Her Eyes (2 page)

"I want to be beautiful again."

There was little chance of that, but she could dream. She often imagined that six months ago, she'd walked out, should have walked out, instead of going into that den. She touched the thick gauze wondering, hoping her sin wouldn't condemn her to be ugly forever.

Outside the door, she heard someone mumbling. Holding her breath, she thought she heard her doctor's voice conversing with a nurse. She strained to hear but no words made it through. Thankfully, the door opened and a nurse entered. The white starched form hovered for a moment, offered a few kind words, checked her bandages, then left. She also left the door ajar.

Catherine could hear the talk in the hallway this time. It was clear and clinical, but the nurse's voice held a hint of emotion. That tinge of sadness invoked fear in Catherine.

"Do you think the transplant will work? I mean the risk of her body rejecting is so high. I'm worried, especially after the last patient."

"We have to try.” The doctor's voice remained low, slightly louder than a whisper causing Catherine to hold her breath again to hear.

"But the black rot and bubbles on the last one ... I can't imagine that on a person's face."

"She knew the risks. I went over everything with her and she wanted it."

The doctor must've realized the door was open because he reached out and shut it, ending her eavesdropping. They were talking about her. The doctor told her the risks. Even though he was the best in the field, the process of transplanting a face was still so new, so untried. He'd shown her the pictures, the awful photos of a person whose body had rejected the last transplant. It had been hideous, the slow degeneration of tissue, the bubbled surface, the rotted areas.

She struggled to sit up and felt a tingle beneath the bandages. Something in there was taking hold. There was no mirror in sight. Catherine reached the call button. She had to see her face, even in the bandages. Some reassurance would get her through the night.

"Yes,” came the voice, the same voice who'd been speaking to the doctor in the hall.

"Would it be possible to get a mirror?"

"It wouldn't do you any good, Mrs. White. All you can see are bandages."

The foolish request circled in her mind. “I know, but even seeing bandages would help."

The intercom went dead. A few minutes later a nurse came in carrying a fresh pitcher of ice and a small hand-held mirror. She set the mirror on the tray, just out of reach, and refilled Catherine's cup.

"I brought you the mirror, but remember that you won't be able to tell anything. The bandages cover all of the doctor's work and can't be removed yet."

"Please. I need to see."

The nurse handed her a small, blue, plastic-backed mirror. A cheap one, very cheap. Catherine never tolerated anything cheap, but for this, to see her face or to imagine, she would take the cheap mirror. Carefully, she lifted it, as if it were the most fragile thing in the world. Then she looked at the wad of bandages, the tape holding it all in place. Only her good eye and her mouth could be seen.

"We'll find out if the eye took in a couple of weeks. Don't worry. I'm sure it did.” The nurse took the mirror and left the room in a swish of polyester.

Her eye. She wanted to see from two eyes again instead of the gaping wound that the beast had left behind. She wanted to be a person. She sighed, remembering how she used to put liner around her lovely blue eyes.

Sleep drifted to her again, and she gladly sank into the dark areas of her mind. Maybe when she woke this time, she would be whole. The dog's attack might fade to nothing but a dream. That's what she liked to concentrate on when resting. She liked to pretend she had never touched that gun.

This time as linear thought faded, she saw a face. It wasn't her in her pre-mutilated life, but she knew the person. Not once before had she dreamed of Frank's ex, Pam Miller, but that's whose face she saw this time. Pam stared back at her with her pale green eyes, and Catherine could swear she saw anger in the expression.

The day finally came to remove some of the bandages. The hospital staff had changed them, but this would be Catherine's first opportunity to see out of two eyes. As each coil of gauze left her, anticipation built. One of her rules was to never show she was nervous or scared, to always act in control. This, however, was harder now. Anxious to see what she looked like, eager to see out of both eyes, desperate to get on with her life, she couldn't hide anything. She wanted to scream at the doctor to hurry, but that would not be in keeping with the image she so desperately clung to. She was better than them, better than all of them. She didn't need to demean herself through desperate outbursts.

