Night Blindness (11 page)

He half-punched me back. “You've got that look in your eye.”

“Which one?” I tucked my hair behind my ear.

He closed the door. “The one where you stick your tongue in the side of your mouth.” A strand of hair fell over my eyes, and when he pushed it back, my skin chilled. “And try not to say what you're really thinking.”

I was glad more people were arriving, because I didn't know what to say. Sid's wife came in and practically knocked me over, she was so happy to see me. Next came a slew of Jamie's photographers, a handful of models, and the whole board of directors from A Will to Live. As I showed them the bar, I thought it strange how happy everyone was to be at a party for a guy with a brain tumor. It wasn't something I'd celebrate, but that was my dad. He needed his friends to know he was okay. That he was going to beat this thing.

By the time I saw Ryder again, he was in the living room, sandwiched between a couple of Jamie's models, who'd probably found out he was a doctor and were trying to marry him.

Around nine, Mandy came through the back door in skintight black jeans and a see-through button-down blouse. She could have been one of my mother's runway girls. Some hot Latino guy was following her. “Antonio,” she said to him, “meet my very best sister, Jensen.” Mandy had an older brother and two younger sisters, but she always said that.

He kissed my hand. “So lovely to meet you.” His accent was divine.

“He owns the estancia in Uruguay where we did a bird-watching shoot,” she told me, and I had a flash of her, pregnant and happy, with little Antonios running around.

“He's very pretty,” I whispered when I hugged her. She smelled of champagne.

“And very married,” she whispered back.

Before I could say anything else, my father and Luke stormed the foyer, calling her name and bear-hugging her. Mandy screamed and jumped up and down and called them both “Daddy-O,” then explained to Antonio that it had been a million years since she'd seen them.

“Antonio,” my dad said when she introduced him, “
Usted es un hombre muy guapo.
” Whatever that meant. Then he did some sort of flamenco dance.

Luke clapped poor Antonio on the back and blatantly stared at his wedding ring. “
No hablo español,
my friend.” It was a lie; Luke spoke five languages, including Portuguese and Spanish. “But I think this translates: Don't mess with our Mandy.”

I tried to give them stern looks, but I had to excuse myself. Nicole, from two houses down, stumbled in behind her Afghan dog. They both had long noses and frizzy red hair. I was going to tell her we didn't really want a dog inside, Jamie was allergic, but the house began to fill with people I barely remembered from the Colston Country Club and my father's time at ESPN, Jamie's makeup artists and scouts, people I hadn't seen since Will's funeral. My cheeks ached from smiling.

Jamie was standing at the piano, touching Ed Kane's shoulder. He was an old-time sportswriter for the
New Haven Register
and had been in the stands the night of Will's accident. Behind her, Luke was playing “Red Red Wine.” Mandy lounged beside him, singing along, clearly a little drunk, Antonio nowhere in sight. I watched Jamie laugh, her hand on Ed's arm.
Still the same flirty Jamie,
I thought.

My dad came in from the kitchen, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Back off, Ed,” he yelled. “She's mine.”

Jamie turned, surprised, her high, sculpted cheekbones pink from too much wine. “Oh, honey, you know I am.” She blew my father a kiss, and when she caught me standing in the doorway, she called over. “Jensen, darling, I was just telling the boys how you play piano.” She came twirling over to me.

Ryder had appeared, holding a beer, his short hair a little messy. He had the happy, glassy look of drink in his eyes that I remembered from when we were teenagers.

“Jamie, you know I don't play anymore,” I said. I'd taken a pair of earth-colored linen pants from her closet. They were cool on my skin, and I was glad I'd dressed up.

“You're kidding, right?” Ryder glanced at the piano, the way he used to stare at organic-chemistry problems. Maybe if he looked long enough, they'd make sense. “Why? You were so good. That's all you ever wanted to do.”

“You know why,” I told him quietly.

Without music, the room grew quiet. Luke called out, “Come over here and give your father a song, baby girl.” My dad started clapping, and Ed Kane put his fingers to his lips and whistled. I could feel people gathering behind me. Luke had told me that one way or another he was going to get me to start playing again.

