Blindsided Read online

  She sounded so earnest, so sincere that Natalie wanted to soften, but she couldn’t.

  “Who is your doctor, Natalie? Someone in Baltimore?”

  “No,” Natalie replied. “It’s Dr. Rose, in Rockville.”

  “What did Dr. Rose tell you, Natalie?”

  Natalie began chewing on her bottom lip. She didn’t want to repeat, or even think about, what Dr. Rose had told her because that’s when it really started. The big change inside. The panic. The fear . . .

  Suddenly, the phone rang—a rude intrusion—and Miss Audra touched Natalie’s knee again. “Would you excuse me for a minute, Natalie? I’ve been waiting for that call and I need to take it. I won’t be a minute.”

  Natalie quickly nodded. Then, as soon as her instructor walked away, Natalie stood up and bolted from the room.

  WHAT DR. ROSE SAID

  She hoped no one was watching. Quickly, Natalie made her way down to the first floor of the building and out the door, where she grabbed the brass handrail and guided herself to the bottom step. Without time to move her head around and focus, everything was a blur, but Natalie remembered the picnic tables off to one side where the first-day reception had been held. She found an empty table, didn’t hear or sense that anyone else was there, and sat down. Sucking in fresh air, she pressed her hands together between her knees and hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for taking off like that. But she did not want to even think about what Dr. Rose had said because he had let her down. Big time.

  Although—and Natalie had to admit this—Dr. Rose had never actually promised. No. All those years, when the piercing light was finally out of her eyes and the tools put to one side, Dr. Rose had never actually promised that she would not go blind. Something more uplifting such as, “We’ll hope for the best,” or her favorite, “We’ll see,” always concluded the examination.

  But on August 19, three weeks ago, there it was. A diagnosis dropped in her lap one Tuesday morning like a hundred pounds of cement. Dead, foreboding, unwanted weight. There was no escaping it.

  “I’m so sorry,” Dr. Rose had said gently. “But there’s nothing more anyone can do, Natalie. Absolutely nothing. I’m afraid you’re going to lose your sight completely.”

  Natalie felt the air go out of the room. Her wide, disbelieving eyes searched frantically for his face. It wasn’t easy, sitting so close to him. She had to pull her head back to widen her range of vision. But there he was—the shiny bald head, the thick forehead wrinkles, and the soft and serious gray eyes that, behind gold-rimmed glasses, never lied.

  It was her mother who had spoken first, from a seat somewhere behind Natalie. “When?” she had asked. Her voice wavered in the heavy silence that had filled the room. “How much time?”

  Dr. Rose removed and folded his glasses, then tucked them into a chest pocket of the white lab coat he wore. “To be honest, it could be several months. My best guess, however, is that Natalie will lose her sight within a few weeks. It could, quite literally, disappear overnight.”

  Natalie put a hand to her mouth.

  “It’s important—crucial,” Dr. Rose emphasized, “that she get all the help she can right now. We’ve talked about this before but there’s no question anymore, and no time to waste.”

  “The school for the blind?” Natalie’s mother asked.

  “Yes,” Dr. Rose affirmed. “Immediately. I’d get her there for the start of the school year if I were you. It’s only a couple weeks away, but we can certainly make some calls for you.”

  “I’m going to be a sophomore, though, I can’t—” Natalie started to protest. And that’s when the tears came. Suddenly, and without grace. Not sniffles, either, but huge, heaving sobs. Her mother rushed to put an arm around her shoulders, and Dr. Rose quickly handed her a tissue, which Natalie pressed to her eyes.

  “You always said—that there was hope,” Natalie sputtered.

  Dr. Rose nodded as he plucked more tissues from the box. “I did,” he agreed.

  “You told me—you said things would be okay!” she accused.

  “And they will, Natalie, they will.” His big hands gathered and encapsulated Natalie’s two limp fists until she had calmed herself. “But I never promised that you wouldn’t lose your sight.”

