Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found Read Free Page A

on talking, and then reached out to touch his arm at one point and realized that, for at least a few minutes, I had been talking to a large column next to our table. Before I’d even had a drink. Luckily, I couldn’t see enough to note the reactions of the people around me. Though really, I’m so used to not seeing or mishearing people that I’m almost beyond embarrassment. When something like that happens, I have to laugh. What’s the alternative? The doctors who diagnosed me thought I’d be blind by the time I was thirty. I’m thirty-four now, and every day that I wake up and can still see is a gift.
    Every day, the cartoon hole closes in on me, and I push back against it with all mymight.

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    T he first lie I can remember telling was when I was seven years old. It was late one afternoon, and I heard the faint, magical tune of the ice cream truck. Whenever we started to hear it—and sometimes, unimaginable now, I would even be the first to—my brothers and I would drop everything and perk up our ears, like dogs intently focused on a sound in the distance. We’d stay frozen until the tune became loud enough for us to realize that this was our chance, and then we’d chase each other up the long flight of stairs from the backyard into the house directly to our piggy banks, grab our precious coins, and jump down the stairs two or three at a time, flying out the front door just as the ice cream man was slowly cruising by our house.
    On one such afternoon I raced in and opened my piggy bank, and found nothing but a few dark brown, tarnished pennies lying there. I thought quickly, and right after I heard Danny race back down the stairs, I ran into his room to “borrow” some of his change to buy my ice cream. I didn’t know if he’d find out, but I knew that no matter what I would deny it at all cost. Of coursehe noticed, and my mother asked me later that evening if I had taken his money. Though the Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar I had eaten hours before weighed heavily in my stomach, I was sure that if I just kept denying it, it would mean that I wasn’t really the one who had done it, so that’s exactly what I did. I denied it, despite there being no way that anybody else could have taken it, despite the fact that I’m sure they all knew it was me. It didn’t matter, because I knew I couldn’t bear the disappointment in my mother’s voice if I admitted it. I already felt like a huge disappointment to my mom for not being the little girl she wanted me to be.
    If you asked my mother, she would say that I was the most beautiful, precious, perfect little girl. And she would mean it. She would say that she couldn’t be more proud of me, that I am extraordinary and wonderful, that I have done anything a fully sighted and hearing person could do and more. And she would believe it with all of her heart. But that was never what I thought. I knew I could never be anything like my mother, who could do anything and everything, and do it all with grace and charm. She was so beautiful, and feminine, and competent, and there was a part of me that thought I wasn’t what she wanted in a daughter. I was sure, though, that I knew exactly what she did want: for me to be just like my best friend, Melissa Neuwelt.
    Melissa was perfect. She was little and tidy, with small, slender hands, and she played the piano beautifully. She had lovely features, a tiny nose, and absolutely no freckles. She was very smart, well behaved, and polite to a fault. She was any parent’s dream child. Of course, my mother adored her. And so, of course, I bullied her when she would come over, and when she threatened to tell on me to my mom, I locked her in my bedroom, barring the door. The minute I let her out she ran directly to my mother’sroom and leapt straight into her arms. As I watched my mother comfort her, I felt terrible and guilty. But I also hated her, for being able to be so good and honest all the time.
    I, on the other