Blindsided (9 page)

Natalie set the basket down. It was eleven o’clock. The numbers on the digital clock to her left glowed bright red and were so large that Natalie could still read them. She wondered if her friends were still at the fair. Turning out the light, she put her glasses in the basket and did her eyedrops. It was twelve steps to the rug by her bed where she pulled back the covers and jumped in. She was home. She savored the smell and feel of her smooth cotton sheets and the soothing
ticktock
sound from the mantel clock downstairs.

But she could still feel the bump on her shin throbbing, and a Ferris wheel turned in her mind.

T
he clatter of a pickup truck woke Natalie early the next morning. It was a familiar sound coming through her open bedroom window along with the cool mountain air. Natalie knew it was her Uncle Jack arriving to help with the morning milking. The goats heard the truck, too, and, eager for breakfast and milking to be started, called out from their pens in the barn. That funny and frenetic
waaaahhhh
that Nubians made as they thrust their necks forward always made Natalie grin.

The good smell of coffee and of bacon drifted into Natalie’s room as well. She lay in bed a bit longer, listening as the kitchen screen door slammed shut and her father and Uncle Jack greeted each other, their voices mixing, fading away as they walked across the yard toward the barn. No doubt, Natalie’s mother had already left in the family van with coolers full of cheese for the farmers’ market in Morgantown, West Virginia, just over the border, half an hour’s drive away. Natalie had been given the morning to sleep in, but she often went to the weekend markets, helping to bag cheese for customers and slipping in a brochure about Mountainside Farm.

Soon, she would go downstairs for something to eat, then straightaway to the barn to see Nuisance. But first, there was the test.

All along there had been a secret test. Natalie did the test once a week, and always when no one else was around. She wasn’t sure why it had to be done so secretly. It was just the way it had evolved over the years.

In the bathroom, Natalie quickly did her eyedrops, then found her tinted glasses and put them on. She stood for a moment, using her small circle of vision to check out her reflection in the mirror: the shoulder-length hair mussed by sleep, the wispy bangs, the face with a light sprinkling of freckles she knew were there but could no longer see.

Finally, she turned and walked over to the small bathroom window to her left. The window was framed by cheerful yellow-and-white-checked curtains. From there, Natalie had always been able to see the lawn bordered by her mother’s flower garden, the maple tree, and the neighbors’ back fence. The Stanleys were a nice family with three boys and a collie named Curlie. They had a small deck on the back of their house and a bright red back door. Odd, that a back door was red like that, but that’s what made it so great, because it was easy to see. It was her peripheral vision that was disappearing, not the ability to see long-distance, but Natalie somehow figured as long as she could see over the fence to that red back door she was doing okay.

Natalie parted the yellow curtains and looked out. For months, it had been impossible for her to actually
see
anybody in the Stanleys’ backyard when she heard voices, or the occasional basketball hitting the rim. About a year ago, she had lost sight of the dog, even though she could still hear it barking. But now Natalie could not even see the fence that separated the yards. Nor could she see the red door.

Had they had painted it?

Not likely, Natalie thought, realizing that the house itself had become a vague, dark block framed with an eerie gray haze.

Suddenly, a harsh cry pierced the air. Natalie put a hand to her heart and let the curtains fall back. When the sound repeated, there was no question: it was Winston, their “guard dog” llama, issuing his shrill warning. Natalie rushed downstairs. Winston’s call meant that something threatened the pasture.

“Natalie, stay inside!” her father called out as he burst through the back door and rushed past her.

“What is it, Dad? A coyote?”

“Don’t know!” he called back breathlessly.

Natalie stayed out of the way. “A bear?”

Her father didn’t answer. But maybe he didn’t hear in his rush to the gun safe. Natalie knew every move her father was making in the office. He was finding the key, hidden in an old library book about goat farming, far right, bottom shelf, behind his desk. After unlocking the safe, he’d see the guns arranged with the rifles to the left—the .270 caliber deer rifle next to the .22, which her father used for varmints like groundhogs. To the right were the 12- and 20-gauge shotguns. Bullets and shells were in packages neatly stacked on a shelf above them. Natalie had learned years ago how to load and fire each of those guns.

As he came back through the room, her father carried two weapons. Natalie didn’t need to ask why. If he thought he could get a good aim, he’d use the rifle. If not, he’d fire the shotgun.

“Get down, Nat!” he told her before he rushed back out the door.

Natalie sank to the floor, hugging her knees. She heard and felt her father’s feet pound across the yard. Winston called out again, and the goats bleated excitedly from inside the barn.

A few minutes later, a gunshot echoed. A second shot followed. Natalie waited on the kitchen floor until her father returned.

“Nothing but a coyote prowling around,” her father said, not sounding too concerned. “I think I scared him off. But it reminds me. Nat, I want to show you something out in the barn.”

Natalie stood and slid her hands down the kitchen counter, looking for her baseball cap, which she put on while her father locked up the guns.

