I let my head slump down to my chest and focus on breathing past the pressure building behind my eyes. Jeremy’s voice filters in as if I’m dreaming it.
“James, hey. It’s me. Jeremy. Yeah, I know, but listen, I have an emergency here, and I need your help.”
Silence, and then a sigh.
“No, it’s not about me, all right? Just listen, Jesus. You know that girl, Sarah, the one you loaned the cabin to? Yeah, I met her. I’ve been with her for the past few days.”
“I know; it was a great place to hide. But that’s not why I’m calling. I came back early this morning to Manhattan to talk to you guys about everything that’s been going on with me, but before I could get there, I got a call from Sarah about an emergency she was having.”
Silence.
“No, not with the cabin, a medical one. I’ve brought her to the closest ER, and the nurse said something about detached retinas.”
Silence.
Jeremy leaves the area and drops his voice, but I can still hear him. My ears have superpowers now that my ability to see has been taken away.
“She can’t see anything and the whites of her eyes are blood-red. Seriously. Like demon-eyes or something.”
I reach up and touch my eyelids again. Demon eyes? Oh my god! That’s worse than I imagined! I start crying all over again, knowing in my heart that I’m going to be blind forever. And with demon eyes to boot. I’ll never get married. I’ll have to live in some kind of residence home with around-the-clock nurses. I won’t even be able to play checkers with the other patients, because I won’t be able to see the board. Not that they’d want to play checkers with a demon-eyed woman. I wonder if my tears are saline or blood. My life is utter shit. And for a while there, I thought it couldn’t get any worse. Wrong! Wrong again!
“All right. Okay. Yeah, I’ll call you as soon as the doctor comes in. They said he’d be here soon.”
Silence. Then Jeremy’s voice is clearer. Closer. He’s next to my bed again. His fingers find mine and hang on. I don’t return the pressure, though. I know he just feels sorry for me. I don’t want him to think I’m going to hold him to any more than necessary. He’s just a Good Samaritan, that’s it.
Someone pushes a curtain sideways, making the metal parts zing across their track. “So, who do we have here? I don’t have any paperwork yet, if you can believe that.” He sounds way too chipper to be looking at a demon.
“I’m Sarah Booker. I don’t live around here.” I have no idea why I said that part about where I live. My mind is short-circuiting.
“Well, Sarah Booker, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Doctor Lively, and I’m here to take a look at those eyes of yours.”
Of course his name is Lively. This all seems like a sick joke at this point.
“My demon-eyes, you mean?”
Jeremy squeezes my hand and whispers near my ear. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“I have bionic ears now.” I frown in his direction.
Doctor Lively is leaning in too. His breath is more minty than anything else, thank goodness. “I’m going to put my hands on your face and lift your lids, okay?”
“Knock yourself out.” Having him here has dried my tears. His happy tone isn’t annoying like I would have expected it to be. It makes me think maybe my situation isn’t as terrible as I’d imagined.
“Well, well, well, let’s see what we see,” he says, his cool fingers prying my eyelids open, first on the left and then the right. “Tell me, Sarah, did you have any symptoms involving your vision before today?”
“Maybe. I guess I saw some ghosts out of the corner of my eyes a few times. I’ve had some headaches.”
“Ghosts, hmmm?” He’s opening my left eye wider now.
“Yes. And then a black thing, like a curtain came over me.” I laugh self-consciously. “I thought it was the Grim Reaper coming to get me.”
“I can imagine.” His hands fall away. “So, I have a diagnosis for you, which we’ll verify with some tests, but unless you’ve experienced blunt force trauma to your eyes that you’ve neglected to mention…”
I shake my head. “Nope. I was talking on the phone when it happened. I’ve done nothing physical in ages.” My face goes a little pink when I realize that I almost did something physical with Jeremy. Talk about a lost opportunity. Now I’ll never get the chance.
“Okay, then I suspect your retinas have detached.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper. Hearing the big boss say those words drives the point home like a stake to my heart. I’m blind. I’ll never see again. My life is over.
Chapter Thirty-Four
JEREMY’S VOICE FILTERS THROUGH MY fog of pain and confusion. Doctor Lively has shared a crap ton of information with me, but none of it makes any sense to me. All I can think is how crazy this is whole situation is. I’ve never heard of detached retinas before. No one has. This is nuts.
“Doctor Lively, my brother is a physician in Manhattan, and he asked that I give him a call when you got here so you two could talk.”
“Absolutely. And when we’re done, you’re going to need to fill out some paperwork for Sarah before we can get her into surgery.”
“Surgery? You mean now? I need surgery today?” I sound like a frightened mouse the way I’m squeaking, and I believe I feel like one too. There’s some big cat out there, just waiting to pounce and end my life.
“As I mentioned earlier, retinal detachment is when the lining at the back of your eye starts to pull away from the blood vessels.”
“But why would it do that?” What the hell! This sounds like a horror movie, not my life!
