More Than Eyes Alone Can See
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Tess spent the majority of her day cleaning.
but rather something she did out of nervous habit.
worries, but with as much on her mind as she had now?
house to clean. She dusted what
furniture and surfaces required it, swept and mopped, washed all her dirty
clothes, and scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen until her arm told her
going to rebel.
Tess managed to
stop long enough to feed the children, who had woken between ten and eleven in
the morning, but minutes after seeing that the es wes were washed, she found
herself tapping her feet and drumming her nails against the kitchen
counter. Fine. More cleaning.
into the bathroom, telling him to wash and then make sure René and
followed his example. Selena she took
into the kitchen and placed in a sink full of warm water.
managed to wash her own hair in a haphazard manner; it was a difficult thing to
do well when one only had only a single arm that they could raise above their
head.
as if the very act of making her house and all under its roof clean would sweep
her jumbled thoughts into order. And now
that she and the children were as clean as they were going to get, it was time
to turn her attention to her patient.
He, while cleaner than he might have been under other circumstances, was
getting a bit ripe. The only difficulty
standing in her way was convincing him to let her help him clean
up.
At the thought of
even more time with a man who so easily unsettled her, Tess almost went outside
to wash the windows. The only thing that
stopped her was the thought of someone catching her in the act of cleaning
windows in what was supposed to be an abandoned neighborhood.
house – there was nothing left to clean.
Even the floors were nearly clean enough to perform surgery
The word echoed through her head.
Even since
that morning and awoken her with his news, she had been on edge.
turned into a conversation that held hope.
Hope for her, that this last act of repentance would ease her mind and
heart, and hope for her patient, that he might be able to see again.
discarded hope . . . but it was more than ‘Giovanni’ had had since coming
here. More hope than she had had since
she could remember.
*****************************************
-
had come to recognize that sound of bare feet on a hardwood floor.
people dying to visit him – just the woman and the kid.
there, either too shy or too scared to come in themselves.
to stay with its siblings. Sands thought
Tess might have said that the baby was a girl, but he couldn’t remember.
anything other than the time he had spent in this bed.
was already fading. If you’re going to be blind, might as well go all the way.
was the hesitation that gave her away every time.
stride, but somewhere around the midpoint of the room she would pause, unsure
if he was awake or what her welcome would be if he was.
she nervous? It’s not as if I’ve
actually hurt her yet.
felt like a delicate wrist in a tight grip and the near-desperate plea of a
woman who found herself trapped. That
had been different. That had been
business. He’d had plenty of
opportunities to shoot or hit her, and he hadn’t.
something. “Most people actually
enter a room unnoticed, niña.
disturbing someone when entering a room, either don’t come in or they announce
their presence.”
Bare feet on the floor. If that’s
not announcing my presence, I don’t know what is, because I certainly know that
you can hear me. Still a bit
irritable from her lack of sleep and anxious over the news she carried, Tess
was not in the best of moods. But rather
than reply so rudely when she knew that’s the response her patient was angling
for, she simply said, “The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where
it began. Now far ahead the road is gone
and I must follow if I can. Pursuing it
with weary feet until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands
meet – and whether then, I cannot say.”
Tiredly, Sands
asked, “What does that mean?” He
wondered if she ever spoke in anything other than quotes and riddles, and if
she didn’t, then what had led her to speak like a madwoman.
before – had met some exceptionally peculiar people in the course of his work –
but this woman left them all in her dust.
An absentminded hermitess that took in strays and dangerous men alike
out of what appeared to be guilt, although he couldn’t figure out what she had
to be guilty about.
Other than her apparent abundance
of naïveté. But that’s hardly a crime
punishable by death.
Stopping just out
of reach of the man on the bed, Tessa replied, “That means I’m tired, I’ve been
working since this morning with no end of wor sig sight, and I’m not sure what
I’m supposed to be doing after this.
After today.” Her eyes started to
gaze right through Sands as she continued in a lost voice, “I can feel the
paths in front of me, but I can’t see them.