I walked toward the piano. Luke surrendered his seat, and Mandy gave me a big kiss on the cheek. “Oh goodie,” she said. “Just like old times.”

I sat on the padded bench. The room had gone quiet. Mandy set her elbows on the guide rail, her chin in her hands, and waited for me. I could feel people watching; all of them had known me as Sterling's piano prodigy daughter. They were all expecting me to play. And why shouldn't I? Why couldn't I play again? The room felt still, as though someone had just died, or was about to. “If you wait much longer,” Mandy whispered, “someone is going to turn on that terrible playlist again.” I chewed my lip, trying to think of something I might remember. The piano used to be my religion. Now it felt as foreign as a lost language.

Then I remembered, during our breaks from studying for finals sophomore year, Mandy and I used to sit on this same bench, and I'd play Crosby, Stills & Nash's “Got It Made” while she sang along. She'd just scored highest on the PSATs, and I'd bested seven hundred other players to win the PianoArts North American Piano Competition and the chance to play with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, one of the best in the country. We had it made, and we knew it. “‘Got It Made,'” I said. She gave me a thumbs-up.

As soon as she started singing, the chords came back to me. The music was stored in my hands. I looked down at them in amazement; they coordinated without my say-so, as if they'd been waiting, patiently, for this chance. I closed my eyes and felt myself fall into the rhythm as though gravity had given way and I was floating. The party disappeared, my father's brain tumor, Ryder's surprise when he found out I'd quit. The refrain melted an ache I wasn't even aware I was holding on to. I vaguely heard the doorbell ringing, people cheering, Luke saying, quietly, behind me, “You got it going on, girl, that's right,” and just when I was about to transition into Billy Joel's “This Is the Time,” I felt a ripple of panic spread through the room, and I realized Mandy had stopped singing. I opened my eyes.

A crowd had formed by the couch. In the spaces between the people, I could see my father sitting with his head between his knees, his hair disheveled, his feet pigeon-toed. Ryder was kneeling beside him. I pushed my way over. His eyes were filmy, and he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

“I'm fine.” He was wiping his glasses on his shirt, his breath labored. “Just got a little nauseous.”

I sat on the arm of the couch and took his hand; his fingers were cold, clammy. Ryder pulled a penlight from his pocket and flashed it in my dad's eyes. Worry lines wrinkled Ryder's forehead. He placed his fingers on my dad's wrist. “Your pupils are dilating and your pulse is strong. Have you been eating?”

My father's voice was hoarse. “Sometimes I don't feel like it.”

I squeezed his hand, trying to recall if he'd finished his cereal and grapefruit that morning. “Dad, you need to tell someone when you don't feel well.”

“It's okay, Jenny. Lack of appetite is normal.” Ryder stuck the flashlight back in his pocket. I tried to imagine Nic ever carrying a penlight.

“Could you get Sid for me?” my father asked, searching the room feverishly. “We were discussing why the flea-flicker play needs to be retired.” He took off his glasses and chewed on the arm. “I know I know why; I just can't find the words.”

Cold fear exploded in my stomach. Sid had left over an hour ago, and my father had been practicing the flea flicker all his life. “That's easy.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “It's too risky. If the defense isn't tricked into thinking you're setting up a running play, the quarterback ends up on his ass.”

My dad patted my hand, his eyes searching my face. “You're my good girl, Jensen.”

Ryder caught my eye, but I didn't smile.

The party broke up after that. Jamie put my father to bed, and people started filing out. Luke drove Mandy home because Antonio had brought her there in his rental car, and she had no idea where he'd gone. “I think your dad and I might have scared him off,” Luke whispered to me.

To avoid good-byes, I escaped to the kitchen to deal with dirty dishes. I needed to think about something other than the fact that my father was disappearing in front of me, and I'd been hiding out in Santa Fe with Nic. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ryder come through the archway. Taking a dish towel from the oven handle, he stood beside me and dried a serving bowl. “What the fuck was that?” I asked.

He kept drying. “Just part of the disease. He's going to forget stuff.”

I felt like smashing the plate against the sink. “Stop telling me what you think I want to hear.” I turned off the water.

He quit drying. “What the hell does that mean?”