“No one knows for sure. As I said, there are factors that make it more likely, but based on your age, some of them don’t apply to you. You said you’ve never seen floaters or spots in your eyes before, right? Other than the ghost?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Okay, well, those blood vessels are what supply your eyes with oxygen and nutrients, so we need to get your retina back to where it should be before there’s any permanent damage.”
“Permanent damage?” I hope that means I’m not blind forever. “Will you do the surgery?”
“No. We have an eye specialist who’s on his way in now. He’s one of the best trauma surgeons in the tri-state area, so don’t worry. You’ll be in good hands. You’re lucky. He comes up to this area to ski every year. You caught him as he was coming off the slopes.”
I picture this big, burly guy with a puffy snowsuit on and awkward boots. “Won’t he be too tired to work?”
“No, he’s in great shape. I promise.” He pats me on the hand. “I have other patients to visit, but I’m here if you have any more questions. Just call for the nurse if you need anything.”
“Doc, can you talk to my brother now?” Jeremy was talking in a low voice the whole time I was panicking, and I’m just realizing it now. I’m filled with gratitude that his brother would call and have a conversation about me with my doctor. Maybe it means I’ll get better service. Normally, I’d be against that kind of special treatment, but when it comes to my eyesight, I’m going to go ahead and put that self-righteousness to the side. I need all the help I can get. Me and my demon eyes.
I close my lids so Jeremy doesn’t have to look at me.
Doctor Lively is on the phone; I can tell by the one-sided conversation. Jeremy takes my hand and rubs it with his thumb.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Not really.” Part of me wants to pull my hand away and part of me doesn’t. Now I feel like he’s just here because I’m a sad case and not because he actually wants to be with me. But I want him here by my side. I feel so scared and alone.
“It’s going to be fine. James says this stuff happens and it’s totally fixable.”
“This stuff happens? To who? Old people? People with eye problems, probably. I have twenty-twenty vision.”
“The important thing to keep in mind is that you’re going to get better really s
oon, and then things can go back to normal.”
“Normal,” I scoff. “What’s normal anymore? I have no idea.”
“You can stay with me while you heal.” He sits down on the side of the bed and takes my hand into his lap. I try to pull away, but he won’t let me.
“I can’t ask you to do that,” I mumble, feeling massively sorry for myself.
“You didn’t ask. And it’s a done deal, so don’t argue with me.”
I sigh, trying to think of how to turn him down. I can’t let him do this. He’s already vulnerable enough. Taking care of an invalid will send him back to the drugs to escape.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Because. It’s a lot of work taking care of a sick person.”
“I know that. I’ve been around sick people before, you know.” He sounds like he’s laughing at me.
“Not someone who can’t see.”
His arm moves, and I take that as a shrug. “How hard can it be? I’ll get you a cane and you can bang around the house to find your way.”
I can’t help but smile. His style of caregiving sounds a lot like me fending for myself. For some reason, it makes me happier. “Nice. What if I fall down your stairs?”
“I’ll nail boards across them or put up a baby gate.”
I laugh. “Can you see me flipping over the top of that gate and falling down the stairs? I can.”
He rubs my arm and lowers his voice. “I’ll take good care of you. I promise.”
“Do you even have a place to live?”
“I do, as a matter of fact. I just have to talk to my sister Jana about it.”
“Why?”
“No reason. Just want her to be able to clean it up for us first.”
“Great. She’ll love having to be my cleaning lady.” This just keeps getting worse.
“She wouldn’t think about it like that, I promise.”
We run out of things to say, and the noises of the emergency room intrude on our little space. A nurse comes in and starts asking me questions that I try to answer from memory. Jeremy fills in the missing information from stuff in my wallet.
“You ready to prep for surgery?” a new voice says. This guys smells like lemons.
“Already?” My blood goes ice-cold, and I start to tremble again. Someone puts a warm blanket over my legs.
“Babe, you’re going to be fine.” It’s Jeremy again. Calling me babe. It makes me want to cheer and weep at the same time. He gets up and lets my hand go. Weeping wins out when I realize him leaving makes me feel more alone than ever.
“She is going to be fine,” assures a woman. “She’ll be done in a few hours, so you can wait in the post-op waiting room. Second floor, room two-ten. Sign in at the nurses’s station so they know who you are and what patient you’re there for. With the patient’s permission, they’ll update you on her condition.”
I feel a pen pushed into my hand. “Sign here. I’ll put the pen down on the paper and you just need to do your best with the signature part.”
“What am I signing?”
“I’m going to read the whole thing out to you right now. Are you ready?”
I nod, numbly letting her words wash over me. Details about my surgery, the risks, and the condition I have.
Ready or not, Operating Room, here I come.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“ARE YOU COMFORTABLE?”
IT’S JEREMY again. Being a mother hen. He hasn’t stopped since I was discharged yesterday. Three days together in the hospital, and he’s hardly left my side. The nurses all commented on how he slept in the chair next to me each night. None of them had the heart to tell him to leave. I think the fact that he’s so adorable worked in his favor there. Rules were bent and broken.
