“So you’ve seen something like this before?” I ask.
“A few times over the past forty years,” he says. “But not many.”
“How long does it last?” I ask Jed Frazier.
“In my experience with this condition, which I admit is pretty limited,” he says, “it usually only lasts for a couple of days, at most.”
“But you don’t know for sure,” Taylor says, shaking her head.
“I don’t.”
“So it could be permanent?” Taylor says.
“I’ve never known it to be,” he says.
“But itcouldbe.”
“Taylor,” he says, reaching over and taking her hand. “Can I promise you it’s not going to last? Doctors don’t make promises like that. But can I tell you with my own educated opinion that it won’t last? That I can do.”
Taylor is staring straight ahead, the same as she’d been when I’d found her at the kitchen table. She just looks angrier now.
“So what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she asks him. “While I wait for my eyesight to come back.” She pauses. “Or not.”
“I could prescribe some mild antidepressants,” he says.
“Not happening.”
“Or you could see somebody.”
“So I can talk to a shrink about my feelings?” she says. “I know you’re just trying to help, Dr. Frazier. But no thanks.”
She puts her head back and finally closes her eyes, which for me is almost a relief.
“I’d be happy if I didn’t have to say another goddamn thing about what happened to my husband.”
Jed Frazier smiles at her now, maybe because he knows she can’t see him. He is a good, kind man, a lot like my father, the kind who could remain calm and rock steady in a hurricane.
“Have you been living here alone since Burt died?”
“Yes.”
“Is there somebody you could call until this does pass?” Dr. Frazier asks.
I say, “She already did.”
SEVENTY-FIVE
“THANK YOU FOR being here. I should have said that already,” Taylor says. “I know I’ve been sounding like a bitch.”
“If you ever try to thank me again,” I say, “I’m getting your mother over here.” Then, taking one last shot at somehow lightening her mood, I add, “Bitch.”
She does manage to smile at that, almost as a last resort. Maybe to shut me up.
I’ve finally convinced Taylor to stay with us at the farm until her eyesight returns. We both know that as well-meaning as her mother is, having her as a caretaker, even in the short run, would be the same for Taylor as being under house arrest.
EJ is on her way over to pack things up for Taylor.
Clothes mostly.
