Night Blindness Read Free Page B

scent had been in the air the night Will died. “A quintessential fall day,” my dad had said that morning. “The perfect day to win a football game.”
    â€œHome.” The yard was dark. “And I can’t talk long because I literally just walked in the door.” I didn’t dare look back at them. Instead, I studied the tilted goalposts my dad had built for Will. They were still there.
    â€œ I’m home,” Nic said. “You’re in country club kingdom. How was the flight?”
    I hugged my knees, trying to keep warm. “It sucked.” The yard was bordered by gardens, already in bloom. Jamie, in her designer gloves and imported straw hat, had a green thumb. It looked nothing like our front yard in Santa Fe, which was full of dirt and cacti. “This poor lady in front of me had two screaming babies.”
    â€œThe only thing worse than one crying kid is two.”
    I chewed on my lip and traced the letters carved into the cracked wood of the glider’s right arm. I was too tired to have the baby fight. I wanted one; he didn’t.
    â€œHow’s your dad?” he asked.
    â€œHe’s in bed.” On the left arm of the glider, Will had pared a line of X ’s and O ’s, football plays or maybe a love note. I never asked why Jamie hadn’t gotten mad at him for it. I’d caught hell for my graffiti. But he was Will, and I wasn’t. “Did you finish the falcon sculpture for Berlin?” I asked.
    â€œIt shipped out at five,” he said. “Whitney came in around three and helped me with the wings.” I heard him lighting a joint. I pictured Whitney on her back, arms spread like wings. “My usual inspiration got on a plane for preppyville.” He inhaled. “So,” he said, his voice tight with smoke, “are they running tests or—”
    â€œI don’t know. We’re meeting with Ryder early tomorrow morning,”
    â€œWho is this Ryder person?” He exhaled.
    I fingered a hole in my shorts. My skin went hot when I thought of Ryder stepping into the hallway minutes before. I wondered if Hadley had told Nic about him. During all our hours together at the gallery, I’d told Hadley everything about my life. He knew exactly who Ryder was to me. “He was Will’s friend.” A familiar numbing extended into my chest.
    â€œAnd now he just happens to be your father’s doctor?”
    â€œOdd, right?” I tried to keep my voice level. It was odd, so odd that I didn’t even know how to talk about it. A few years ago, I’d read in my high school alumni newsletter that Ryder was a neurosurgeon. I’d logged on to Nic’s Facebook account, looking for him, but none of the Ryder Andersons was him.
    â€œIsn’t he young to be a brain surgeon?”
    â€œJamie says he graduated early from Harvard Medical and got hired by Yale right away.”
    â€œAnd Jamie knows it all.” I heard the music go on. Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “So Begins the Task” filled the phone. I must learn to live without you now. “Get some sleep, sweet lady,” he said, his way of telling me we were done talking. “Call me tomorrow after the appointment.”
    â€œLove you,” I said. And then I held my breath, waiting.
    He said what he always did. “Right back at ya, sunshine.”
    I put the phone on the armrest. I wasn’t sure I could get up and go back into the kitchen. I wished my dad were still awake; he’d know how to make it okay. I glanced up at the second floor. The light in my parents’ room was out. I wondered if my father was really sleeping, or if he was lying awake, worrying. I wanted to go up there and lie next to him. I thought maybe if I heard him breathing, if I felt him put his arm around me and say, “Whobaby, I thought you’d never come home,” that scared feeling might go away.
    Jamie was wrong. I didn’t like to