Eden's Eyes (20 page)

"Trust me," Heather said again.

And before she realized it, Karen had opened her mouth and it was all spouting out.

"I think about him almost constantly," she said, frustrated tears already falling. "The donor, I mean. And I've started dreaming about him, too. Real nightmares. Sometimes, I'm. . . touching his dead body, and, oh, God, it's all rotting and real, and I'm touching him so intimately, and he just stares at me with those empty holes in his face."

Sweat beads blossomed on Karen's brow. "And last night. . ."

She described the apparition in her bathtub.

"It's like he’s. . . haunting me."

The button! She's going to push the button!

But Heather only nodded sympathetically.

"I just wish I could get him out of my head, Karen said, then chuckled mirthlessly. "No pun intended. But I feel so. . . I don't know. . . sorry? No, that's not it exactly. It's more like. . .

Guilt? Heather wanted to say. But she knew the importance of allowing Karen to pinpoint this emotion for herself.

"I want to thank him, or somebody. I mean, I know I can't thank him. . . he's dead. But there's got to be somebody: his wife maybe or his parents. . . somebody. "

She considered telling Heather about the phone call she'd made to the Crowell woman in Sudbury, but then mostly out of embarrassment, decided to keep it to herself.

"This is a difficult predicament," Heather said honestly. "One for which a solution will not come easily. I can help you. . . but only to a certain point. Most of it you'll have to sort out on your own. We can meet again, talk these things through, try to pinpoint the root of this all right, Karen, I won't mince words with you—this unhealthy obsession you've developed with the donor. Because that's exactly what it is." Her tone changed then, lightened, became suddenly reassuring. "'But that's all it is. You are most definitely not losing your marbles." She smiled sunnily.

"And you are not going to lose your eyes because of these dreams, which are merely a normal, if disturbing, expression of your preoccupation with the donor.”

Heather opened a desk drawer and brought out a prescription pad. She was a southpaw, and from where Karen was sitting her handwriting looked like tight little tangles of barbed wire.

"Here," she said tearing the script free and sliding it across the desk. "Try these. One a night only. In fact, I suggest you try just a half-tablet at first. They're very potent.”

"What are they?" Karen asked, a little suspiciously. Drugs frightened her.

"Sleeping pills. You'll probably feel a trifle hung over at first—don't use them at all if your sleeping habits improve on their own—but they should help interrupt this dream pattern."

Karen recalled the patient who had skulked out of the office earlier, the way she had clutched her prescription like a rescue rope, and slipped hers into her pocket.

Heather glanced at her watch and then stood.

"My secretary's arranged for you to see Bill Burkowitz at two. That's ten minutes from now. Where's your ride?"

"Cass? She's downstairs in the cafeteria. She's not real fond of hospitals."

Heather laughed. "'None of us are."

She strode out from behind her desk, wrapping an arm around Karen as she stood. The two of them moved slowly toward the closed office door.

"I understand you're speaking at the Transplant Meeting tomorrow?" Heather said conversationally.

Karen stopped short, as if suddenly on the brink of a cliff. "Oh Jesus, I forgot. . ."

She resumed walking, thinking Great. Something else to worry about. The transplant coordinator, Carole Longman, had called last Friday and asked Karen to attend. She was supposed to speak, but she hadn't even thought about what she was going to say yet, never mind draft a speech.

"Fake it," Heather said, as if reading Karen's, thoughts. "I always do."

"Are you going to be there?" Karen asked, thinking that a few familiar faces might help to ease her stage fright a little.

"Unfortunately not," Heather said. They were at the door now. "I'm off in the morning on a three-day birdwatching expedition in the Gatineaus. I watch birds," Heather quipped, indicating the photo-cluttered walls of her, office. "In case you hadn't noticed."

"'Have fun," Karen said.

"I will," Heather replied, opening the office door to let Karen out.

With a wave, she called her next patient in.

That night, Karen took half a pill. . . but it didn't stop her mind.

