Blind Sight Read Free Page B

did it had seemed pretty obvious to him that Sara had sex with his father for the sole purpose of conceiving a third daughter. A Sara in the grips of a mystical idea made more sense to Luke than a Sara who had a random one-night stand. So what happened? Did an embryonic Luke receive signals to become a girl and then ignore them? Refuse in the womb to obey his mother’s electrical and chemical desires to produce a third daughter? Whatever happened, Luke has spent much of his conscious life attempting to correctly read and interpret the signals being sent from one female in his household to another. He is very, very good at it.
    Sitting in the California sun, looking at a photograph of a man who appears nearly crazed by his own outsized musculature, and reading an article debating the merits of various protein powders, Luke appreciates the feel of the sun on the tops of his feet, impreciselyimagines sex with Kati (now on all fours with the moon-faced serenity of the Kama Sutra), wonders if he should start drinking protein shakes, thinks about sex again, is slightly disgusted with himself, then not. Luke closes his eyes, visualizes the spaces between the neurons in his brain widening and expanding, no longer synaptic clefts but synaptic seas, with room for swimming, floating on his back, letting the water cover his ears, hearing his heartbeat underwater. Drifting quietly, knowing for a quick second himself to be himself, forgetting all his names.
    Luke cannot quite believe he is where he is, and for a moment he wishes the summer already over: hours running logged, essay written, father known. Questions begin to form, and so Luke opens his eyes and returns to the article about supplements. He wonders what doubling up on his protein intake would do to his body chemistry and if doing so would make him look more like his father, who is extremely muscular.

CHAPTER TWO
    O kay, new plan is to think out stuff for my essay while running, therefore accomplishing two things at one time, instead of letting my mind drift. I don’t want to have to worry about writing. It’s enough that I’ve got to answer all these emails from my family.
    The conditions for running here are really great: sun without humidity, hills, near-absence of bugs in the eyes, cool stuff to look at. The section of Los Angeles that Mark lives in is called Beachwood Canyon. It’s not a scary-rich-looking neighborhood, but a lot of the houses have signs outside them saying they have video surveillance provided by Bel-Air security.
    Mark said he could arrange for the studio to send him a car service, and then I could use his car when he’s working. They added another week that he didn’t anticipate, and he seems worried that I’ll be bored or feel stranded, or something. We keep having odd conversations where he’ll ask, “So you, like, drive and everything, right? Doyou want a car?” And I’ll say, “Do you mean … like … what do you mean?” and he’ll say, “I missed all your Christmases and birthdays. Can I buy you a car?” and then we’ll both sort of laugh. I told him about Vlad the Impala, and said I would be nervous to drive anything that wasn’t already on the short list for the Grim Auto Reaper.
    Anyway, we are going to do more stuff together once the show is finished shooting and he has his “hiatus.” Yesterday, though, he had a day off and he took me out to Santa Monica beach. Oh yeah, I could tell my family about that. Of course, what they all want to know is how I
feel
about everything, and what it’s all
like
, how I am
experiencing
it. That’s called “qualia” in philosophy of mind. Qualia is the way things seem to us. It’s one of my favorite words.
    What’s the qualia of being with my father?
    I always knew I had a father, obviously, but we’ve just never had any dads around. Actually I think most people assume that all three of us kids come from Sara’s ex-husband. I don’t look like my sisters, but they don’t