Page 23 of Sight Unseen

“May I look at your fingers, Nate?” Suzanne asked gently.

I stuck out my arm and held my hands toward her palm up. Warm, small hands took mine and I imagined a bird of a woman opposite me, with warm eyes and a soft smile.

“As a sculptor, the tips of your fingers may be a little desensitized to reading Braille. Yours look undamaged, but rough, a little calloused. It may mean you might have to work a little harder than some to get it right, but I’ve no doubt you could do it if you have the motivation. You’re young too, and that always helps. And of course, being blind certainly shouldn’t stop you from sculpting. It’s a tactile endeavor so using your fingers and base instincts to create something is already ingrained in you. Your sight loss shouldn’t take that away from you.”

My chest tightened with hope. Marty had said the same thing.

For the next two hours, I sat with the woman who fast became someone I wanted to know better. Suzanne’s optimism, her compassion and her no-nonsense way of telling me to get over it when I whined were refreshing. Like Cody, she understood that I was still the same man I’d been before the accident.

Orientation and mobility, human guides, self-protective techniques and the different tools available for me to use—these words and phrases came at me like a slow freight train and I tried to absorb it all.

Suzanne’s soft voice kept me company as she explained about special kitchenware, talking watches, and special phones. Apparently there are canes that have sensors and vibrate when things got a bit difficult, like navigating stairs. Hell, you could even get a Bluetooth Braille keyboard.

Wow. Who knew this stuff existed?

When Suzanne left with a waft of perfume and a firm handshake, I closed the door, went back into the family room, sat down, and for the first time in a long time, I knew hope.

“This is just a setback in your life, Nate,” I muttered to myself. “Something you need to deal with. You can do it.”

The fact I was starting to think of my blindness as a setback instead of a brick wall I couldn’t climb lightened my soul.

I can do this. I can beat this damn thing. I know I can.

***

During the next two months Suzanne’s rehab techniques were a rinse-and-repeat exercise in patience. She was a tough taskmaster who occasionally I likened to Genghis Khan.

Cody laughed and told me that, while he agreed with me on the personality part, she was far from it in looks.

I learned that my petite nemesis was twenty-eight, a little younger than me, yet looked even younger. She was tattooed and slim with auburn hair and a punk haircut. From the face-mapping I did with her, I discovered piercings in her nose and eyebrows. Her appearance was so at odds with her no-nonsense personality.

As part of my armoire of blind tools, my cane had to be tailored to the correct length for my height and stride and the fact I was right-handed. Protective techniques I’d been taught helped determine my location as I trailed my left hand down walls, while holding my right arm across my chest so if I bumped into anything, that would take the brunt first.

There were a lot of other techniques to learn, like staying in step, but with Suzanne at my side, I’d slowly gained some confidence in walking with the cane on the street outside my home.

I found the cane work tough going more out of a desire to fool myself into thinking this wasn’t who I was, than an actual lack of technical ability to use it. Each movement, each sweep, each knock and bump and scrape told me I was no longer the person I used to be. I resented the fuck out of it.

Suzanne and I had some epic arguments, and more than one time I lost my shit and threw a tantrum. However, determination was my friend and I wanted nothing more than to show everyone that I could manage on my own without help.

But still, I hadn’t entered my studio. I couldn’t face it. The smell of my materials, the knowledge I was surrounded by my own work—some in various stages of completion—it devastated me to the point of a near panic attack.

Jon stayed out of my way, making excuses to go out when I had my lessons. At first it had rankled. After a while, it didn’t matter anymore.

I’m more than capable of doing this on my own. I don’t need him. Let him sneak off to see Caleb. I’m not fucking stupid.

In contrast to Jon’s reluctance to participate, Suzanne and Cody made the journeys fun, with constant joking, sly wit and a lot of patience. And when Cody was around when I lost my shit, he’d been both supportive and a bastard.

My usual normal, easy-going Cody in his dominant, kick-ass mode was something to experience. Sometimes I wondered if I was doing it on purpose to bring out that side of him.

And didn’t that idea confuse me. Every day I was growing more conflicted over how I felt about him. I knew we had chemistry—that had been proven over those sultry nights in the Keys when we’d thrown caution to the winds and acted out our lustful desires.

Whatever spark was there that hot and passionate weekend had been snuffed out when I told Cody we couldn’t be more than friends. I’d had my reasons, and now, all these years later, the reasons didn’t apply anymore. But it seemed the “us” ship had sailed.

We’d both moved on, gotten into relationships, become men. And right now I wanted to make sure I was ready to face life again, be my own man and learn all the skills that would make my life easier. It was my own personal mission to make sure I stayed independent.

What I hadn’t factored on was those feelings of need arising once again every time I heard his voice or felt his touch on my body. They arose from the deep recesses of where I’d buried them for safety, and they taunted me with memories and unbidden scenes in which we did things that made me blush just imagining them.

I went to bed each night with those fantasies in my spank bank and woke up sticky with morning wood that wouldn’t disappear until I’d rubbed one out in the shower.