I know I need to go somewhere but I don’t know where or how to get
there. Circumstances demand action, but
I can’t make up my mind over what action to take.
I make many decisions when all I can see is the present?”
telling this man this. She needed to
confide in someone, and instead of calling
back, she was talking to a man who didn’t know her and most likely didn’t care
about her beyond what she could do for him.
What I can do for him.
fates; the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we
are underlings.”
The laugh of a
delighted infant brought Tessa back to herself, back to the room that she
shared with a man who couldn’t see her and most likely thought she was loosing
her mind. He was half right; she had
lost her mind ever so long ago, even before the schizophrenia had made itself
known. “Don’t mind me.
what I can to keep that from being a lie.”
Sands heard the
loneliness in Tessa’s voice, but pushed it aside.
a cat like normal people did. “Was there
a reason you came in here?”
tray as it was set down on the nightstand by the bed.
down you before I have to start giving you nutrients by IV.
soup? If it can, we’ll try some solids
this evening.”
She had a
point. As much as Sands hated being
treated like an invalid, he had to admit that up until this point the pain he
had been feeling had been making his stomach queasy. <
st
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> It wasn’t a new sensation; he had once broken
his collarbone and hadn’t been able to eat anything other than club crackers
for three days. Of course, then he had
refused to take painkillers. With the
painkillers that Tessa had talked him into taking the night before still in his
system, he thought that he might be able to keep some soup down.
to starve me.”
“No, just saving
the both of us the ordeal of having to deal with a stomach under active
revolt.” Tess picked up the bowl of soup
in one hand and touched the back of Sands’ right hand with the other.
side of the bowl to the palm of his hand.
Making sure that he wasn’t about to dump the liquid over them both, Tess
picked up the spoon and placed it in his other hand.
smile. “Que?
Sands shook his
head and simply said, “Just wishing for a third hand.
can have.” His response left Tess
confused.
*****************************************
Half an hour later,
Sands was no longer smiling and Tess was wondering if her (extremely sketchy)an wan was going to work. It hadn’t taken
Sands long to figure out that eating soup was not the easiest thing to do when
one was newly blinded and was not sitting at a table.
feed him. If she had, he would have
thrown the soup at her, whether she deserved it or not.
bowl from him when the amount of soup on him had exceeded the amount still in
the bowl. She had murmured something that
had probably been an apology, since that seemed to be what she enjoyed saying
the most. He hadn’t quite caught what
she had said, but had been grateful for the napkin she had thrown on his chest
as she had left the room. Minutes later
she had returned and handed him a heavy earthenware mug filled with more
soup. After that, his meal had proceeded
ever so much more smoothly. However, he
still smelled of chicken.
to . . . uh . . . clean up?”
“Was that an offer
to climb into the shower with me to scrub my back?”
She relaxed a bit
when he didn’t bite her head off for the suggestion.
stitches. I’d prefer to keep them dry
for the time being.” Tess had to admire
his persistence at acting like a hormonal teen, but was glad that his
innuendoes were so obvious and easy to brush off.
knew who I really was, who my father was, he wouldn’t touch mth ath a
thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole . . . and that’s without knowing I’m nuts.
sponge bath and a thorough washing of your hair.
“Ooh, even
better. La bonita chiquita is offering me a sponge
bath. I’m not sure life gets any better
than this. Aside from being able to watch
it, of course.”
“Mmm.”
glanced around the room. “Life may not
get better, but it doet wet worse. I’m
afraid that you’re perfectly capable of giving yourself a sponge bath.”
“You are no fun
whatsoever, you know that?” Sands complained as Tess took his arm and helped
him out of the bed. He weaved and
wavered once upright, so she had to work to keep them both from falling to the
floor. As they staggered towards the
bathroom, Sands said, “You might have to reconsider your position on helping
out.”
Looking up from her
study of the floor passing under her moving feet, Tessa studied his face and
was surprised at how pale hs.
seemed healthy enough, except for the lack of nutrients and slight effects from
blood loss, but the expression on his face was decidedly unhealthy.
your extremities?”
