Blue Skies (18 page)

He stopped at each open stall to introduce her to the occupant. Carly knew she’d promptly forget the horses’ names.

“Are the closed stalls vacant?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“Nope. Mamas and babies, down for the night.” At the end of the aisle, he gestured at two stalls that were larger than all the others. “Our version of birthing chambers,” he explained. “They’re bigger so the mare can comfortably lie down and stretch out her legs. We do imprinting in here as well.”

“You brand your horses?” Carly had always felt that the practice was cruel, and she couldn’t conceal her disapproval.

“Imprinting isn’t branding. Most folks don’t do that anymore.” He studied her indignant expression for a moment, then chuckled and scratched under his hat. “Instead of branding, a lot of people tag the ears—kind of like a lady getting her ear pierced. The more expensive horses get ID chips, little information crystals inserted under the skin, or we tattoo the inside of an ear. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh.” She was relieved. “What’s imprinting, then?”

“Baby training, essentially. I’ll bring you down to watch sometime—or better yet, to help. It’s fun. Imprinting is basically situational conditioning begun directly after birth and continued over the first several months of life. You get a foal used to all the things that might frighten it as an adult. Imprinting is a lot of work, but in the end, the horse is better off. We seldom have to hobble an imprinted horse, and we hardly ever have to use a twitch. In short, imprinted horses are better adjusted, happier animals, and they’re a joy to work with.”

“What’s a twitch?”

He rubbed his jaw. “It’s a contraption that pinches the nose, one of the most sensitive spots on a horse’s body. You anchor the twitch with just enough tension to make it hurt like hell. If the horse moves, it hurts a whole lot worse.”

“That’s
horrible
.”

“It’s necessary with a horse that refuses to stand while you give it shots or treat a wound. They’re big, strong critters. You can’t muscle them around. Try, and they’ll show you how the cow ate the cabbage.” His mouth tipped in a slight smile. “Now you can understand why we imprint our foals. We don’t enjoy inflicting pain on a horse. Our imprinted animals seldom have to be subdued. We subject the foals to every conceivable experience, over and over again, until they think nothing of it. As adults, they do a horse version of a yawn while they’re shoed or vaccinated or doctored. Not much throws them.”

“Anything that saves them from a twitch has my vote.”

He glanced at his watch. “We should head back to the house. The stew should be about done.”

As Hank led the way from the stable, he couldn’t help but remember all the girlfriends he’d brought out to the ranch over the years. Most of them had mixed with horses like oil with water. Carly didn’t even seem to notice the horse shit, a fact that was driven home to Hank when she stepped in a fresh pile.

“Uh-oh.” She shook her leg, trying to dislodge the smelly gook. “Oh,
yuck
. Is that what I think it is?” She peered myopically at her foot.

“If you’re thinking it’s horse shit, go to the head of the class,” he said, going back to grasp her elbow.

Hank expected her to be pissed about her shoe. Instead she laughed and glanced around, looking like someone who’d just wandered into a minefield.

He guided her around the bombs as they left the building, smiling at the way she shook her foot every few steps. Once outside, she stopped to rub her shoe clean on the grass. She got all but a couple of blobs. Hunkering down, Hank grasped her ankle to turn her foot. She jumped at the contact and almost toppled over backward.

“Whoa.” He grabbed her by the waistband of her jeans to steady her. When she caught her balance, he returned his attention to guiding her foot. “Now swipe,” he instructed.

When her sneaker was clean, he pushed erect. She wrinkled her nose and smiled at him. “One of the dangers of an untrained visual cortex. I can’t detect irregularities on a ground surface. I never knew the manure was there until it went squish under my foot.”

The way she said “squish” set Hank to laughing again.

Hank lay on his back, arms folded beneath his head, feet dangling over the end of the mattress. Moonlight spangled the cedar ceiling of the back bedroom, the shadowy patterns shifting as the night wind swayed the trees outside the window. He couldn’t sleep for thoughts of Carly—how she’d timidly petted the horses at first and then warmed to them; how she’d laughed over the manure on her shoe; how startled she’d been by the touch of his hand on her ankle; and how painfully nervous she’d been later when they returned to the house.

She was so beautiful he ached when he looked at her. He wished he could tell her that, but if he tried, she’d just think it was another hokey come-on line. She’d made that blatantly clear last night.

