chewing, you chuck the Newsweek onto the coffee table and walk back into the kitchen and out onto the porch which seems bare and sad without any furniture on it.

Bear Creek has picked up speed and mass with the autumn rains.

It gargles and sloshes over the softball-sized rocks.

Low branches from fallen trees and leafless bushes bobbing in the rushing water.

Chewing, you watch, let your eyes drift up into the woods on the other side of the gully, up again into the late-afternoon sky.

It is only four o’clock and already it is twilight.

It is only four o’clock and when you return to the living room Andi is off the phone.

Your cheeks feel like cool plastic to your touch.

Andi has turned on the lamp beside the couch and poured scotches for both of you.

Wild Turkey.

Chewing, you take your seat and ask her who it was.

Benn and Branda, she says. They heard about Grannam and called to commiserate.

That’s sweet, you say, chewing.

Branda said she knew Grannam was happy wherever she was now and that she was sure I’d see her again one day.

She didn’t.

She used the phrase join her in the sky . Those were her exact words. Join her in the sky . Bonnie’s fine, by the way. She’s taking tumbling lessons. Tumbling lessons or aerobics lessons. Are you ever going to finish that carrot?

It seems like the more I chew, the more carrot there is in my muh…

The cordless stutters awake again.

She lifts it, clicks it on, says hello.

Immediately her voice drops. Hardens. You can hear it gaining calluses.

She sits up and leans forward like she is on the toilet.

Her abundant hair covers her face.

Suddenly Andi is monosyllabic.

Fine , she says from beneath her hair, monosyllabic. Yeah …………… No …… no. Absolutely not ………………… I don’t care ……… No. I don’t care …

Concerned, you finish your carrot and wash it down with scotch.

You examine the ice in your glass, you examine Andi, you examine the ice in your glass.

Out the window, everything has turned blue-black.

It is as if someone has shut off the switch to the world.

Five minutes, and Andi lowers the phone, holds it between her knees with both hands.

She seems to be reckoning its engineering.

What? you ask after a while.

Andi shakes her head and raises it and she is smiling the way cynical people smile when their worldview has just been confirmed by a new hostage situation in a nursery school.

You won’t guess, she says.

What?

Go ahead. Guess. Try. It’s impossible. I’ll give you a hint. My father. After all these years, there he is on the phone, trying to make small talk as if maybe we forgot to call each other last week.

How’d he find our number?

What’s new? he asked. Karla. She’s been going through Grannam’s address book, phoning people. Now he wants to come visit. He says he’s Gen’s granddad and he has the right to see his granddaughter. His words.

I’ll call him back. I’ll tell him that isn’t going to happen.

He says he’s already booked a flight.

I’ll call him back. I’ll tell him to unbook it.

He says he’ll be here for Christmas.

I’ll call him back. I’ll tell him to cancel his ticket.

He says he’ll get a lawyer.

I’ll call him back. I’ll tell him we’ll get a lawyer, too.

He says he’ll take us to court to get visitation rights. In these cases the grandparents always win, he says. Because most judges are grandparents themselves.

Andi puts down the phone on the coffee table numbly, no, indifferently, no, tensely, no, angrily, no, and puts her head in her palms.

Muffled, she says:

What?

What what? you ask.

What are we going to do? I’m looking, but I don’t see any options.

You’re not looking hard enough.

Okay, she says, considering. Okay. Here’s an option. We tell him the truth. We go ahead and tell him the truth.

Which it goes without saying means telling everyone the truth.

Which means… what, exactly? What exactly does it mean, telling everyone the truth?

You think, sipping Wild Turkey.

You think some more.

The window behind Andi is a blue-black mirror. You see the back of her head reflected in it. You see yourself, slightly to the right, sipping and thinking.

Telling everyone is Plan A, you say.

Andi raises her head and looks at you.

There’s a Plan B? she asks.

Sure, you say, improvising. Sure, hon. There’s always a Plan B. Isn’t there?

THE REST OF YOUR STORY,in other words, is unreadable.

In a manner of speaking.

In a manner of speaking, it is the shot that failed to turn out.

The one on the roll that was not developed.

Maybe it was the first shot.

Maybe it was the shot exposed precisely as it should have been exposed except that someone opened the back of your camera prematurely, assumed there was no film in it, assumed the film had already been rewound, made no assumptions whatsoever because he or she was busy considering something more important instead.

The iridescent mountain bluebird balancing among branches in the bushy ponderosa across your yard, say.

In any case, it is the shot whose print never arrives.

You took it. You know you took it. This is not the question.

You remember where you were and what you were doing and how carefully you checked and rechecked the light meter, the focus, the framing before you pushed the trigger.

Yet when you see your prints, this one is not among them.

It takes some time for the realization to sink in, naturally, but when it does you are surprised you almost missed this photograph’s absence.

Because, with that, the rest of your story becomes a black box.