<< Go Back

Hold the Light

By April McGowan

Order Now!

Unremarkable. Amber glanced out the streaming windowpane at the cityscape below her. The rain washed all the color from the sky, trees, and buildings, covering the world in grayscale brush strokes. She traced a raindrop with her finger as she’d done as a child, watching it gather speed, collecting friends as it went, only to splat useless on the sill, pool, and drizzle away.
There was nothing to be done about it. The world would go to dusk, darken, disappear—and she would go with it not in a rage, but with a quiet whimper of acceptance. Amber twirled her ring around her finger, spinning and spinning, panic filling her until she bit down on her lip. Hard. No. Not her. She’d face this as she’d faced everything in her life. She could handle it.
Amber wiped a tear with shaky fingers and pulled her honey-brown hair back into the scrunchie she wore on her wrist before turning to face the doctor, resolute. The exam room seemed to be affected by the same dull gray as the outside world. She guessed the blind really had no use for designer colors or flashy artwork on the walls.
Ironic.
He said something she didn’t understand.
“What do you mean, it’s genetic?” She waited for him to answer, hoping for some light in the ever-growing bleakness.
The doctor sat back against the examining room table. “Someone else in your family might have this disease.”
Her mother would know. Her biological mother, that was. Did Mom know, though?
Tiny pieces of torn paper seemed to reassemble themselves before her eyes and tumble apart all over again. The shredded letter, floating down around her like snow, falling, falling into little useless piles she’d vacuumed up four years ago. She hadn’t wanted to be in contact with her birth mother, not ever. How dare she try and contact her? Amber’s anger at being abandoned, donated, sold like an old car on the Internet, had burned through her for years.
“I’m adopted.” The words always brought about a feeling of finality, like the slamming of a lid on an old wooden box, buried six feet under. Except her birth mother wasn’t six feet under. She’d just walked away from Amber.
“I see. If there’s any way for you to find your biological family, you might want to. It will give us some clues.”
“And then we can stop it?” She held her breath, hoping.
Dr. Birkman gave her a pitying glance, his watery hazel eyes full of sympathy. “No, we can’t stop it.”
Questions raced. “How long do I have? What if we’d caught it earlier?”
Moving toward her, he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. He didn’t know her, but he comforted her. She felt small in his presence. He had all the answers, held her fate in his medical books. What did she have?
“Diagnosis doesn’t do anything but give us guidelines. I’m afraid macular degeneration can’t be cured by the medical knowledge we have now.”
“Isn’t this something older people get? I’m only twenty-eight.”
“There are several variations of this disease that affect younger people, although yours, admittedly, has taken longer to make an appearance.”
“I guess I should be grateful.” The words, like a mantra, tumbled from her lips but made no connection with her heart. “How long?” she asked again.
“At this rate, not long. Your case seems to be moving rather rapidly. You’ll start to notice more and more changes. Maybe a year.”
Numbness washed through her, starting at her fingertips, racing into her middle, buzzing between her ears.
“Will I lose my sight entirely?”
“It’s rare for everything to go black. Most people with your condition lose portions at a time, making their vision spotty until everything goes hazy. Some keep partial sight. But I don’t want to give you false hope.”
He reached over to a stand of pamphlets on the countertop and handed her several. “Is there anyone I can call for you?”
Dr. Birkman was trying to help, but Amber didn’t want anyone with her right then. She just wanted to go home. Alone.
“No. I’m fine. I need to go.”
“I’ll have my staff call and set up your next appointment.” He was aiding in her fast escape.
She nodded in agreement. But what was the point of coming back? He couldn’t stop this. Amber pulled on her coat and grabbed her purse, shoving the pamphlets deep within, crumpling them. She headed out of the exam room, past other patients sitting placidly in the waiting area, down the narrow corridor toward the elevator. Her hand glanced over the braille directive bumps on the hall edgeway, and she drew back as if she’d touched something repulsive. She shivered and tried not to notice similar bumps over the floor number, on the nameplates, and then, once the elevator doors opened, on the button panel.
As the elevator met and reached each floor, a ding rang out, joined by a female voice naming every one. Fifteen, ding, fourteen, ding, thirteen, ding, and on and on. People boarded the elevator at the seventh floor, jostling her aside, animated and happy. A shiver coursed through her, and she pulled her sable-brown trench coat closed. Finally, the car reached the ground floor and she pushed past the others, nearly running through the foyer and out the glass front doors. Amber gasped as the chilled fall breeze met the stale air in her lungs.
Rain poured down, and she fumbled with the slick buttons on her coat, raising the collar against the onslaught. Cars sped by as she passed food carts and stepped over jagged, cracked planks of sidewalk. The grass and weeds reached up as if to trip her and pull her down, kicking and screaming, into the crevasse. She swallowed hard and tucked a strand of escaping hair behind her ear. The bus pulled up, and she jogged to catch it but then stopped. The last thing she wanted to do was pile onto the city bus full of rain-soaked, steamy bodies. Instead, she went to the light and waited to cross.
For a moment, she closed her eyes, listening to the patter of rain, the grind and slide of shoes against slick pavement, the call of the vendors, a petitioner desperate for signatures, a homeless man demanding change. Far in the distance the train passed, and farther still a jet plane buzzed the sky. A child laughed.
