Fragment - Blind Girl

The girl was born blind – fully blind, not the halfway kind. And the doctors at Mount Sainai brought a specialist in, a woman with two of the biggest eyes you ever saw. And those eyes were her luck, because your baby has none.

You’re sleepy after they pull a child from inside you, but you ask the only question you can think of: Can you give her my eyes? Was that a silly thing to say? But if you never asked, then what? Then she’d go her whole life without seeing that so-blue sky, or knowing her own sister’s face.

You were wrong about some things. You got every book on the subject when you next went into the Parkdale library for your afternoon shift, and Paula said – didn’t you just give birth? Go home!

And you smiled but it was urgent smiling where you wanted to move her out of the way and find a quiet spot and read about how to raise this baby who can’t see your face.

Over the months, you stop panicking and fall for her soft head and dimple cheeks. She’s just the most beautiful babe you can imagine. God made her perfect, you tell everyone. And they nod even if they don’t believe you.

They nod and then they try to see what you see. It’s okay that they don’t. If she were for your eyes only it would be a miracle still.

You spend the first years of her life feeling as if you’ve been chosen for the specialized work of creating a universe for her. You meet other moms like you and other kids like her – almost – because those kids don’t have the same brightness, the brown fingers, the mosaic of speckles along their arms.

On Thursdays at the library you climb up the 48 steps to Children’s Fiction and count 14 books in to find the next one to read. Louisa likes numbers and you’re glad because she’s sharp and curious and you want her to know her mama loves that about her. 36 pages in, you have to go start your shift and you leave her seated in the sunlit window with her forefinger running along the bottom of the page where the Braille bumps are. The good thing about blind kids is they get lost in their own world, they have an imagination you aren’t about to snuff out just because the pastor thinks she’ll hurt herself. She has a few bumps and bruises, sure, but it ain’t like you gave them to her. Kids are supposed to be falling around, they’re still learning to tumble around in the world and figure it out – eyes to see or not.

When Barbara says she’s rescued Louisa from the window ledge, she says it through a breathless panic. And you calmly take Louisa and she says she was flying down to see the fairies on the second floor.

What I told you, though at the library, we walk.

This bus is crowded and the man at the back has a tremor that makes his leg hop. Louisa jumps too every time she hears it. The subway is a place of funny sounds. People are different down there. People are clicking, swishing, creaking, coughing. The silence is noisier than the noise.

The guy puts his hands on his head. I got this bald head from my grand pappy – you know he got it from his pappy and so on back, all the way to Jehova. Time flies fast, hey. This is all I got left of him. And you know, I do all right. You want this seat?

Sure. Thanks.

The woman looks startled.

I got two, they take care of me. Sweet little things.

People say the world is bad, getting’ worse, but you know what? They make it seem okay. They look out for each other. Family still means something.

The woman smiles and opens her book, and he looks for another person to eulogize to.

We use our legs, otherwise they’ll fall right off.

They’ll fall right off.

Louisa’s daddy lives in Mississauga, in a condo building with his new wife who treats Louisa like a baby. But he’s a good father – knows she ain’t gonna break. Let’s her put peas in curry, bring her face right up against the hot stove where she can practice being alert for the world.

And besides, she has Jesus looking out for her.

_______

There were two times it scared you badly, though. The first when you went to the circus and she heard the trapeze people talking about flying and she followed them into their stall. But a sighted child would do the same thing.

The second time was worse because Louisa can’t swim. That time she was on a boat and when the salty water flicked against her face, she thought with that much wind it was possible to take flight and she jumped.

There was a scramble of course, before you found her on the deck below, bruised knees and crying. Why’d you do it?

This time I was gonna. And you finally understood her tears were about being land borne, not about the pain of her small body hitting the deck.

_______

Louisa usually practices being in the subway tunnel by shuffling with her back against the wall. When the train comes, she closes her eyes and lets the rush of air blow her hair and she makes a face like she’s at the sea on a sunny day. That’s what we all miss out on when we have eyes – the vivid sensation of the ocean blowing in with the train.

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You wonder if Louisa gets lonely. Can a happy child who talks to the flowers ever really feel alone the way you do? Sometimes your alone is the worst when she’s not with you. When you’re walking down to Queens Quay after your shift and the crowds look like packs of old friends while you are without a soul to sing to you. This is when you miss her most.

_______

Pastor Jeffries calls you one morning and says he needs some help with the food drive and will you come early on Friday to set up the donation bins.

You’ve known Pastor Jeffries for twenty years – since he was a boyish thing, a missionary from the East Coast. Your first thought when you met him all those years back was that he was so young to be teaching anything about spirit. /30

But one who feels called should not hesitate. At 19, this boy was bringing people into the church and feeding them and loving them, too.

In those days your congregation was in a small storefront with an electric sign and sometimes people mistook it for a convenience store because from the outside there were still posters for cigarettes and chewing gum on the black window bars from the previous owners. At the time you weren’t thinking about any of what life would bring you. You just moved forward one day at a time and asked Jesus to keep you out of harm’s way. That’s what your mama did and that’s what will shelter you in this strange place where people don’t smile or laugh or sit in the sun like back home.

When you are in on Friday, Pastor Jeffries says he wants to talk to you and would you sit with him a moment. So you do, he looks just like your brother – kind face, deep eyes. You sit with him at a fold out table, two plastic cups between you.

How’s Louisa?

Oh, just fine, Pastor. You know her, always getting up to things.

He smiles, but the concern is plain to see.

She’s got more bruises on her arms – and I’m a friend, Loretta – so I’m trying to be straight with you. I think we need to take her to see someone.

He pulls a card from his pocket. Pediatric behavioural therapist, Jerome Arthur.

She got all kindsa specialists in her life already. She needs family and the Lord.

I’m not judging you, you know that, right? I want her to be safe.

I want that too. Now don’t we got a job to do?

And you push your chair back, remove yourself from the straight-faced, well-meaning moment and stay politely on task.

It’s between me and Jesus, father. I’m sure you can respect that.

Of course, Loretta. As I said, I’m a friend.

Best thing friends can do is be understanding.

I understand.

At the cottage, the water shows impossible electric blues, sharp-tipped tiny waves caught in between bordering prickly hills of pine and bare branch maples. A squeal from across the lake registers against the otherwise womb-like mute of the place. What does Louisa feel of these colours? In silent, spectacular scenery like this, you feel indulgent and stupid. Why keep this imagery to yourself when the child has none of it.

What do you think about this place? You ask her.

She smooths back her hair and says – “it’s very calm.”

I wish you could see it.

I can feel it.

And that’s the way it goes with the life lessons coming through.

Another thing about water is that you feel the surface of it is the shape and mood of what’s wet, rather than the fault line between air and water. The restlessness waves are not at all the temperament of the late. They are the startled skin of the air showing us it has a shape and a volume and that it is powerful beyond measure.

When you see the calm water, you see the air sleeping and when the water is torrid, the air shows its agitation at the state of things – loses its temper.