Night Blindness (2 page)

“I'll be there tomorrow,” I told her.

After I hung up, I realized Nic was talking, asking me questions, and Hadley was saying, “Love, I think she needs a drink.”

Finally, I let Nic pull me off the couch and lead me upstairs. He sat me down on our bed and closed the door. The noise dimmed, and I stared at the ceiling, holding my tattered stuffed rabbit, Bear. I touched the space where he was missing a marble eye.

“Hey.” Nic ran his thumb down my spine. “What'd Jamie do now?”

I could smell the party on his breath. “My dad's sick,” I said. “He has…”
A brain tumor.
I stared at our wedding photo on the bedside table, me barefoot on the beach in a flimsy, almost see-through dress with some Greek waiter as Nico's best man.

“Sick sick?” he asked.

“He has…” I bit the inside of my lip. The little shot of pain was an elixir. “A tumor in his brain.” I didn't look at him. I felt his strong hand on my back, pulling me to him. “They're meeting the surgeon next week.” Drifting up from the party a Beau Williams song, “Walk Around Heaven,” was playing.
One of these mornings won't be very long. You'll look for me and I'll be gone.
“I have to go.”

He smoothed my hair, and I fingered the tattooed rope around his bicep. “You don't want to wait until you find out more? I mean, it could be—”

“It's a brain tumor, Nico, not the flu.” I pulled away. The sound of laughter floated up the stairs. “You should go back,” I said. “Your friends are down there.” I didn't want to cry in front of him. “I just need a minute.”

“J.,” he said. “Look at me.”

I didn't want to. If I did, I might not go home. I might stay in Santa Fe in the strange, artsy world I'd disappeared into ten years before. He tipped my chin up, and there was nowhere else to look. His green eyes turned from the color of sea glass to a shade darker. “You want me to send Hadley up? He can always make you laugh.”

“No, thanks.”

Nic stood. I watched him walk toward the door, that casual stride that said everything would be all right. Before he turned the knob, he said, “Your old man's a tough cookie. He'll be okay.”

While I waited for his footsteps to fade, I traced the birthmark on my forearm. I couldn't decide if it looked like a heart or a football. In my family, they were one and the same. When I was sure Nic was downstairs, I got up and pulled my pewter jewelry box from my top dresser drawer. Sitting on the bed, I tossed aside broken necklaces, earrings with no backs, a baby tooth, woven friendship bracelets, and my acceptance letter to Juilliard. My father's first Super Bowl ring was tucked in a corner, and I slipped it on my thumb. When I'd asked why he'd given it to me and not Will, he'd said he knew someday Will would have one of his own. At the very bottom was the worn photograph, facedown.

Lying back on the patchwork comforter, I studied the picture. Will, Ryder, and I stood three across on the overhang at Breakneck Lake the summer before Will died. Will and Ryder looked like brothers, their blond hair almost white with sun, their tanned chests newly muscled. Will was pretending to punch Ryder in the arm. I was smiling hard at the camera, the kid sister, the tagalong, my black hair wet and curly, my face so tanned that the freckles were barely noticeable. They were seventeen. They were the world. Ryder was leaning back, looking behind Will's shoulders at me. We were perfect, the three of us, so happy. Too happy. I should have known what was coming. Turning it over, I read the date.
Summer, 1996.
I stared at the numbers for a long time. Eight weeks later, Will was dead.

Finally, I put the photograph back in the box next to a foil package of birth-control pills I told Nic I took but rarely did, then stuffed pants, skirts, and shirts into my old leather duffel. I grabbed a bunch of clothes from hangers, avoiding the garment bag pushed to the far wall. Inside, pressed and hidden, was the dress I loved the most: a black vintage sheath I'd worn to Ryder Anderson's junior prom.

 

2

The porch light was on at my parents' house when the driver pulled in next to a black Navigator. I could barely make out the letters on the license plate.
TATUM
for Art Tatum, the jazz legend. It was Luke's truck. He'd had those plates for as long as I could remember. Two bumper stickers on either side of the plate read
BRING OUR TROOPS HOME
and
1-20-09 IT'S ABOUT TIME.
Of course Luke would be a die-hard Obama fan.