“I think you're holding out on us.” I took a paper towel from the roll and dried my hands furiously. “I think he's sicker than you're letting on. And maybe Jamie is willing to be in denial.” I wadded up the paper towel and threw it in the trash. “But I'm not.” I had a feeling of pushing a boulder over a deep precipice, but I kept going. “Just like you told me to, I've been reading up on this,” I said, “and I know you're doing something risky.”

He looked as though he were deciding something. “Santa Fe made you hard,” he said. “You know that? You don't trust anyone.”

“Oh, so all the research is wrong, and you're right? Every article I've read says that resecting the tumor immediately will give him the best chance of survival.”

“You're reading guidelines, general practices. Most meningiomas aren't so close to the pneumotaxic center. They usually grow in one of the temporal lobes, just under the dura. Removing those tumors is a cakewalk. Your dad's is not following the norm. I have to treat his specific illness, not what the disease usually does.” His face was set like stone. “I love that man like a father. You think I'd do anything.” He spit out the words. “Anything, to hurt him?”

Out the kitchen window, I could see the deck, where people had left half-finished beers and cocktail napkins.

“Andrew Benning,” he said. “He's a neuro in my practice. I encourage all my patients to get second opinions so that when they're on my operating table, they have one hundred percent faith in me. I would have given you his name before now, but I didn't think you'd want anyone else.” He threw the dish towel on the counter.

“What do you want me to think? First you tell us that a well-informed patient is the best patient. And then you go rogue with his treatment.” I folded the towel he'd thrown, draped it over the oven handle. “I'm still trying to get used to your being a brain surgeon, to even being back here.”

“I'm not the one who left. And if you'd wanted to find me, all you had to do was look, but you didn't look, Jensen.” He took a step back. I saw his neck was bright red, like it used to get when he was angry. “You hid out instead.” He looked like he was going to say something more, but then he turned around and I watched him walk out of the kitchen and down the hall. I let myself out onto the deck. Standing at the railing, I half-expected him to come back, to come after me. But eventually I heard a car door shut and an engine start, and I knew he was gone.

Upstairs, the light was off in my parents' bedroom. Because of the dark, I couldn't see much beyond the sea of blooming yellow forsythia bordering the fence. The night smelled of the lamb Luke had cooked on the grill. I could feel a headache starting at the base of my neck.

I'd been faking it all night. The only thing that had felt real was when I'd been playing the piano, but just when the groove hit, reality had come crashing back. It was the way life rolled. Maybe I was home, eating chocolate cake and taking drives in convertibles, but my father was sick. He was probably dying. And we needed a second opinion. We needed to talk to someone who would tell us the truth. Because right now, we were all standing in quicksand, and I was the only one who could feel we were sinking.

 

10

I never called Dr. Andrew Benning for a second opinion. I kept his number on my bureau, but it felt like a sacrilege. And somehow I was too busy. My life took on a rhythm, driving my dad to radiation and spending time with him while Jamie worked, messing up self-portraits in the attic while he napped, running on Hammonasset Beach at dusk with Mandy when she was home from photo shoots, and playing piano with Luke three times a week.

I could now play
Islamay
, the Oriental fantasy by Balakirev;
Gaspard de la Nuit,
by Maurice Ravel; a
Petrushka
transcription by Stravinsky; and Rachmaninoff's Piano Sonata no. 2, 1913 edition. I also played Springsteen's “Racing in the Street.” I'd started to learn it as a present for Ryder's eighteenth birthday, but then I'd left for Andover. I didn't try “Reverie” again.

My dad's illness and something about being in Colston made me organized, focused. I was the keeper of his radiation schedule and secretly recorded his headaches and any other strange behavior. I made sure we had an emergency supply of his medicine in the car. While Jamie was at work, I stocked the fridge with the food Luke recommended: organic, gluten-free, high-protein, low-fat. I spent hours at the Yale library researching meningiomas, studying recent dissertations from neuroscientists, and reading about the workings of the medulla and pons. Hadley was a vitamin junkie, and I had him investigating different supplements. Then I figured out which ones would interact with my dad's meds. I organized it all in a hanging file in the kitchen, beneath the phone books.