  BLIND AS A BAT

  Most of you know me already. Yes, I know. Serena Benson, she is back again. This is my second—and final year here—yay!” Serena, sitting cross-legged on the living-room couch, raised her arms in mock victory. She had volunteered to begin the introductions at the dorm meeting and seemed to revel in telling the others a little bit about herself.

  “I like the color black and I like tight jeans,” Serena continued, pausing for laughter. “I also like to dance. I hate hypocrites, mean people, stewed tomatoes, Monday mornings, and winter in general. Oh, and I love to read. I am a huge Stephen King fan.”

  There were sixteen girls in the dorm, so it took a while to go around the circle. Natalie found herself tuning in and out. She wanted to know who the girls were, yes, sure she did, but she didn’t want them for friends. Not real friends that she could confide in and laugh with. And she didn’t want to be here period, so trying to remember names was like planting a stake. With her right hand, she fished around in her pocket, found the pink stone, and ran her thumb across the letters: H—O—P—E.

  Other girls, other names. Maya. Carlisa. Anna. It was difficult for Natalie to see the girls’ faces clearly, but she was able to notice that a couple were African-American, and that one appeared Asian. They came from all over the state, including some counties with funny names like Cecil and Wicomico. And it was obvious that some of the girls had disabilities other than blindness, but none were acknowledged.

  “Maya. Just Maya, I guess. I’m new this year. I was born in South Korea, but I’m from Prince George’s County . . .”

  Natalie’s mind drifted. Did her parents miss her? Were they worried? When her father closed up the barn for the night, would he have a dog biscuit tucked in his jacket pocket? Nuisance would be waiting for it, her enormous eyes peering between the wooden slats of her pen. . . .

  “Natalie, it’s your turn,” the counselor said.

  “Oh! Sorry!” Natalie let go of the stone and pulled her hand out of her pocket. “I’m Natalie O’Reilly. From Hawley—it’s a small town in western Maryland. It’s okay to call me Natty—or Nat if you want. I love to read, to listen to books on tape, and I’m interested in government and politics. I’m on the student council at my school back home.”

  When introductions were finished, the counselor suggested that the two halls might want to start thinking about what to call themselves.

  “I’ve already thought about that!” Serena called out, waving her arm enthusiastically. “Yeah, I think if we have to be animals again, then B Hall should be the Blind Bats.”

  Chuckles and snorts all around. Natalie was astounded.

  “That wasn’t very kosher, Serena,” a girl named Murph said. “I have pretty good vision. I’m not blind as a bat!”

  “They’re not blind! Bats aren’t blind!” Eve burst out, stopping everyone. “It’s a myth.”

  “Eewww. But they’re like flying rodents,” Murph said, screwing up her face. “They give me the creeps! And they carry that disease.”

  “But they don’t all carry it!” Eve snapped back. “They’re less likely to carry rabies than raccoons! It’s a myth, that’s all.”

  Serena said coolly, “Yeah, you know what a myth is, Murph. For example, it’s a myth that you have pretty good vision.”

  “Girls, please!” the dorm counselor called out. “We will have dignified names for our halls. I’m thinking maybe The Explorers and The Voyagers. Now. Just a heads-up so everyone knows what we’ll be doing together this year. We will be cooking and cleaning, doing our own laundry, and taking some field trips, too. Just so I have an idea, how many of you have been to the grocery store?”

  The grocery store? Was she kidding? Natalie hesitated before rais
ing her hand. She turned her head, her small circle of vision scanning the group. But it was clear: hers and Serena’s were the only two hands up in the air.

  When the meeting ended, Natalie got up to leave—she wanted out of there fast—but the counselor called her back.

  “I have a new schedule for you, Natalie, and I also wanted you to know that a roommate is coming tomorrow. You should clear off the other bed and make space available in the bathroom for her things.”

  Natalie’s heart dipped because there went her privacy.

  With one hand on the wall to guide her, Natalie rushed back to her room and closed the door. Sitting on her bed, she simply took in a few breaths and let them out. A roommate. What else would they do to make her life more miserable?