Parked beside it was a dark green Audi I didn't recognize. I tipped the cabbie I'd hailed at Bradley Airport and then stood on the front lawn under the weeping willow tree my parents had planted the year Will died. In the light of the moon, its branches threw skeletonlike shadows across the yard.

The air smelled of privet hedges, and everything seemed so green compared to Santa Fe. The front door looked immense, daunting, like some kind of protector, intent on keeping me out, and I felt like running. It was strangely similar to the moment before I took off my clothes for a new sculptor, a rising panic that made me feel like I might pass out, or scream out loud for a long time without stopping.

In the foyer, I was met by photographs of Will and me. “Hello?” I set my bags on the floor. The house smelled buttery, like roasted garlic, usually comforting, except with the Navigator outside, I knew Luke was here and had been cooking, which could only mean one thing: bad news. When Will died, Luke had canceled two months of a North American tour to cook for us while we sat, silent in our grief. “I'm home.” My voice sounded thready, unconvincing. I corrected myself. “I'm here.” I tossed my coat on the banister. “Jamie? Dad?” Down the hall, the kitchen, with its gas burners and built-in wine racks, was dark, but the bathroom door was outlined in light. “Luke?” I took a step forward. No one answered. On the wall was a slightly crooked picture of me at six years old; I was balanced on a stack of pillows, playing Luke's baby grand. Will was standing next to me, sticking out his tongue.

The toilet flushed. A second later, the faucet ran. I heard the lock snap back. And then after thirteen years, Ryder Anderson stepped out of my parents' hall bathroom as if he'd walked out of that photograph from Breakneck Lake. “Ryder,” I said. But the sound was a whisper. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. He held the door handle tightly. I could smell him from where I stood, fresh laundry and lemon, and I almost stepped forward, almost went to him. But something kept me from it. He'd always kept his hair on the long side, but it had been cut military short, and he was wearing a monogrammed oxford shirt. In my leather sandals and cutoffs, I felt underdressed, sloppy. We stared at each other. He was taller. His hair was darker. He was still beautiful.

“Jenny,” he said. His voice was low, surprisingly soft.

I wished I'd put on my silver earrings, wished at least I had on lipstick. There were snaffle bits on his loafers. I couldn't remember him in shoes like that except for prom. He'd hardly ever worn shoes when we were kids. He straightened his cuff links. I saw us on our backs on the Hamilton School field, waiting for a shooting star so we could wish for the same thing. The grandfather clock started playing Whittington chimes. He wasn't wearing a wedding band. Eleven strikes. He was so close, I could have reached out and touched his jaw. I thought of us riding double on his red ten-speed bike. He used to go no-handed while I screamed. He leaned away, against the closed door.

“It's been a long time,” he said. “I—”

“There you are.” Jamie appeared at the top of the stairs. And it was as if I'd never left. Her dark hair was straightened and pulled back in a low ponytail; her baby-doll dress made her look even younger. “Honey,” she said in her singsong voice, “I thought I heard a car pull in.” She started down the stairs. Her eyes were the color of the sky before a thunderstorm, a wild blue that made men love her. “I was just reviewing the contracts
Vogue
sent for Brazil.” She hesitated, as if posing for a portrait, then kept coming with practiced elegance. “Was your flight delayed? You missed dinner,” she said, as if I hadn't missed the last thirteen years of dinners. Cutting in front of Ryder, she drew me to her with her small, capable hands, and I braced myself for inspection. “Oh, darling.” I could smell the Parisian perfume Mandy and I used to put on our wrists when she wasn't home. She sighed, backing up and studying me, and I felt that hope rise in me, that she would say something nice, that she would approve, but she said, “Santa Fe is still making an art hippie out of you.”

“Nic did that to me a long time ago,” I said quietly.

She ignored this. “At least that hot desert hasn't ruined your beautiful skin.” She pressed the back of her hand to my cheek. “So.” She turned to Ryder. “You've seen our little girl, all grown up.”

“A sight for sore eyes.” He never quit looking at me.

“She's so thin.” Jamie's hand fluttered around my ribs. “If you don't have to be skinny to make a living, for goodness sake, why don't you eat? Artists' models are so lucky they're supposed to be voluptuous.” She patted my hand. “Right?” I nodded, not bothering to tell her that
fat
went out with the Pre-Raphaelites. “Come.” She put her perfectly manicured hand on my arm, leading me to the kitchen. “Luke made his famous coq au vin and saved a plate for you.” I felt Ryder follow us. And I wanted to turn around and look at him again. I couldn't get his lips, that beautiful mouth, out of my mind.

