I saw the fear.
And under the fear, somewhere, I saw the hope. Small, and scared, and still there.
“You took my sight,” I said.
He flinched. He didn’t look away, though.
“But you spent your whole life trying to give it back.”
Tears filled his eyes. They spilled over and ran down his face, and he didn’t wipe them.
“Every single day,” he said.
My anger didn’t vanish. I want to be honest about that.
It didn’t go anywhere. It’s still there, some days. Some mornings I wake up and look at him sleeping beside me, and I see the scar, and I feel it again. The cold, hot rush of it. You lied to me. For twenty-two years, you let me trace that scar with my fingers and you lied about where it came from.
But it shifted, that day. Standing in his office.
