Blindsided (8 page)

“But that’s where you’re wrong, Natalie, because I
do
understand. I lost my sight when I was fifteen years old. Like you, I had to make the transition from reading print to recognizing Braille code. It was difficult—losing my sight, learning Braille, learning to use a cane. I won’t kid you. Many times I wanted to give up.”

Miss Karen was fifteen years old when she lost sight? A swarm of questions raced through Natalie’s mind. How did it happen? What was it like? Was she devastated?

“Everything may seem overwhelming right now,” Miss Karen went on. “You just have to take things one at a time. At least with the Braille, there is a system that you
can
learn, Natalie.”

Miss Karen seemed so together—so upbeat—how did she ever get to that point?

There was another long pause. Miss Karen cleared her throat. “So. Are you envisioning the Braille cell?” She was going to continue the lesson. “The raised dots numbered one through six?”

“Yes,” Natalie replied. She should at least try. “One through six.”

“The first ten letters of the alphabet use only the top four of the six dots in the cell,” Miss Karen noted. “The next ten letters,
K
through
T
, are identical to
A
through
J
, except that they have an additional dot in position three. . . .”

 

That night, while some of the kids went to the gym to play Bingo (with Braille cards), Natalie stayed behind in her room. Her roommate was sitting in the hall with her cell phone, talking to her boyfriend, so Natalie figured it was a good time to practice. The sooner she learned everything, she figured, the sooner she could return home for good. So she picked up the heavy gray Brailler that she’d been tripping over the last few days and set it on her desk. There was a short stack of heavy Braille paper in the desk drawer. She rolled a piece into the Brailler.

The Brailler worked like a typewriter, except that it had six tabs, one for each dot of the Braille cell, instead of letters. The tabs needed to create each letter had to be pressed simultaneously. After creating a letter, Natalie felt with her fingertips what had been punched out in the paper. She had to put some muscle into making each Braille letter. It wasn’t nearly as easy as using the sensitive computer keyboard. She did ten letters, messed up on five of them, and, arms resting on the desk, leaned her head on one hand.

Her heart just wasn’t in it. The Brailler was difficult to use, and Natalie’s right wrist hurt from the cane lesson that afternoon with Miss Audra.
Reach out and take hold of the cane as though shaking hands, Natalie. The movement should come from the wrist. Your hand may hurt. It takes a lot of practice.
But Natalie didn’t want to “shake hands” with her cane. She didn’t want to learn how to hold it, or sweep the area in front of her. She wanted to break the darn thing over her knee!

Natalie moved the Brailler to one side of her desk. Her mind drifted.
Learning Braille would be admitting that you have a serious vision problem. . . .
Meredith’s chirpy voice echoed:
You’ll see. . . .
Natalie’s cranky reply haunted:
But I won’t see!

Natalie squeezed her eyes shut with deep regret.
A
, one dot . . .
B
, two down . . .
C
, two across . . . Those Braille cells—darn them!—they had staked out a spot in her brain and were doing calisthenics. Natalie couldn’t get them out of her head now. Thank goodness there were only two more days until she could get on a bus and go home for the weekend. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, cook with her mother, get her hands on the goats, and tell Meredith so many things: how sorry she was about the phone call, how Eve had no concept of color and memorized her clothes by the way they felt, how much she hated the cane—and maybe—maybe she would confide in Meredith—about how much she had changed in the past three weeks, ever since the last visit with Dr. Rose. No one else knew how scared she was, underneath.

Would Meredith be able to help her? Would she even want to help her? Or would confiding her fear simply scare away her friends? They could be fluky, especially Coralee and Suzanne. Probably best not to let any of them in on it, she concluded. They wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

God knows those weren’t the biggest questions either, because deep, deep down in her core, Natalie wondered if she would be able to deal with it, too.

Finally. Natalie was going home for the weekend. She had all her books and clothes packed. Even the wretched cane was there, although it had been shoved deep inside her duffel bag under some dirty laundry. Miss Audra made Natalie promise to take the cane home, but Natalie certainly didn’t plan on using it.

“Bus fifty-two!” Natalie’s bus. Eager to go, she hoisted her backpack, grabbed her duffel, and moved quickly. But as she rushed to climb aboard, she missed the step completely and fell forward, scraping one leg on the step and landing in an awkward heap half on, half off the bus.

“Are you okay?” Several hands rushed in to help her up.

“I’m fine,” Natalie said quickly, the blood rushing to her cheeks in embarrassment. “I didn’t see the gap.”

“You sure? Can you put weight on that foot?” someone asked.

Natalie stood. “Yes. Yes, I can, it’s all right.” She reached down and winced upon touching the shin, but could tell there wasn’t an open cut.

She was grateful when one of the teachers helped her to get on board. After he left, she reached down to touch the spot again and felt a bump already forming. She wished she’d asked for some ice.

The others clambered on board after her. Most kids took up an entire seat with their feet up and backs against the side of the bus. Right away, they popped in earphones to CD players or iPods and ripped open bags of snacks they’d grabbed from the vending machines—with Braille labels. Natalie plucked a water bottle from the side pocket of her backpack, took a swig, and pressed the icy bottle against her shin to dull the pain.