She rolled out of bed and flicked on a light, fleeing the thing in her dreams. Wrapped in her own arms, she crossed to the window and knelt on the floor, her mind a spillway of images. Fear and confusion quickened the flow, and soon her head sizzled like grease on a skillet. She felt violated in some inexpressible way, as if someone had, in the guise of a saintly benefactor, gained access to the cathedral of her mind, then set busily about its vile desecration.

Like a weary sentinel, she watched the night until the sun nodded up in the east.

Across the field, the binocular eye-ports pressed to his face, Danny Dolan watched her.

Part Two
-
Reunion with Darkness

Chapter 21

May 21

Karen's position at the head table was third from center, just three seats down from the Prime Minister of Canada. Though exhausted, she was nervous, aware of her heart thumping hard inside of her. Among those flanking her on the elevated stage were two members of Parliament, Chief of Cardiac Surgery Dr. Guy Hutton, three other organ recipients, and Carole Longman, transplant coordinator for the Ottawa region. Longman was chairing the meeting, which was being held in the Columbia Room at the Westin Hotel.

The gathering was larger than Karen had anticipated from Longman's brief description. Formally dressed groups of eight sat at maybe a hundred round tables, while reporters and TV cameramen dotted the periphery, portable equipment at the ready. The room itself, with its high ceilings and wood-paneled walls, appeared big enough to enclose a football field. Albert was seated with Cass near the front. Cass had the Polaroid clasped in one hand.

"It's a kind of P.R. thing," Longman had explained over the phone. "Just one of the many ways in which we try to increase public awareness. We need to demystify organ transplantation, Karen, help people see the good in it. Do you realize that it's been more than four decades since the first heart transplant, and still only twenty-eight percent of people sign the consent form on the back of their driver's license? And every day people are dying for the want of organs. The resources are there, it's simply a matter of educating the public, making them aware." She had gone on to say that Karen's recent "celebrity" status would make her a valuable participant.

At first Karen hadn't liked the idea. The thought of speaking in front of a crowd had always made her antsy, even when she was blind. But in the end, she had consented to appear and do whatever she could to help further the cause. After all, she owed these people a lot.

Presently, the PM was wrapping up his opening address.

"And so, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me pleasure to welcome you to the tenth annual Transplant Meeting." He smiled his election-winning smile. "I am confident that you will find this morning's itinerary both interesting and informative, and I urge you to get behind these people, as I am, one hundred percent!"

Exuberant applause.

Now Longman took over the podium. She thanked the Prime Minister, who waved jauntily before leaving the hall, then launched into what promised to be a rather dry and long-winded effusion—monotone stuff about the disheartening donor statistics, the lack of a sound system of public education—and soon, Karen's attention began to falter.

It was a while before she noticed the woman in the wheelchair, which surprised her, considering how intently the woman was staring. She was parked to the right of the stage, not at one of the round tables but off by herself, in the aisle by the curtained wall. Karen figured her for about fifty—graying hair drawn back in a bun so severe it seemed to clutch her skull, thick dewlaps drooping from the exposed flesh of her upper arms, boggy ankles swelling over the top of black lace-up shoes. A plain gray shift covered her body like a tarp, its hem tugged down discreetly over bandaged knees. She wore no makeup. In her lap she held a black, leather-bound book—clutched it, the way her hair clutched her skull—a Bible, Karen thought.

At first Karen looked away, surprised by the fat ball of tension that dropped out of nowhere and landed in the pit of her stomach. Why would a crippled woman's stare feel so. . . creepy? By now she was accustomed to people staring, usually with a sort of glazy-eyed openness, a look Karen had come to interpret as awe. The way she imagined her own face would look if she met someone upon whom a miracle had been bestowed.

But as the minutes ticked past, seeming to slow and grind, Karen's gaze was drawn back repeatedly to that seamed, sour face, to those penetrating, ice-chip eyes buried in their black-hollow sockets.

And finally, the woman's gaze held her, bound her like spider silk, and everything else droned away—Longman's voice, the paneled room, the hundreds of attentive faces. . .

Karen felt it more than read it—the subtleties of facial expression were as new to her as the infinite spectrum of color. But there was hate in that face, in those blue, knife-slash eyes. Hate as pure as the deadliest venom.