  Then she remembered the new schedule. She smoothed out the wrinkled paper on her lap. Even though it was printed in large font, the letters still weren’t big, or dark, enough for her to read, so she reached over to pull her pocketbook up from the floor and rummaged in it for the handheld illuminator/magnifier she always carried. Clicking it on, she focused on the blocks one at a time to see that they had now scheduled Braille and Orientation and Mobility (the cane) every day instead of three times a week. And what was this? A weekly meeting with a social worker? What for?

  Angry, Natalie balled up the schedule in her hands and threw it across the room, where it bounced off the wall and rolled under the absent roommate’s bed.

  She tried hard to stop herself from losing it. Write a poem, she thought. Sometimes she wrote little poems in her head.

  A mistake, she began. But here I am

  Alone,

  in a Spartan cinder-block cell of a room

  Despicable white cane

  folded like a crumpled animal on the shag rug.

  Insulting sign taped on the wall over my pillow: MAKES OWN BED

  “Do they think I can’t see?”

  I can see . . .

  Twenty-four hours. She had been here for a little more than one day and already it was too much. Her father’s parting words came back to her: “You’ll be okay, Natty. You’ve got way too much going for you. . . .”

  That was it exactly, Natalie thought, sitting up and opening her hands as though to argue the point with an invisible stranger. She had so much going for her! She was a good student, a girl who laughed with her friends, who loved peanut M&M’s and fuzzy socks and a Nubian goat . . . so why her?! Why would God do this to her?

  Sometimes Natalie wished there was someone—or something to blame. But she was born without an iris, and that simple fact was the root cause of her juvenile glaucoma. Sporadic aniridia, they called it. Simple, irrevocable bad luck. The gene that was responsible for eye development didn’t do what it was supposed to do.

  “You’ll have to accept it, Nat,” her mother had whispered in the hallway when they left Dr. Rose’s office that last time.

  But did she have to accept it?

  No! For years, Natalie had chosen to ignore the facts they gently hammered into her. She just refused to change her way of thinking. She could never say it out loud, but the conviction was deep. Natalie was certain that as long as she worked hard, prayed hard, and totally believed in herself it would never actually happen. Because how could it? How could a girl with so much going for her—simply lose her sight?

  The fingers of Natalie’s left hand gathered and squeezed the fingers of her right. She thought back to what people had told her: The pressure is up again . . . this isn’t good . . . surely you’re struggling . . . the loss of peripheral vision is only the beginning . . . you’ve got to prepare yourself.

  But there was always hope. Wasn’t there? It’s why her father bought her the little pink stone. It’s why she did her stupid eyedrops faithfully, twice a day. Even Dr. Rose once told her there was always hope. Anything is possible, he had admitted. Miracles do happen . . . So wasn’t it possible that his own diagnosis was wrong? And no different from all the other times when naysayers had filled her ears with their dire predictions?

  She was fourteen now, on the brink of so much, and maybe, from now on, she would have to get through it by doing what she had always done: tune out the naysayers, like turning off a radio station with too much static.

  And hope for the miracle.

  A PREVIEW OF WHAT’S COMING

  In the morning, Natalie moved an empty box and made sure there was nothing else of hers on the roommate’s bed or bureau top. In the bathroom, she shifted her two towels to one rack so that the other was free, and slid her toothbrush, toothpaste, and bottle of eyedrops all the way to one side of the narrow glass shelf above the sink. All halfhearted efforts. At another time, another place, Natalie might have loved the companionship of a roommate. But not then. Not when there was so much turmoil and uncertainty. Natalie dreaded having another human being foisted into her private space.

  Quickly, she made up her bed, and then reached up to rip the humiliating sign off the wall above her pillow. MAKES OWN BED. It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? She tore it up and threw it in the trash.

  Sighing, she jammed the books she needed that day into her backpack. When her foot stumbled over the cane, Natalie picked it up from the floor and heaved it into the back of her closet where it landed with a loud thud.

  What if her new roommate talked all the time? Or snored at night? Or was so blind she walked into everything?