“Headache.”
twenty-four hours, and ‘headache’ didn’t even start to describe the pounding in
his head. And his legs were loudly
reminding him that they had recently been filled with lead.
“Your stomach isn’t
upset?” Tess really didn’t want to have
to deal with vomit. Her own head and
stomach were complaining, albeit not as loudly as they had that morning.
liable to lose her own lunch.
“A bit, but I think
that’s a secondary effect.” God, when
had he become so docile? When had he deci
to
to actually depend on this woman? He
hated to appear weak before anyone. But
even he had to admit that Tess wasn’t the worse person to let nurse him back to
health. She managed to help without
making him feel as if he were completely incompetent, supported without
knocking his equilibrium off-balance. He
got the distinct impression that she would be happy to let him do as much on
his own as he could, and only stuck around to make sure that he didn’t undo any
of her previous handiwork. “So, about
that sponge bath . . . .”
“You are such a
pig. You do realize that, right?” she
asked dryly.
/spa/span>“Absolutely.
statement.
you got that ‘Giovanni?’”
“You’ve crushed all
my hopes and dreams. My reason for
living is destroyed.” Sands was
discovering how much fun it was to annoy the heck out of Tessa.
find a topic that had actually managed to do it.
produced some kind of reaction, but they paled in comparison to how she was
responding now. Gone were the cool
responses, the studied indifference of the past two days; her voice was getting
dryer by the moment. Any moment now and
she would have to drink something to re-hydrate herself.
“I doubt I’ve
crushed anything other than your fragile male ego.”
with this. She knew that she was
responding awkwardly, unsure of what she was doing or how to play this
game. The flirtatious advances of the
college boys she had known had been easy to ignore – this man was playing on a
behind them and the tone they were delivered in was different.
splinter out of someone’s finger and setting a compound fracture.
n stn style='mso-spacerun:yes'> And then there was
the added complication of the man’s character.
Yes, he was cute enough for some good-natured, going-nowhere flirting
(had she known what she was doing), but he was not a nice person.
second thoughts if he decided he had to kill her.
yesterday. When you saw Marcos asleep at
his side.
were suppressed by her medications, but Tess could feel it trying to speak –
knew that if it could have made itself understood, that’s what it would have
said.
Ignoring the battle
her mind was trying to start about the character of the man at her side, Tess
maneuvered them both into the bathroom.
Now was not the time to argue over temperament, disposition, or moral
fiber.
Making sure that
her patient was sitting down and out of danger of falling flat on his face,
Tess turned on the bathroom taps, ing ing for the water to heat up.
would have considered taking a shower in it herself – if it weren’t for the new
bullet wound in her arm, of course – Tess plugged the sink and waited for it to
fill. As she waited, she got a clean
washrag and a fresh bar of soap out of the cabinet next to the shower.
it from overflowing, Tess submerged both rag and soap in the warm water.
Wringing out the
piece of cloth, Tessa thought, Ok, here
comes the hard part. You can do
this. Just take deep breaths and stay
calm. It’s that simple.
nothing came of them.
the wrist that had found itself imprisoned in an unbreakable grip the day
before; it had a sickly green bracelet of bruised skin surrounding it.
. . he could have done worse. The
memory of a hand holding hers as spasms of pain caused it to flinch only fueled
the conflict inside her. How was she
supposed to relate the two different sides of this man to each other?
death and killing have to do with the side that leaned on her shoulders and let
a little boy rest next to him? In the
past Tess had been hurt by people stronger than her, and because of that she
didn’t like being physically close to people she felt
were a threat. Tessa knew that this man
could hurt her . . . but he hadn’t. Not>Not
really. What can I do? He needs me to
help him and I promised us both that I would do what I can.
him whole, even if it does mean putting myself in
danger. But I don’t think he’s going to
hurt me. Not now at least.
asked, “So, where do you want to start?”