And something else, something eerily familiar. . .

The hall receded even further. Vaguely, Karen was aware of scattered applause, of one speaker giving way to another, but soon even that perception was lost in the live-wire hum at the base of her skull.

Suddenly she wanted to leave.

By a huge effort of will Karen looked away, down at her knotted hands, then up, at the crystal chandeliers.

The room I was quiet now, too quiet, the silence anticipatory. . . then Karen heard her own name.

"Miss Lockhart? Karen?"

A reporter's flash exploded light. In its afterpulse Karen turned to see a throbbing negative of Longman.

"Yes?" she said to the shimmering phantom.

Suddenly she recalled her first-visual experience. It had been like this—grainy, pulsing, insubstantial—and for a panicky moment she feared she had lost her sight. Then Longman lightened and solidified, color leaking back into her too-loud suit.

Through her boiling confusion, Karen realized it was her turn to speak. They were waiting for her.

How long have I been out of it?

She stood, drawn by Longman's outstretched arm.

Applause. Cameramen swarming up and crouching in front of the stage. Huge cyclopic eyes recording her every gesture.

She approached the podium, rested her hands on its lacquered surface. Someone stood and adjusted the mike, cranking it up to match Karen's height.

Then she was clearing her throat, speaking in a voice that was somehow otherworldly, as if originating at a point remote from herself. She directed her gaze over the heads of the crowd, which had lapsed into respectful silence.

"I'd like to thank Mrs. Longman for inviting me," she said dazedly, trying to keep her glance from pulling right, to those eyes. "This is a real first for me. . . all these people."

Appreciative chuckles.

"I realize I've been pretty much in the public eye these days—"

Laughter now, and Karen realized that unwittingly she had made a joke. Helplessly, her glance slid to that woman again. . . she wasn't laughing, only staring.

Do I know her?

"Well it's not me," Karen blurted, looking away, wanting to get this over with and at the same time realizing there were things she wanted to say. "I'm not the important one here. I'm just a lucky little blind girl whom none of you would have known had it not been for the unfortunate death—and uncommon generosity—of one man." She inclined her head shamefully. "A man I never even knew."

The crowd fell silent, hanging on every word.

"I'm talking about the donor."

Karen's hands balled into fists. "For those of you who haven't already, imagine the courage it must take to sit down and sign your name to a contract which becomes valid only at the moment of your death. Imagine how tough it must be to pick up a pen and do that—because in the instant that you do, you look death square in the face. You admit its existence, and you submit to it."

Karen had no idea where all of this was coming from—she certainly hadn't planned it—she knew only hat it was coming, and that with each word she felt purged of some black and bottled emotion, a gut-deep gnaw which, quite abruptly, she realized was guilt. Guilt had been at the bottom of her morbid preoccupation with the donor. Guilt had fueled her dark imaginings.

But now it was pouring out and she was letting it, urging it along. She forgot the crowd, the woman with the caustic stare, and let it all come.

"People like this man are the important ones here. Without their courage, people like me remain blind"—she turned to the other recipients at the head table and eyed each of them in turn—"or die of heart disease, or kidney disease, or liver disease.

"So now I want to thank whoever that brave man was, thank him for me and for all of the others." She smiled, feeling better already; this had been building for a long time. "And I want everyone here to know that if I can, I plan to return the favor. I plan to sign that consent. Who knows. . . maybe these eyes will see again, for someone else."

Head bowed, Karen took a small step back, signifying the end of her speech.

Applause struck her like a dry wave of sound. People began pushing to their feet, their hands a blur of moved approval. To Karen's surprise, many of the eyes out there had gone misty.

Karen scanned the crowd for the woman in the wheelchair. She wanted to go to her, to find out who she was—that elusive impression of familiarity, of forgotten intimacy, refused to be dislodged—and why she was staring so intently. There had to be some simple explanation. Someone she had known a long time ago, while still blind. An old grade-school teacher, maybe. Catechism. The Bible. Karen had misunderstood her look, surely that was all it was; she was no expert at facial expressions. . .