She'd gone through so much, surely her face could be made right again. She deserved something after the agony. Worse had been the humiliation. After Win's attack and her subsequent disfigurement, old lovers wouldn't speak to her, men she had flirted with looked the other way. Assholes, all of them. It had been a nightmare. Even the television crews had been to her house causing her to hide inside until the chaos died away. She didn't want to be the freak on the six o'clock news.

For all her years begging for attention, now she wanted to hide from the limelight. This surgery had been kept out of public view, but barely. All she needed were those old lovers seeing her reconstructed, like a science experiment. Rumors abounded about the woman with the new face. Restless reporters called the hospital and had tried to get to her room. Tabloids ate up the story about the woman with the transplanted face, but Catherine refused to be the freak on the cover of the
Enquirer
.

The strands of gauze went around, the nurse taking too much time, and the doctor encouraging her to be careful. It was enough to make Catherine scream. Finally, they reached the plastic piece set over her eye and slowly pulled the tape away, then removed it.

"It may take a few minutes to adjust, for your vision to clear. Give it time.” The doctor spoke softly, but the excitement held in his voice.

Catherine blinked, the room fell away then came back in agonizing bright light. Another moment and she closed the eye that had survived the attack. There in the sterile hospital room, with everyone waiting and watching like she was some carnival display, she slowly opened the lid of her own eye, yes ... yes, she could see from two eyes.

The doctor began asking her questions, checking each eye. He flashed the penlight in them, but all she wanted was the mirror. Her hands fidgeted restlessly, she fought the urge to reach up, push the doctor and his hands away, to grab for a mirror. All the while Frank stood quietly, stoically, in the corner of the room. His handsome face revealing none of the thoughts she was sure went through his mind. He hardly looked at her.

When the doctor's curiosity was satisfied, he handed her another cheap plastic mirror. This was it, the culmination of so much pain and fuss. She could finally find out if the operation was a success.

"Remember that your face will be swollen for several weeks. What you see now hasn't healed yet."

She held the mirror and gazed at herself. Parts of her face were still covered with bandages, but she could see her eyes. There was one problem. Her eyes had been blue, a captivating blue. One of her eyes remained that color while the other, the donor eye, was a green the exact shade of dead grass.

"They don't match. I'm a freak."

The skin around her eye remained bruised, nearly black. Even if it all healed in some semblance of her former self, her eyes would never match. She would for all times remain a mismatched monster.

"Don't worry about eye color. The important part is that you can see.” The doctor grinned, and she grew nauseous. “If it really bothers you, get contacts later. Your eyes can be any color you want."

His tone belittled her. He probably thought eye color was foolish when faced with returning sight. It wasn't foolish. She'd become grotesque, some doll version of Frankenstein's monster.

"Sure. At least I can see."

Catherine looked at her husband and felt tears coming from both her freakish eyes. The gentle expression he held made her ache. He probably thought her tears were of joy. They weren't. She knew that for all times, she was trapped.

"Are you sure she's going to be okay?” Frank stared into Catherine's room, wondering what she would do next. She asked to be alone for a minute, and so he went into the hallway with the doctor. “She's always been ... well ... a little vain."

He didn't mean to insult his wife, but the truth had to be told. He didn't like the distant way Catherine acted during their marriage, it frightened him. Her physical beauty had always been a focal point in her life. Before the accident, she had worked out at the gym three times a week and had spent hundreds in cosmetics to keep her perfect face properly painted. Honestly, after the accident, he hoped she would find a way to be that sweet girl from high school again—the one who saw the inner beauty, or maybe that had been nothing more than a ploy. Maybe the person he'd seen more and more of the past years was the real Catherine.

"I don't know.” The doctor glanced back into the room as he spoke. “She can start seeing a counselor. In fact, she probably should. We usually require that before and after transplant surgery. Sometimes ... well, sometimes people get ideas after a transplant. They ... well, never mind, counseling would be a good idea considering the trauma she's been through."