*****************************************
Sands tensed as he
felt the warm, rough cloth begin wiping over his cheekbones.
apprehension before the blasted woman had noticed, but he hadn’t.
medicine – she obviously had a nurturing personality.
woman who would have been perfectly content to stay home and cook for her man,
barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
The kind of woman who would cradle and caress her lover in her arms
until all the stresses of the day left his body . . . the kind of woman who
took quiet joy in sex. Not that he had
ever known anyone like that. It was
dangerous to know women like that, because they could make a man believe that
he could live a normal lifestyle when he really wanted nothing like that at
all.
The cloth
distracted him from his thoughts as it ran down his chin and neck and over his
shoulders, the heat and moisture doing their best to both clean and relax at
the same time. When the material left
his skin, he almost missed it. Out of
all the things that had happened to him recently, this was actually a pleasant
ordeal. Not that he planned or was in
any condition to take things further (to his disappointment).
could from this and store it up against the pain that was sure to start again
As Tess worked the
cloth down and over his body, Sands could feel his muscles relaxing, the
pounding in his head backing off. He
nearly groaned in relief as the quality of the darkness he saw changed in some
indefinable way, as it became lighter in some sort of sense – less opaque.
the pain and the smothering darkness stay away . . .
*****************************************
At some point
during what she had sworn was going to stay a G-rated mission of mercy, Tess
found herself flushing.
such close proximity with nearly naked men.
And it certainly wasn’t every day that she found herself bathing said
nearly naked men. Normally she had a
member of the man’s family around who could perform this chore, but that wasn’t
an option now. She didn’t even know if
this man had family that should be contacted.
I really should have thought about
that earlier. What if he has a family
around somewhere awaiting news of his safety?
close relationships with anyone other than maybe
a close friend or two. If she was
correct, he was borderline psychotic, but psychological assessments had never
been her forté. “Señor, I should have asked this before, but is there anyone you
would like to call? Anyone who should
know that you are safe?” The question
helped take her mind off of her uneasiness.
With an
expressionless face, he answered, “You mean, is there a young wife and baby
waiting anxiously to find out if I’m alive?
If there’re loving parents waiting at home to
have me over for dinner and hear all about my adventures in México?”
“No. At the moment I’d rather
have people believe I’m dead, if it’s all the same to you.”
“No.”
replaced by deadly seriousness. Tess
didn’t dig any farther and decided to combat her discomfort another way.
Jabberwocky. the words had always comforted her for some reason.
the Jabberwock, my son!/The jaws that bite, the claws
that catch!/Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun/the frumious Bandersnatch!/He took
his vorpal sword in hand . . .” What’s a
vorpal sword?
Lost in her own
thoughts, Tess was surprised when Sands interrupted her somewhere around his
knees. “So, what do you look like?”
Distrustful of his
motivations behind asking, she replied, “If I answer that, are you going to ask
me to tell you what I’m wearing next?”
The corner of
Sands’ mouth twitched as if he were trying to hold back a smile.
“Mmm.
“Variety is the
spice of life. Are you going to answer
my question?”
“What do you think
I look like?”
“I think you’re
someone’s sixty-year-old grandmother who resembles a piece of jerky more than
the fresh young girl she used to be. I think
your face has more lines than an improperly folded roadmap, and –”
Interrupting him,
Tess said dryly, “I think I get the point.”
There were about
ten seconds of silence, before he inquired, “So, was I close?”
Tess waited several
moments before saying, “’Tis an old saying, the Devil lurks behind the
cross. All is not gold that
glitters. From the tail of the plow,
was Rodrigo cast to be devoured by the snakes.”
Shaking her head, she said less cryptically, “Appearances can be
deceiving, but if that’s what you want me to look like, that’s what I look
like.”
Somewhere around
the point when she was gently toweling Sands’ newly-cleaned hair, Tess
commented, “There’s one way that you could find out.”
“Find out what?”
“What I look like.”
“Why,
“No.”
“Then what are you
talking about?” He was getting really
sick of asking her that question.
Biting her lip as she
offered up a silent prayer for her safety, Tess slowly replied, “I mean that
there might be a way for you to see what I look like.
away if he misinterpreted what she meant and took a swing at her.
