“Yes.”
“And you spent your whole life fixing her eyes.”
“Yes.”
Ethan looked at me.
“What are you going to do, Mom?”
I looked at Nigel across the table. He was holding his coffee mug with both hands, not drinking it.
“I’m going to take my time,” I said. “And I’m going to figure it out.”
Ethan nodded slowly.
“That’s fair,” he said.
Then he looked at his father.
“I used to sit outside your office,” he said. “When I was little. I’d hear you crying in there sometimes.”
Nigel’s face crumpled.
“I didn’t know you could hear me.”
“I could always hear you, Dad,” Ethan said. “I just didn’t know why.”
The next few weeks were the hardest of my life. Harder in some ways than being blind.
Everything was new. Everything was overwhelming. I had to learn to read printed letters all over again. I had to learn that the tall shape in the backyard was the maple tree and not a person. I got dizzy in grocery stores. I cried at the color red, the first time I saw a cardinal at the bird feeder.