Frank nodded, wishing he could help Catherine. He knew she had problems, but they'd made a vow to each other. That vow, made by two high school kids blinded by love, may have been made before she had grown so greedy and so interested in the things that didn't matter in life. Nonetheless, a vow had to be honored even if she didn't honor her end. His mind wandered back to that night he found her with James.... Well, that was the past. Now, when she needed him, they could finally have the marriage he wanted.

"I'll do that."

He lingered at the door to her room, unsure if he should venture inside again. There were days Catherine acted happy to see him, and others when she flew into a rage at his presence. It was like she was two different people. He knew why. She didn't want to be alone. The same problems that haunted his life before her accident resurfaced again. He knew that Catherine didn't love him. This time she only had him. Frank was pretty sure that no matter how much it pleased her to have somebody, it angered her that her somebody was him.

He was caught in a difficult predicament. If he left her, it would be abandoning a woman in distress. Staying made her wish for someone else. There was no way to win this one. He wished his father were still alive so he could ask what to do about Catherine. He seemed to have an answer for everything. Unfortunately, he had passed away, along with his mother, five years ago.

What do I do?

Hoping to ease her pain, he stepped back into the room.

"Honey, are you okay?"

Catherine nodded, but didn't look at him. “Why don't you go home? There's no reason for you to hang around."

"Sure. I'll get the house fixed up and ready for you to come home.” He touched her shoulder, wishing he could hold her. “If you want, I'll-I'll get rid of the dog."

"No. You need that dog. Go on home."

He tried so hard to be patient with her. As always, he kept quiet and silently kicked himself on the way to the elevator. He hit the down button, waiting for the lift to come. There, staring at his reflection, anger flooded his senses. He couldn't let this drop, not now.

Frank marched back to her hospital room and pushed open the door. She turned, looked at him, and managed to roll both eyes at his appearance in her room. Through it all, she wouldn't become that sweet girl he'd fallen for. He doubted she'd ever been.

"Listen, Catherine, you can sit and cry all you want to, but facts are facts. Outward beauty doesn't last. It's the person inside that makes you beautiful. Eyes that don't match or a scar-free face don't mean anything. You should be turning to me during all this, not shutting me out. We should be clinging to each other, not you trying to push me away."

"Leave me alone, Frank."

He closed his eyes, reliving the night, remembering the dog barking, growling, and the gun on the floor. Win had protected him, although he never growled at a stranger. “You were standing over me when the dog attacked you. I saw what you were going to do, and don't try to deny it.” He fought to keep his anger under control. “Can you tell me why?"

"So I'd be free.” Her words were nothing but a whisper, but he heard them, and they tore through his heart.

"Do you want a divorce? I'll grant you one. I would have given you one months ago. I never wanted to trap you."

Her bottom lip trembled. She didn't answer his offer of a divorce, she couldn't take personal responsibility for it. Instead, she put it all on him. “You'd like that now ... now that I'm a freak. You could go to one of those bimbos who are hanging on your friends. You'd like to abandon me, wouldn't you?” Her voice was a shrill scream.

"I'd like to have a real wife, not someone who hates me.” He turned and started toward the door. “I'll stay with you as long as you want. I owe you that, but we're married in name only. I'll be here in the morning to pick you up. I will keep taking care of you, but don't let it hurt your feelings if I keep sleeping in the den."

Frank went back into the hall. It might've been wrong to mention the incident when she was down, but he had to say it. His wife had wanted him dead. He had covered for her with the police, had said there was an intruder and that Catherine tried to save him. Ironically, that was what Catherine tried to say as well. Their concocted stories were so similar. Why couldn't they share that connection to make the marriage work?

There wasn't much left for him at home, but he would support her. Maybe he could work longer days. Work had always been his escape, and now, with her coming back home, he needed it.

He rode the elevator to the lobby then exited through the sliding glass doors. He'd parked at the far side of the lot. Even in the distance, he saw his red Dodge truck poking up in the mix of sedans and compacts.