No question about it, he was swimming upstream against a strong current with her, and the best he could probably hope for was friendship. That frustrated him. He’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, that they might make this marriage work. But the more he was around her, the more convinced he became that he’d burned his bridges with her. Some screw-ups couldn’t be fixed, plain and simple, and he’d screwed up big time. She had it in her mind that a second go-round with him would be awful, and he had no idea how to disabuse her of the notion.

So . . . friendship, it would be. All and all, that would be better than nothing. When she filed for divorce and moved out, they’d be able to keep in contact and work together at parenting, making things easier on their child.

Hank sighed and closed his eyes.
Friendship
. He could think of far more satisfying ways to spend two years with a beautiful woman, but a man didn’t always get his druthers.

Chapter Fifteen

O
ver the next couple of days, making friends with Carly became Hank’s goal. In order to accomplish that, the first order of business was to make her feel at ease with him. To that end, he began calling her at different times during the day, just to say hi. He invariably caught her busily at work, trying to train her visual cortex. One afternoon, she was going through all the kitchen drawers, identifying utensils by touch.

“There’s this thing,” she informed him. “It has handles you squeeze, with a little box at the end that has a bunch of small holes. I have no idea what it is.”

Hank thought for a moment. “A garlic press?”

“Excuse me,” she said with mock seriousness. “I’m asking
you
.”

He laughed. “It has to be a garlic press.” He explained how the peeled cloves are pushed through the holes. “It works, slick as greased owl shit.”

“What a nauseating comparison. A garlic press. Hmm. That goes on my list of new things to try. When can we press garlic?”

Hank hung up smiling. Most people would feel silly not recognizing a garlic press, but Carly took it in stride, determined to learn all that she could as quickly as possible.

At other times when Hank phoned, he interrupted her daily eye-exercise regime. The specialist had given her charts to tack to a wall. One was headed by the basic colors, and below was a diagram, showing many of the possible shades that could be created by blending the basics. Another was a chart of shapes and symbols—shapes, squares, triangles, figure eights, and the like. Carly spent hours working to train her visual cortex to recognize them on sight. One morning, Hank walked in to catch her trying to work what looked like a child’s puzzle. She quickly dumped the pieces back into the box and shoved it under the sofa, clearly embarrassed to have him know that she was struggling to master an activity that a five-year-old could easily do. The discovery enabled Hank to better understand the battle she was waging. It was horribly difficult for her to fit certain shapes together, something that most people had been doing all their lives.

In order to spend more time with her, Hank began taking all his meals at the cabin. He ate poached eggs on toast for breakfast because the smell of fried food made her sick, settled for sandwiches at lunch, and donned an apron at night to help prepare dinner.

After the kitchen was tidied, he used the hours before bedtime to take her to the main house to visit with Jake and Molly or to recline with her in the living room to watch TV or chat. Their time alone together was always tense. While walking, she kept an arm’s length between their bodies and didn’t say a whole lot. At the house, she sat across the room from him and fidgeted, toying with her clothes or plucking at the fringe of a sofa pillow. She frequently said goodnight early, claiming exhaustion.

All Hank’s life, he’d been told that he had more charm than all his brothers combined. He tried using it to best advantage with Carly. But in the end, Hank was the one to be charmed.

If there was a character trait he most admired, it was courage, and Carly proved to be the most determined, courageous individual he knew. Though he suspected her eyesight was growing worse, she never so much as hinted that she was worried or experiencing any difficulty.

When he returned to the cabin to check on her at various times throughout the day, he often found her poring over books she’d brought with her from the apartment. Sometimes she studied a tome titled
What’s What
, a visual glossary of everyday objects. Other times, she worked on recognizing the letters of the alphabet. The print in her books was small, forcing her to lean close with her nose mere inches from the page, and more times than not she propped an elbow on the table, absently rubbing her temple as if she had a headache.

Hank wanted to ask why she tortured herself. She wouldn’t be able to see a damned letter soon, let alone recognize one. Why get headaches for no good reason? Her determination to train her visual cortex worried him as well. Was she ignoring the obvious and clinging to the false hope that she wouldn’t lose her sight during her pregnancy?