The first week was over, but it had felt like a year. The kids were different, for sure, and yet, when you took away their special needs, she thought, they were pretty much like everyone else. Miss Karen had told her that the blind school didn’t used to have so many kids with multiple handicaps. When she was a student there, years ago, blindness was the only problem the students had. Now, she explained, many blind children are mainstreamed into public school with special help from vision teachers and don’t need the blind center. So the center became a place for children with other needs, in addition to a vision problem. Plus kids like Natalie, Arnab, and Sheldon—the kids in the parallel universe—who suddenly needed intensive instruction.

About two hours into the trip, the bus pulled off the interstate.

“Why are we stopping?” Arnab asked no one in particular.

Serena turned around in her seat. “It’s Frederick,” she told him. “We pick up kids from the deaf school here.”

Natalie could hear them climbing aboard, finding seats, talking among themselves in an odd way. When she finally got one in her circle of vision, she noticed the sign language—and could see Serena signing back to them. Suddenly, several of the deaf students burst out laughing. She wondered if they were laughing at something Serena had said—and if so, what it was!

“Arnab!” the bus driver called out. “I think this is where you get off!”

Serena tapped Arnab on the shoulder because he had his earphones in. “It’s Frederick, Arnab. The bus driver just announced it.”

“Yes, sir! Yes, I will be getting off in Frederick. Right here,” he said. He seemed anxious as he scrambled to get all his things together.

“Have a nice weekend, Arnab,” Natalie said.

“Natalie? Is that you? Yes, yes. I didn’t know you were there. You have a nice weekend, too.”

 

In Frederick, a huge traffic jam held up the bus, and another half hour crept by before they were back on the main highway. Outside, it grew dark. Natalie’s ears popped as they went over a mountain. In a place called Hagerstown, Serena got off. “See you Sunday,” she said to Natalie.

The “see you” part didn’t bother Natalie. But the “Sunday” part did.

“Have a nice weekend,” Natalie told her.

A few miles later, the bus broke down. The driver cussed and stomped off the bus heavily. Hours passed and it grew cold, sitting, waiting for another bus to come. Natalie pulled a sweatshirt on and tried calling home, but her cell phone battery had run out. So had the battery in her iPod. For sure, she wouldn’t be home in time to go to the fair, and it filled Natalie with mixed feelings: she wouldn’t have to deal with darkness, but she’d miss out on being with her friends.

A second bus finally brought Natalie to the small shopping center in Hawley. She was the last one off from a ride that had taken nearly seven hours. “Let’s get you home,” her mother said, after rushing forward to embrace Natalie in the dark parking lot.

Natalie’s father waited in the kitchen at home with a sandwich. He hugged Natalie but was strangely quiet as she sat down to eat.

“Did Meredith call?” Natalie asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” her mother replied as she hurriedly prepared a bag of ice for Natalie’s bruised shin. “Here, prop this leg up on the chair,” she said. “That’s it. And tell me about this roommate.”

“You’re sure Meredith didn’t call?” Natalie asked again.

“I’m sure,” her mother said. “Frank, did you take any calls?”

“No,” he replied as he poured a glass of milk for Natalie. “None.”

Natalie wondered why Meredith hadn’t tried to get in touch.

“So—your roommate, Natalie. Who is she?” her mother persisted, kneeling on the floor and holding the bag of ice in place.

“Her name is Gabriella,” Natalie said, still distracted. “All I know is that she is from Baltimore and that she’s blind from a recent accident.”

Her mother winced. “Car accident?”

“I don’t know,” Natalie said.

“Is she nice?”

“Hard to say,” Natalie answered, finally turning her attention to the question at hand. “She doesn’t talk to anyone. The first night we were alone in the room, she couldn’t find the door to the bathroom and stood there, facing the wall, with her pajamas in her hand. I got up and guided her over, but did she say anything, like a simple ‘thank you’? No.”

“Well, I’m glad you reached out to her, Natty,” her mother said.

Natalie finished the ham sandwich. “You okay, Dad?” she asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Is something wrong? The goats?”

“Goats are all fine, Natty Bean,” he said, using her childhood nickname. “I’m just thinking we cannot have this.”

“Have what?”

“
This—
this coming home late at night. Broken down by the side of the highway. I’d rather have you here—”

“Don’t start, Frank!” her mother cut him off. “It’s the first week and the bus broke down. It’s not like it happens all the time.”

“Jean, I am not going to have Natalie sitting on the highway at all hours of the night!”

“Mom, Dad!” Natalie hated hearing her parents argue about her.

They both fell silent. It was pretty late by then. Natalie didn’t have the energy to say any more. “I’m going to bed,” she said. She left, cutting through the living room quickly, and easily avoiding the coffee table and the wing chair that jutted into her path. She knew the house like the back of her hand; she would never need a cane to find her way at home.

 

At night, Natalie kept her tinted eyeglasses in the same place: a shallow yarn basket by the sink in the upstairs bathroom. That way, in the mornings, she didn’t have to search for them. She picked up the basket she’d made almost four years ago during a sixth-grade camping trip and brought it close to her face. She had chosen shades of blue, her favorite color: dark, deepwater blue, high-sky blue—azure they called it—and a pale robin’s-egg blue. Sadly, she could barely tell those shades apart now.