“Coyotes are gettin’ to be a problem around here,” her father said, coming back through the kitchen. Natalie heard the screen door open and assumed he was holding the door open for her even though she couldn’t quite get it in her circle of vision.

“Come on, let’s go,” he urged. Natalie moved quickly toward his voice. Down the steps and out in the yard, however, she hesitated, not knowing what lay ahead. A wheelbarrow, a bucket, a rake, any number of things could be in the yard. Her father touched her elbow to guide her, but then walked so fast Natalie practically had to jog to keep up. It wasn’t exactly “sighted guide,” and Natalie was nervous not knowing what was directly in front of her. Her father didn’t seem to notice her anxiety.

“I’ve had black bears sniffin’ around the past month, too,” he complained. “What I’m thinkin’ is that I want to keep a shotgun tucked away in the barn somewhere. Takes too much time running back to the house.”

Her father guided Natalie through the barn until they stood by the grain bin. Natalie felt the edge of the cold iron container and could smell the molasses-soaked feed.

“Look,” he said. “I’m going to put a shotgun up here.”

He let go of her elbow and Natalie heard him pushing things around. Metallic cans clinked and glass bottles rattled. “Right here.”

“You’d better describe it, Dad,” Natalie said, “because I can’t see what you’re doing.”

There was a pause. Natalie heard her father sigh. He just was not able to accept the fact that she couldn’t see so well anymore.

“The long cupboard—up over the grain bin, Natty.” He sounded impatient and it hurt. “You know, where I keep the salve and the medication?”

“Right, right. Okay.” Natalie nodded vigorously. “I know it.”

“I’ll put the shotgun up here and stack some extra shells beside it. The safety will be on. I’ll show Uncle Jack, and your mother, and
you
where it is. But you don’t mention it to anyone else, you hear?”

“Yes. I promise,” Natalie replied, amazed—
astounded—
that her father would include her in this knowledge, and loving him all the more for it. But how could she possibly find, load, and fire a gun at this point?

She felt her father’s arm around her shoulder. He gave it a squeeze. “Just in case,” he said softly. “I hope you never have to use it.”

T
omorrow. She has to catch the bus back right after lunch,” Natalie’s mother said into the cordless phone tucked between her ear and shoulder as she took clean coffee mugs from the dishwasher and stacked them one at a time in the cabinet above the counter. “When Natalie saw Dr. Rose last month, her IOP was twenty-four—
twenty-four
, can you believe it? It’s never been that high. . . .”

It struck Natalie then, listening to her mother in the next room, how they had learned a whole different language over the years and foisted it on their friends and relatives. Like CD ratio and IOP. Most people wouldn’t have a clue what those initials meant—and probably couldn’t care less. But Natalie’s sight depended on them. She could still remember how Dr. Rose had tried to explain it to her years ago.

“Everyone’s eyes are filled with fluid,” Dr. Rose had told her, doing his best to simplify things so Natalie, who was eight, could understand. “Fluid constantly enters the eye and then leaves through a tiny drain. The balance of that fluid inside the eye is called the
intraocular pressure
—the IOP. Now, if there is a problem in this natural drainage system, then the fluid builds up, creating pressure—think of a water balloon expanding—and, with nowhere else to go, presses against the retina.”

He paused. “Do you remember what the retina is, Natalie?”

Natalie knew the retina was like a little movie screen in the back of the eye, but she still looked puzzled, so Dr. Rose pulled out a marshmallow from a little zipped Baggie in his top drawer. “Imagine the surface of the marshmallow is the back of your eye, Natalie.” He pressed his index finger into the marshmallow. “That’s what the cupped area of your retina would look like, where the optic nerve gathers and sends its all-important messages to the brain. If fluid in the eye builds up, it can press against this cupped area and make it wider and deeper.” Dr. Rose then took his thumb and pressed a larger indentation into the marshmallow. “The bigger that indentation, the more likely there is vision loss.”

An eye. A marshmallow. It was finally beginning to make sense. Years ago, Natalie had even tried to explain it to Meredith while they strolled around the playground at recess kicking stones. They were only in third grade, but Meredith said she really wanted to understand why Natalie was going to miss a whole week of school. “I’m serious, how come?”

So Natalie tried to explain about the upcoming operation that would give her eye a new drain. “They need to relieve the pressure, see, so they’re going to make a little slot in my eye—”

“They’re going to
cut
your eye?” Meredith’s own eyes grew large. “With a
knife
?”

“Well, yeah, they have to. But it’s not the kind of knife—”

“Eeeewwwwww!” Meredith put her hands over her face.

And Natalie took off running. Meredith chased her and, when she finally caught up, grabbed the sleeve of Natalie’s sweater. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. But they never talked about Natalie’s surgeries again. Just as well, Natalie figured, because it was pretty complicated. Back then, Natalie realized, it was a lot easier
not
knowing everything.