  Natalie zipped up her purse. The schedule. Where was that new schedule? She rolled her eyes, recalling how she had thrown it across the room, then got on her hands and knees and felt around on the floor until she found it.

  What if this new roommate was messy and left gooey toothpaste and stuff all over the sink? What if she used Natalie’s towel by mistake? Or her hairbrush—or her ChapStick?! Natalie figured she’d have to start keeping those things in a drawer now.

  She hoisted her backpack and started to walk out.

  Yeah. And what if this new roommate was the type who borrowed things without asking? Or stole? Natalie’s new iPod might be pretty tempting, and it was so small.

  Natalie paused at the door with her hand on the knob. . . . She held the doorknob so long it made her hand cold. . . . What if her new roommate didn’t want to be here either?

  Slowly, she walked back to her bed, where she let the heavy backpack fall off her shoulders onto the mattress. Tearing a sheet of paper out of a notebook, she sat down and began writing in large letters with her black felt-tip pen: Welcome to 202. My name is Natalie. I’m new, too.

  What else? Natalie bit her lip again. She hoped her roommate could see well enough to read the note. I’ll see you later, she added, then stopped and blacked it all out. Phrases like that were always popping up. People didn’t mean anything cruel by them, but those prickly everyday sayings could be as mood-altering as a vague stomachache.

  She started over again with a new piece of paper, ending it with: Can’t wait to meet you.

  After placing the note on the empty bed, she joined the others in the lobby and took Serena’s elbow for the long trek to the dining hall.

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love is not love . . .

  In English, they were studying Shakespearean sonnets, and the teacher, a young woman named Miss Amelia, had written Sonnet 116 on the blackboard.

  “There is a beat behind every poem, a cadence of words in a patterned sequence,” she told the class. “Shakespeare used a lot of iambic pentameter. The iamb is the stress and the unstress, the metric foot. Let ME not TO . . . Penta means five—so five feet, five beats to the line.”

  While she spoke, three students pounded on their Braillers, which were like typewriters except that instead of keys they had six tabs that corresponded to the six dots in a Braille cell. Others tapped on Braille notebooks, which were like laptop computers except that they also had the six tabs corresponding to the six dots in a Braille cell. Serena and Natalie were the only two who actually wrote by hand. They took their n
otes with thick, black felt-tip pens on paper with wide, dark lines.

  “Who wants to come up and mark in the stress and the unstress?” the teacher asked in a loud voice so she could be heard above the noisy Braillers. “How about you, Sheldon?”

  Sheldon, who had just put his head down in his arms (a habit of his apparently), reluctantly pushed himself up and walked to the blackboard. He stood with his face about an inch from the words the teacher had written in chalk. Slowly, he moved his head in a circle. Natalie was fascinated. She knew that Sheldon had lost his central vision, so that he saw only peripherally, around the edges—the exact opposite of Natalie’s problem. And she suddenly realized why he often seemed aloof, looking off into space, even when he was talking to you. He was just trying to see what was right in front of him.

  In American government, the teacher’s name was Mr. Joe (it was almost like kindergarten, Natalie thought, the way they addressed their teachers: Miss Amelia, Mr. Joe, Miss Audra, Miss Karen). Mr. Joe told class they would be studying the separation of powers in the three branches of government. “What are those three branches?”

  Eve raised her hand to answer and for some reason stood up. Natalie, sitting behind her, noticed the huge red stain on the back of her white denim shorts. Her period?

  Natalie felt embarrassed for her. She knew she would quietly say something to Eve at the end of class. But what if no one told her? How did blind people deal with this?

  Sandpaper . . . silk . . . wool . . . With her fingertips, Natalie tried to feel each piece of material, slowly—thoughtfully, the way her Braille teacher instructed.

  “It’s all tactile,” Miss Karen emphasized. “Your sense of touch becomes all-important with Braille. Try the workbook page again. Just recognizing when a line of Braille ends is a major accomplishment.”

  Miss Karen, herself blind, was enormously patient, but Natalie didn’t think any of these crazy bumps on paper could ever translate themselves into letters and words, never mind complete sentences.