Page 33 of Chaos
“We sound like we have emphysema,” she mutters.
“Yeah, but we smell really good.”
“Bright side?”
“There’s always one to find?” A month ago, I’d have known it to be the truth. Now, it sounds like a genuine question.
She doesn’t answer.
When we’re back in her room, I move the dishes to the hallway and sort the clothes for the laundry. “Why do you keep your eyes closed?” I ask.
“Why wouldn’t I.”
“Do they look weird?”
“How would I know?”
“Show me and I’ll tell you.”
She folds her arms. “No.”
“How weird could they be?”
“Pretty weird. One could be lazy. Or milky.”
“Like a supervillain? If it’s bad, we can get you an eye patch.” That earns me a half smile as she moves cautiously into her less-messy-now sitting room and sits on a chair. She may be blind, but she’s still Shasta. The way she moves is still fluid. Her face is still beautiful, even without makeup or banana curls. Blindness hasn’t changed what makes her fundamentally her. “Come on,” I say.
“Okay. Okay.Me rindo. Come here.” She waits as I take a pile of clothes to the entryway and drop them on a console there.
She can tell when I’m close. Maybe she can smell me. Or feel the air move or hear me. She opens her eyes, and they’re exactly as they were—warm brown, maybe a little unfocused and bloodshot, but otherwise normal.
“Not lazy. Not milky. Even if you can’t see it, you’re still you.”
She carefully pulls her dark shades back into place. “I used to love looking in the mirror. It wasn’t just vanity. I mean, maybe a little. But I looked like my mom and my Tia Santos, like myabuelita.Even as a kid, that was comforting,and as an adult, when sometimes men would make comments—I knew I looked like them and that they were strong and smart, and that mattered. And then they died along with everything else, and I’d look at my face, and I’d find them there, and it felt like they were still with me, and I’d think to myself … the world ended, but I’m still here, and as long as I remember them, so are they.”
I sit my ass down on the coffee table and take her hand. “Then I can tell you. I’ll tell you every day that you look like your mom, and your Tia Santos, yourabuelita.I’ll do your makeup, and we can curl or dye your hair like you used to. At least until the hair dye in the drugstores runs out. And I’ll tell you what you look like.”
“I won’t … I won’t be able to see people coming. Like people who want to kill me. I won’t be able to see them.”
I suck in a sharp breath at that. It’s like Shane’s dominant hand being smashed. A permanent change that makes life forever more dangerous. At least pregnancy is temporary, and babies grow into adults. Being blinded or maimed is forever. “You may have to rely on people more now. That’s what we’re here for. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay for me.”
“Yet.” The word brings back the sound of Scraggle’s voice, and the skin on my neck ripples.
Yet.
Yet just means something is coming.
“It will be. You’ll get used to this.”
Her lips purse up mutinously.
And it’s hard to argue with because I’m not sure I believe it myself. How do you get used to an ever-worsening world?
“We need to finish getting your room under control. You have to start coming down for meals. I’ll figure out how to fix your door, but you can’t hole up again.”
Her lips purse up more.