Sleep with the Lights On. Maggie Shayne
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I wouldn’t.” Petulant, maybe a little combative? What the fuck?
I frowned. I mean, I knew he thought of the blind as a minority group and himself as our Malcolm X, but I didn’t think he’d want to stay sightless if he had a choice. Then again, he’d been born blind. I hadn’t. I’d had twelve years of vision. Eleven of them twenty-twenty. And I’d had blurry, half-assed eyesight three times, after the last three transplants, a few days each time before my body threw a full-on, no-holds-barred revolt. I knew what I was missing.
Mott kissed my cheek, and everyone left the room. Shuffling steps, grumbling complaints, whispers and finally the door closing behind them. I lay there in the bed, listening to Doc Fenway come over, sit in Mott’s former place, clear her throat.
“What do you need to know?” she asked.
I thought for a long time, and then I said, “Is this for real?”
“Yes.”
“Will it work?”
“Almost certainly. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it, Rachel. This might be the miracle you didn’t think you’d ever get.”
She was telling the absolute truth, as she saw it. Lies were one of the easiest things to hear in people’s voices. I felt tears brimming in my stupid sightless eyes. Damn, I did not cry. Not ever. And if I ever did, it sure as hell wouldn’t be in front of anyone. Thank God I was still wearing my sunglasses. “I don’t want to believe it just to have it go bad again, Doc. Not this time. It would be more than I can take.”
Revealing my soft underbelly was not something I did often. But she wasn’t allowed to tell, right? She was a doctor.
“But you have to believe if you ever want anything to change. Isn’t that what you’re always writing about? How it’s the belief that creates the reality, and not the other way around.”
Right. Like I was twelve and somehow believed my way into twenty years of blindness right? I would probably go to hell for the bullshit I sold to the gullible.
“How long before I’ll be able to look at my sister’s face?”
She patted my hand. “Tomorrow, if all goes well. And better than the other times, right off the bat, with full recovery in two to three months.”
“Tomorrow. I’ll be able to see my sister’s face again...tomorrow.” I lowered my head, shook it slowly. Even if it didn’t last, I’d have that. I just didn’t know if I could handle the letdown if it was only temporary. You might think temporary vision is better than none at all, but you haven’t been there. I have. It sucks.
“It’ll work for you this time, Rachel. I honestly believe that.”
Yes, she honestly did. I sighed, and she knew I was going to give in. “If I believed in miracles, I’d think this was one.”
But of course I didn’t. And as it turned out, it wasn’t.
3
Eric thought he had blown it. He was pretty sure of it, in fact. At first he’d been in oblivion, but then a sound had brought him back. The sound of the rat, scratching, biting. It wasn’t digging its way through the wall. It had escaped that prison. Eric had blown a hole through the wall. Into his own head.
So how could he be aware of anything, then? Aware but immobile, aware but in full sensory deprivation. What was this? Was this hell?
He’d intended to be dead, to kill the rat, not to let it out. But it was free. And scratching now to let him know it.
“I know it was my fault,” Jeremy said.
That voice, those words, snapped his attention away from the rat’s merciless, incessant claws inside him. His focus turned outside, as much as it could, anyway. He couldn’t see anything. His eyes were closed, and though he tried to open them, he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel much either, and he supposed that was a good thing, because he’d blown half his head off earlier today. Or was it yesterday? Or a week ago? Or a year?
Steady beeping, beep, beep, beep. The sound of Darth Vader breathing in his ear. A rhythmic thumping. And that voice.
Jeremy’s voice.
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you for forgetting we were coming home. But you didn’t have to do this, Dad. You didn’t have to do this.”
It wasn’t your fault, son.
Damn, why couldn’t he tell him?
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
“Are you all right, Jer?”
That was Marie. She was standing close, he could tell.
“They’re gonna cut him up, Mom. How can you let them do that?”
Joshua’s sobbing, which he realized had been soft background noise, took a turn for the louder. He felt like joining his younger son. What the hell were they talking about, cutting him up?
“This is no place for the boys.” That was Mother. She was patting someone’s hand. From the location, he thought it might be his own, but he couldn’t feel it, only hear the sound. Smack, smack, smack. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better by you, Eric. I hope you’ll find peace in the afterlife.”
“Josh, Jeremy, it’s important that you guys understand something here.” That voice belonged to his kid brother. Mason.
Mason had been yelling at him earlier. He remembered that vaguely, but had no idea when it had happened and barely recalled what he’d said. Oh, right. He was mad that Eric had waited for him to get there to shoot himself. He had it all wrong, of course. He’d been trying to do it before Mason got there. He’d just run out of time.
Go on, he thought at Mason. Tell the boys something. Anything to make them feel better. You always know what to say.
“Your dad’s already gone.”
No! I’m not gone, I’m right here. And so is the rat. Scratching me bloody, the damned thing. Why is it so hyper? Why is it still tormenting me now that it’s free? It has what it wanted.
“He’s already gone,” Mason repeated. “Those machines are forcing blood through his body to keep his organs alive, but he’s gone. And what we’re going to do here, with the parts he left behind, is help other people. Your dad is going to save lives. He’s a hero.”
Oh, that’s a good one, Mason. But they must know better. Or do they? No one had mentioned the dead men. The confession. The bag of tools. Jeremy wasn’t asking Marie why his father had murdered thirteen young men who looked just like he looked. Why hadn’t he?
What did you do, Mason?
Then the rest of Mason’s words started to soak in, and he realized they were going to donate his organs. Well, that was good, right? He couldn’t feel anything, so there would be no pain, and he certainly couldn’t keep on living if they took out all his vital parts. Could he?
He would be free then.
Scratchscratchscratchscratch!
“Part of your father will live on in the people whose lives he saves today,” Mason said softly. “You should be very proud of that.”
Part of him would live on.
Part of him.
Part of him...
No, not that part!
A soft breath, close to his face. He heard it but didn’t feel it. “Bye, Dad. I love you.”
From down lower. “Bye, Daddy.”
“Goodbye, son.” That was Angela. Mother. Never Mom or Mommy. Mother. Cold. Like she knew.
He heard the boys’ shuffling steps, Mother’s clacking heels fading, the door swinging open and then closed. And