Now we’re in his home in Brooklyn, the place where he and his wife lived for a year before she died. Jaws too. He even has a little puppy bed in the corner of my bedroom where I sleep alone. Jeremy is right next door, though, should I need anything. He even gave me a bell to ring.
Maybe it should feel weird being here in Laura’s home, but it doesn’t. I feel like she’s my friend. It’s probably the painkillers talking, but part of me believes she’s orchestrating my life right now, making sure Jeremy stays in it. I’m not complaining. He is pretty amazing.
“I smell baby powder and diapers,” I say, sniffing the air around the couch where I’m sitting. I have eye patches on both eyes to shield them from the harsh light. I can take them off and open my eyes now and see, but sometimes I just need the break the darkness gives me.
“Uh-huh.”
Jeremy’s evasive answer instantly makes me suspicious.
“Why do I smell these things?” I stroke Jaws’s wiry fur as I test the air some more.
“I don’t know. Cassie was here, maybe?”
“Maybe? Here, as in visiting you?”
He sighs loudly, pretending to be annoyed. “Can I just get you all set up in here before you give me the third degree?”
I sit back deeply into the sofa cushions and pout. “Fine. I can wait. But don’t think I’ll forget to ask.”
“Oh, trust me, I know better than to hope for that.” I can tell he’s smiling. It makes me grin. I guess my natural inclination to conduct interrogations until I’m satisfied with all the answers hasn’t scared him off yet. I found out so much about him while I was in the hospital and he was at my bedside. I feel like I’ve known him for years now. And he’s seen me at my worst. Catheter? Hospital gown with the opening in the back that never stayed closed? Puffy, gooey, demon eyes? Yep. He stuck with me through all of it. The works. And yet here his is and here I am, living together in his house.
I peek out from under one of my patches and see him straightening up the room. He pulls a stuffed duck out from under a chair and hides it in his armpit.
“What’s that?”
He spins around, all innocence. “What’s what?”
“That yellow thing under your arm.”
He pulls it out. “What? This?”
Jaws runs over and sits under him, begging him silently to let it drop to the floor.
I sigh and stare Jeremy down with my one, swollen, blood-red demon eye. “Don’t piss me off, Jeremy. I’m a sick person.”
“You sure look like one with that crazy eyeball, let me tell you.” He fakes a shudder.
I let the patch fall back into place. “You’re so mean!”
He laughs and soon sits down next to me on the couch. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.”
I shove him. “Go away. You know I’m not supposed to be bounced around.”
“I’m not bouncing, I’m sitting.”
“Go sit somewhere else.” I shove him again.
He catches my hands. “Hey. No moving things around. You heard what the doctor said. You don’t lift, you don’t push, you don’t do anything but sit there and look pretty.”
I snort. “Please. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What? You are pretty.” He reaches up and pets the back of my greasy, stringy hair.
“I think your retinas just detached,” I say grumpily. “You’re obviously visually impaired.”
He barks out a really loud laugh. “Hey! That’s not funny. Don’t joke about that.” His voice goes softer. “You really scared me, you know.”
“Scared you? I scared myself.” I breathe a heavy sigh of relief as the doctor’s last words echo in my head. You’re going to be fine. You might need glasses for some near-sightedness, but my guess is you had that before the retinas detached, so it’s a great prognosis.
I will be able to paint again, if I ever feel inspired, that is. As Jeremy strokes my hand, I think that it’s quite possible I’ll be painting very soon, living with him here in this house as I recuperate. He said I could stay as long as I needed to.
“So, why do I smell babies everywhere?” I ask.
Jeremy sighs. “I really would rather not talk about this now
.”
“Which means I want to talk about it more than anything in the world,” I say, grinning big. “Talk or I’m not sure I can stay here with you.”
“Why not?”
“Because. No secrets, remember? You promised.”
“That was back in the cabin, and we were talking about snowcones."
“No, it was for everything. Between us, there are no secrets. Not anymore. I admitted I saw Laura’s ghost and now you have to tell me your secrets.”
“The doctor said it was your retina detaching that caused those lights and shadows.”
“Oh yeah? And did my retinas tell me to call you and interrupt your dealer trying to talk you into doing more drugs too? I don’t think so.” I tap my foot on the edge of the coffee table. “I’m waaaiiitingggg…”
“All right, all right, I’ll tell you. But before I do, you have to promise not to freak out. I don’t want your eyeballs exploding on my carpet.”
I shake my head at him. “You will be in so much trouble when my eyes are better. That’s all I’m going to say.”
He leans in and kisses me quickly on the cheek. “Can’t wait.”
I reach out to slap him, but he’s already out of reach.
“Tell me. Now,” I insist.
“Fine. Up until yesterday, Jana was living here with Cassie. But when I told her I was coming back with you, and she knew you had just had surgery, she offered to move back to her place.”
“What?! You kicked your sister out of her house! And the baby too?! That’s terrible, Jeremy, why did you do that?! It’s almost Christmas!”
“No, no, no! I didn’t kick them out. She offered, and I agreed it was the best thing to do. Cassie’s completely fine, I promise. I helped move all her Christmas decorations to her place. It’s totally fine.”