On Wednesday afternoon, five days after their marriage, Hank returned to the house unexpectedly to change his shirt. When he found Carly with her nose in a book again, he could keep quiet no longer.

“Honey, couldn’t you put your time to better use?”

She cast him a bewildered look. “Why do you say that?”

Careful, Hank
. “According to your doctor, it’s possible that your eyesight may go before the baby comes. If that happens, what good will it do to recognize your letters on sight?”

Hank half expected her to get upset. If he were faced with going blind again, he sure as hell wouldn’t appreciate a reminder. But Carly only smiled.

“Some lattice patients skate through pregnancy without a problem.”

“So your sight seems to be holding steady?”

“Not holding steady, exactly.”

Hello?
If her sight was growing worse, she obviously wasn’t going to skate through. “That’s not a good indication, is it?” he asked cautiously.

“No.” Her smile dimmed. But then she brightened again. “Lattice is unpredictable. Every patient is different, and every pregnancy is different. The disease may do damage swiftly, leaving me blind as a bat in only a few months—or it may go like wildfire and then slow down. I prefer to think positively.”

Hank believed in positive thinking. He just didn’t want her to be disappointed. A few months? Even though she’d noticed the deterioration of her vision, she obviously hadn’t faced the truth yet, that she might go blind in a very short while.

“I’ve known people with lattice who’ve never gone completely blind,” she said. “They’re legally blind, of course, but they can still see to some degree for years and years. Who can say how severe my lattice actually is?”

She’d been totally blind, hadn’t she? How much worse could it get?

“In addition to the lattice, I was born with congenital cataracts,” she explained. “Which condition initially caused my blindness? Everyone assumes it was due to both conditions, but what if it wasn’t? Maybe the lattice wasn’t that bad when I was born, but worsened over time, and the initial blindness was caused by the cataracts.”

Uncertain what to say, Hank sank onto a chair to study her small face. On the one hand, he could understand her reasoning—and her frantic hope that the lattice by itself wouldn’t rob her of sight that quickly. On the other hand, he’d seen evidence that her vision was deteriorating at a rapid rate. If it hadn’t escaped his notice, how had it escaped hers?

Maybe, he decided, she had noticed—and she was simply choosing to be optimistic until life kicked her in the teeth again. Taking measure of her determinedly cheerful grin, he wanted to weep for her.

“Well, I guess we’ll wait and see. Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones.”

She nodded. “Please don’t think I have my head buried in the sand. I know the odds are stacked against me.” She rested her chin on her hand and narrowed her lovely eyes slightly to search his expression. “You look worried. There’s no reason to be.”

Hank rubbed beside his nose. Worried? He was heartsick.

“I’m a big girl, Hank. If the worst happens, I’ll deal with it.”

How could she sit there and look so calm? No tears, no outrage, no shaking her fist at God. He’d never even seen her act mildly depressed. Instead, she seemed at peace about it. Searching her expression, he knew she really was aware of the odds and that she would accept whatever came. The thought of being trapped in darkness for months on end terrified him. Carly might not be happy about the possibility, but she wasn’t quailing in fear, either.

“I can tell it bothers your eyes to stare at those books so much.”

“I’m used to eye pain.”

He didn’t want her to experience pain of any kind. “Why not enjoy this time some other way and train your visual cortex after your next surgery? You’ll be able to see more clearly then, and it’ll be a lot easier for you.”

She closed the book and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. “I could wait, but then I’d be wasting today.”

“You have lots of days ahead of you. This is only a temporary setback. Next summer, you’ll have surgery and be able to see for years and years.”

“Will I?” She turned, holding the glass midway to her mouth. “If all my surgeries are successful and each procedure lasts as long as it should, I’ll be able to see for twenty, maybe thirty years before I begin to reject my transplants. But what if each procedure doesn’t go well?”

His belly clenched with dread. “What do you mean?”

She trailed her fingertips over the glass, catching beads of water. Then she rubbed her hand on her jeans. “There are no guarantees. Dr. Merrick can promise me nothing. Dozens of things can—and do—go wrong. Something as simple as a flu shot—or a virus—or any number of other variables can escalate the lattice or cause rejection. And, for a few, the surgeries don’t work at all.”

He swallowed hard, and suddenly he was the one who wanted to shake his fist. What in heaven’s name was she saying, that things could go wrong and she might never be able to see at all?