Dizziness swept over her. Just before she lost her balance and fell onto the street and into the path of a car who ran the red light, she felt a hand grab her arm.
“Careful there,” a deep male voice admonished her.
Amber wrenched from the man’s hand, startled at being touched almost as much as by the worry she saw in his eyes. He must have only been in his late thirties, but he leaned heavily on a stylish hand-carved cane. His blue eyes matched his raincoat and were framed by jet black hair sprinkled with gray at the temples.
“Sorry. Just trying to help.” His glance cast away, and he put up his umbrella. She wanted to thank him for his kindness, not chide him for grabbing her, but the words wouldn’t come. Not today.
The light changed, and the telltale bird chirping sound signaled her to cross. Before she could take a step out into the street, a careless driver sped around the corner, not stopping for her or for the light. Amber’s heart raced up into her throat, choking off a curse that built. What if she were already blind? She’d be dead. How were those auditory signals helpful to anyone?
Her hand flew to her chest as if to quiet her rapidly thumping heart and catch her breath.
“Not your day?” The man gave her a sympathetic look.
“No. Not my day.” Her voice shook and she bit her lip to calm her nerves. “Thanks. For back there.” They walked along together now—her avoiding cracks, him limping.
“Glad I could help.” They approached another bus stop, and he gave her a warm but uncertain smile. “Have a good day.”
She wanted to tell him it was much too late for that. For some reason, she wanted to tell him everything. A stranger’s distance from the situation would be lovely about then. My name is Amber, and I’m going blind. But she didn’t.
“Thanks.” She plodded on past, up the inclining street. Twenty city blocks to go.
The rain continued to pour down, chilling her neck, mixing with the hairspray in her hair and running into her eyes, blurring her vision with mascara and glue. She rubbed at them, desperate to clear her sight.
Maybe skipping the bus was a bad plan. Five blocks later, she took shelter under an awning and waited for the next ride to take her home to her apartment. Within a few minutes, another bus stopped by and she climbed aboard, taking her spot in a lemon-yellow molded plastic chair. The door closed and the bus took off into the busy downtown Portland traffic.
Fifteen blocks would have taken her forty minutes to walk—though on a bus starting and stopping for passengers, it took even longer. It gave her time to dry out and take stock. She took out her cellphone and scanned her e-mail. Most were from work or prospective private clients.
Amber’s hands shook from cold and the fear building inside. In less than a year, life as she knew it would end. She looked up at the other passengers, caught up in their own worlds. The man in coveralls, the woman in business attire, the student, the skater kid, the group of three girls texting each other and laughing—they had no clue what tomorrow would hold. But she did.
Swallowing her emotions, she put her phone—soon to be useless—back into her pocket and concentrated on the passing landscape of cars and masses of people heading home. Her stop arrived, and she walked past everyone and out onto the street. Two blocks up, she arrived at her apartment building.
Amber stood outside, staring up at the aging red brick exterior of the five-floor complex, the cornice moldings, the framed glass windows and flower boxes on porches. She’d gotten this place because it was within walking distance of the grocery store, the art supply store, and other shopping—not to mention the school where she primarily taught.
Teaching. What a joke. A colossal joke. On her.
She used her passkey to open the outer door and entered, stopping by the bank of copper mailboxes. She used another smaller key to unlock hers and pulled out a bulky wad of advertising and bills. And a postcard from Kyle. She smiled—he’d only been in Hawaii on business and would be home tomorrow, but he’d still sent her a card. Then the memory of the day pressed in, and her smile faded.
She took the junk and tossed it into the recycling bin nearby, then headed up the dark-blue and red paisley carpeted stairs. On the second landing she began counting the steps. Then she tucked the mail into her purse with the pamphlets and went back down to the bottom, panting.
Closing her eyes, she gripped the rail and began to count again. One, two, three. After she hit the seventh stair, her jarred feet leveled out on a landing, and she cracked her eyes open for a peek. Snapping them closed again, she made the corner, still grasping the rail, and counted again. This time the landing didn’t take her by surprise. She peeked again and counted. Up, up, until she’d reached the third floor.
Her breath came in gasps, and blood pounded in her ears. She reached out, waving her hands in front of her, searching for the other side of the hall. She brushed her hand up the wall, passing one doorjamb, then the next, then the next, until she reached what she imagined and hoped was her door.
Searching fingers caressed the beveled surface until she found the number and letter that were her own. 3G. Tears escaped down her cheeks as she rummaged past all the paraphernalia she’d shoved in her purse, past the crinkled and sharp corners of the pamphlets, and found her keys. She clenched her eyes closed, not cheating, flipped to a key and tried it.
Wrong one. Another. Another. Each one clinked against the next. “Please,” she gritted out. The sixth one found purchase, and she heard the deadbolt slide back. She pulled it out and felt it, memorized the pointy edges, the rounded spots and shook her keys back together. Then she did it again. Second try. Then again. First.
Only then did she let herself inside, drop her belongings on the table, shrug off her sopping coat. Only then did she lock the door from the inside, lean against it, slide down it to the floor, and cry.

Order Now!

<< Go Back