Nothing.
hour. -Bong, bong, bong- Tess was
surprised to find out that she had been in the same room with this man,
touching him, caring for him for over an hour.
It didn’t seem as if things had taken that long, but then again, her
grip on reality and time wasn’t a sure as some people’s.
throughout the entire house.
Still silence.
shower stall and nervously walked over to the sink to drain the water from
it. Feeling enclosed all of a sudden,
she looked up into the mirror and jumped when she found her patient standing
less than a foot behind her.
man asked in a low, dangerous tone, “What the hell do you mean there’s a way
for me to see that you look like?” Tess
swallowed.
*****************************************
that you could find out.” Sands found
took before they made it out her mouth. What was so different about her
cognitive process that made nearly everything that came out of her mouth sound
like the prophesy of an oracle.
“Find out what?”
“What I look like.”
“Why,
“No.”
“Then what are you
talking about?”
“I mean that there
might be a way for you to see what I look like.
Without using your hands.” He
wa for for the rest, sure that there she had some kind
of pep talk waiting to complete this disastrous turn of the conversation, but
she said nothing else. He waited: the
clock chimed, Tess moved around, water drained noisily down some pipes.
things seem “not quite as bad as they appeared”?
Making sure to
stand up and take the few steps towards her with all the silence he still
possessed, Sands managed to get right behind Tess before she noticed how close
to her he was. He heard her jump.
spun and turned to face him. If he had
felt like being amused anymore, he would have laughed, the sounds she made
painted such a vivid comic picture.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t amused.
“What the hell do you mean there’s a way for me to see that you look
like?” She didn’t answer.
continued, “In case you hadn’t noticed or had managed to forget, let me remind
you of one little fact.” Leaning
forward, he placed a hand on each side of her body, trapping her against the
sink – unless she had managed to move as quietly as he did, in which case he
was striking a rather tragic pose. “I .
. . have . . . no . . . eyes.”
“Ye-” the word
didn’t make it out of Tessa’s mouth before her throat closed and she ended up
choking on her own saliva. Coughing, she
turned back to sink, not wanting to shower the man before her in spit.
explosions, she managed to calm her protesting lungs to the point where she
could once again speak. “Yes.
“Then what are you
talking about, niña?
attempt at humor?”
She really should
have made a bit more of a plan before broaching this subject.
a friend this morning. It was a guy I
went to med school with, one of the few I’ve managed to keep in
contact with. But while I went
into what is jokingly referred to as ‘private practice,’ he had always been
more interested in the research and development side of things.
shorter, he ended up at a medical firm in
with nothing more than what most of the medical community considered a crackpot
idea. But apparently the man who hired
him didn’t think so. So anyway, I got a
call from my friend this morning and he tells me that his idea, which had been
successful in trials on rats, pigs, and a chimpanzee who
had had an accident, he called and told me that he had gotten permission from
the FDA to start human trials. And he
called me because he was excited, not that he knew that you were here, but I
thought that you might be interested in meeting him and talking to him, and
listening to his ideas.”
Sands backed away
from Tessa when he heard the panic and innate goodwill in her voice.
majority of the population could understand what she was talking about, but she
hadn’t been mocking him or trying to patronize him.
wearily, “While I’m sure that spiel had some kind of meaning to you, I’m afraid
you left out any information that might clue me into what you’re talking
about.”
Had she?
what she had just said. When she had
found that Sands had so effectively sneaked up on her and that he was angry and
capable of controlling her movements, she had panicked.
herself, at least he wasn’t angry at her anymore.
You just made me a litnervnervous.”
“
her words woefully inadequate.
taken off like that feline that Pépé le Pew was always chasing.
“I know.
explanation.” Crap, her nerves will
still on edge. “What I meant to say was
that this friend of mine has developed a new technique for eye transplants.
government to start human trials.n stn style='mso-spacerun:yes'> He’s
going to be looking for volunteers. And
I thought of you.”
Silence once again
reigned supreme in the small bathroom.