“Even if everything goes perfectly, my days of sightedness will be numbered. If things go wrong—” Her eyes went dark with shadows. “There’s just no telling. I may have as many as fifteen years or as few as five or maybe no time at all. Knowing that, if you were me, would you waste a single day?”

Hank thanked God he was sitting down. No time at all? “No,” he admitted. “I don’t guess so.”

“Exactly. Each and every minute I can see is a precious gift.” She took a long drink of water, then set the empty glass on the counter. “The visual cortex is a memory bank of sorts. Everything I see today, everything I master visually, will remain in my memory. If my surgery next summer goes nicely, it may take me a few days to orient myself, but then everything I learn now will come in very handy. I’ll be one step closer to reading proficiently, and it’ll be easier for me to do things, like dial a phone or balance my checkbook. I’ll have made headway if I use this time wisely, and I’ll be better prepared to make the most of my life as a sighted blind person after the next surgery.”

The walls of Hank’s throat felt as if he’d swallowed Elmer’s glue. A fierce protectiveness welled inside him. He wanted to hold her in his arms and shield her. Unfortunately, lattice dystrophy was a villain he couldn’t fight.

He looked out the window at the sunlight filtering down through the pines. She had today. It was something he hadn’t really understood until now.
Today.
Faced with those odds, he would have been outdoors, feasting his eyes on everything—flowers, blades of grass, and the way the wind swayed the trees. He sure as hell wouldn’t stay in the house with his nose stuck in a book.

“It seems like a piss poor way to make the days count.”

She gave a startled laugh. “What would you suggest?”

“Aren’t there other things you’d like to do?”

She dimpled her cheek and sighed, her eyes going dreamy soft. “
Oodles
of things. But why dream and wish when it’s not possible to do them?”

“If you could do whatever you wanted right now, what would you do?”

“One thing I always wanted to do was learn to drive.” She shrugged. “Even now, my long distance vision isn’t good enough to try. Maybe someday.”

“And?” He waited a beat. “What else?”

“If I were rich, which I’m not, I’d travel.”

“Where to?”

“
Everywhere.”
The dreamy look in her eyes became more pronounced. “I’d see everything I possibly could before my eyesight goes—the Eiffel Tower, the Egyptian pyramids, the Sahara desert, Mount Everest.” She laughed lightly, the sound drifting musically on the air. “I’d
love
to see a camel.”

“A camel?” They were the ugliest critters Hank had ever clapped eyes on.

“Oh,
yes
. And a zebra. Maybe even a tiger if I could manage it without getting eaten. I guess that seems silly to you.”

In that moment, he thought she was the most amazing individual he’d ever known. He loved the way her face glowed when she dreamed. A searing sensation washed over his eyes. “If I had the money, I’d take you to all those places. We’d just pack our clothes and take off.”

Her expression clouded. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You’re already doing so much, more than you should, actually, and I’m very grateful.”

He didn’t want her to be grateful, damn it. All he wanted was to make her happy. If only he had the money, he would lay the entire world at her feet.

A sudden thought occurred to him. Maybe he couldn’t give her Egypt and Paris, but he could come through with driving lessons and exotic critters. “When’s your checkup with the corneal specialist?”

“It was on July seventh, but last week, I rescheduled for the following Monday.”

“Why? I could have driven you up on the seventh.”

“I wasn’t sure what plans you might have for the holiday weekend.”

Hank had forgotten the Fourth of July was on Friday. “Just a family gathering here. That evening, we may take the kids to watch the fireworks.”

“Fireworks?” Her eyes sparkled with interest.

Hank realized that she’d never seen a firework display. “Wanna go?”

“I’d love to. If it won’t be a big bore for you, that is.”

“I
love
fireworks,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t miss them for anything.”

There was so very much she’d never seen—and so much she might never see. It didn’t matter how many times he’d done things. He’d enjoy the same-old, same-old because it would all be new to her.

He just hoped her vision held fast until her appointment with Merrick on the fourteenth. Mentally crossing his fingers, he smiled and said, “When we drive up for your checkup, plan on staying overnight in the city.”

“Why? It’s only three, maybe four hours to Portland. My appointment’s at two. We can easily come back the same day.”