The black granite counters were clean, and the dishes had been put away. A cast-iron skillet in the pot rack dripped onto the chopping block. Jamie opened the fridge. She looked so out of place in the kitchen. My dad or Luke did the cooking.

“Where's Daddy?” I asked.

Ryder sat at the island. He seemed so relaxed, familiar with a house he hadn't been to in over a decade.

“He and Luke drank a little too much bourbon. I put him to bed and sent Luke to the guest room.”

“Is it okay for him to drink alcohol?” I glanced at Ryder, but he was watching Jamie.

“Oh, honey, we don't know what's what yet.” She pulled out a casserole dish covered in aluminum foil.

“No thanks.” I hadn't eaten since leaving for the airport that morning, but I wasn't hungry.

She raised her eyebrows. There was the feeling that glass was breaking all around us. “Well, then.” She covered it back up. “Wine?” She pulled a bottle of white from the door. Ryder shook his head no, and even though I was dying for a drink, I did, too.

“All right.” She gave Ryder a pout.

I watched her pour herself a glass.

“What's going on with Dad?”

Ryder started winding his watch. A fancy one—the kind advertised in men's magazines—that he wouldn't have been caught dead with in high school. I knew beneath that monogrammed oxford he had my father's football jersey number tattooed on his biceps. He and Will had gotten them as soon as they'd turned sixteen, and I'd run my tongue around it more times than I could count. I wanted to reach under the sleeve and touch it now, to make sure it was really him.

“Oh, honey.” Jamie blew a few wispy hairs out of her eyes. “You always were one to face things head-on.” She picked up her wine and glanced at Ryder. He was still winding. “I think we should wait until tomorrow to talk about Daddy.” Her tone was the curt one she'd used to shut me up when I was younger. I didn't know if I wanted to slap the drink out of her hand or cry.

“I'd rather hear it now,” I said, and then my cell phone rang—Nic's custom ring. I'd waited for him to call on the way over in the cab, pressing my face to the glass and watching Colston pass, so lush compared to New Mexico. I'd seen the neighborhoods I'd played in and the beaches I'd swum at, Mandy's house, Ryder's.

“I have to take this.” The phone kept ringing while I walked across the kitchen. “I'll just be a minute.” I could feel them watching me as I let myself out the back door and walked onto the deck. The crisp New England air ran straight through my flimsy rayon shirt. “Hey.” I dropped into the love-seat glider.

“Where are you?” Nic asked.

I thought of my mother and Ryder in the kitchen, looking out at me. A thin line of smoke drifted over from the neighbor's chimney. It smelled like hickory; the same scent had been in the air the night Will died. “A quintessential fall day,” my dad had said that morning. “The perfect day to win a football game.”

“Home.” The yard was dark. “And I can't talk long because I literally just walked in the door.” I didn't dare look back at them. Instead, I studied the tilted goalposts my dad had built for Will. They were still there.

“
I'm
home,” Nic said. “You're in country club kingdom. How was the flight?”

I hugged my knees, trying to keep warm. “It sucked.” The yard was bordered by gardens, already in bloom. Jamie, in her designer gloves and imported straw hat, had a green thumb. It looked nothing like our front yard in Santa Fe, which was full of dirt and cacti. “This poor lady in front of me had two screaming babies.”

“The only thing worse than one crying kid is two.”

I chewed on my lip and traced the letters carved into the cracked wood of the glider's right arm. I was too tired to have the baby fight. I wanted one; he didn't.

“How's your dad?” he asked.

“He's in bed.” On the left arm of the glider, Will had pared a line of
X
's and
O
's, football plays or maybe a love note. I never asked why Jamie hadn't gotten mad at him for it. I'd caught hell for my graffiti. But he was Will, and I wasn't. “Did you finish the falcon sculpture for Berlin?” I asked.

“It shipped out at five,” he said. “Whitney came in around three and helped me with the wings.” I heard him lighting a joint. I pictured Whitney on her back, arms spread like wings. “My usual inspiration got on a plane for preppyville.” He inhaled. “So,” he said, his voice tight with smoke, “are they running tests or—”