Together (20 page)

Brenden was
indeed exercising his own need for freedom not just in his daily routines but
also on weekend adventures, when he and Nelson took the train to Winter Park on
Saturday mornings so he could ski with Kat Collins.

Each week Kat
picked them up at the train and then dropped Nelson off at the kennel, where he
stayed while they skied.

Brenden could
always read Nelson's vibrations whenever he encountered new people. The young
man found himself looking to his friend for reactions with every acquaintance
they made, as it became clear that the dog's instincts about human beings were
better than his own.

Dogs can
always tell when people really like them, and it was more than clear to Brenden
that Nelson loved Kat. He had never seen Nelson behave more ecstatically toward
anyone other than him. And to his delight, the girl responded in kind. Each
week they dealt fifteen minutes into the schedule so that Kat and Nelson could
have an elaborate greeting and a little one-on-one time. The energetic black
dog would melt under the firm but gentle hands as she scratched his chest and
murmured sweet nothings into his soft ears.

Something was
developing between Kat and Brenden as well. He felt it every time they were
together. Their conversations flowed easily. They laughed at the same things,
took an interest in everything the other did, shared the physical experience of
skiing, and, as in his relationship with Nelson, bonded in the excellence of
their team process.

They had not
crossed the line between student and teacher. Not yet. Why was he hesitant?
Brenden wasn't sure. It might be carryover from his relationship with Lindsey.
Lindsey broke his heart, but with this young woman, with Kathleen Collins, he
felt that such a thing would never happen. There was something so good, honest,
and true about her. So why hadn't he asked her out? Put the moves on? Taken a
chance? He decided it was because she might turn him down, and he wasn't ready
to accept that kind of rejection. Not yet.

It was Tuesday, and
Brenden
sat
on the end stool in Pete's Bar with Nelson safely tucked in against the wall.
Her distinctive perfume told him she was there before the touch on his shoulder
and her nervous, "Hi, Brenden. It's—"

"Hi,
Lindsey," he said before she could get her name out.

"Do you
mind if I join you?"

"It's a
free country," he said.

The young
woman gracefully climbed up next to him, her hand automatically taking his in
that old familiar way that never failed to send charges of excitement pulsing
through his body. He didn't remove his hand from hers, but he immediately
registered that much had changed. The feeling wasn't the same. Time and a broken
heart anesthetized him to her charms, or was it something else that had done
it?

Lindsey
ordered a beer and he heard her take a long pull. "So how have you been,
Brenden?"

"You
mean how have I adjusted since I walked in on you?"

"Brenden,
I tried to tell you that didn't mean anything. He didn't mean anything. It was
just something that happened."

"You
know what I've learned over these months spent in the dark, Lindsey? I've
learned that you can be blind to a lot of things, to who people really are, unless
you take a real good look. I've figured out that you're not a bad person, and I
know you didn't mean to hurt me. You're just self-absorbed. Actually, I don't
think you're capable of sharing love with anyone unless everything is on your
terms."

"Wow,"
the girl said, her tone changing. "That's pretty tough, Brenden. What
right do you have to judge me like that? You weren't the only one who had to
accept the fact that you were blind. It was tough on everybody—your mother,
Charlie, me, everyone who loves you."

"Stop
it, Lindsey," Brenden said, pulling his hand away. "You never really
loved me. You loved the idea of me, who you thought I was going to be. And when
life changed, you couldn't accept who I had become. Your boy toy was broken, so
you decided to throw him away rather than try to fix him. Isn't that about
it?"

The girl
struggled to regain her dignity. "You know what, Brenden?" she said,
her voice rising. "You can be pretty mean, really, pretty mean."

Brenden
turned his blind eyes directly toward the sound of her voice. "I'm sorry,
Lindsey," he said quietly. "You're probably right. Let's figure we
just weren't really meant for each other, okay? Let's just wish each other good
luck and move on with our lives."

He extended
his hand, and after a moment, the girl took it.

"You've
got a good handshake, Lindsey," Brenden said. "It says you're going
to get everything you want in life. You'll have it all."

"Not
everything," Lindsey said. He heard her climb down from her stool.
"Good-bye, Brenden."

"Good
luck, Lindsey," the blind man told her, meaning it. In seconds, the girl
was gone, her scent following her out of the bar and out of his life.

chapter twenty

Brenden loved
the hypnotic sound of the train wheels as they clickety-clacked their way west,
headed for Winter Park Mountain.

It was early
on Saturday morning, and the cars were full of raucous people, laughing and
excited about the day of skiing ahead. Conditions were fantastic on this first
week in April. Springtime had come to the Rockies. They called it
"bronzing time," when you could ski in jeans and a T-shirt with the
sun beating down on your body.

The weather
report suggested the possibility of a spring storm bringing another foot to the
mountains, and that had everybody excited.

"May be
a powder day," people were saying. "Yeah, boy, a powder day."

Nelson lay
next to his master's feet, his rear under the seat, his head occasionally
coming up to touch the man's knee.

Brenden was
in higher spirits than at any time since his accident. That chance meeting with
Lindsey the other night had lifted a load from his shoulders. He knew—he
clearly understood—that he had been infatuated with her but that they had not
truly been in love, not in the way people needed to love in order to build a
successful relationship. They had been—and he smiled thinking about it—in lust.

So what was
he feeling about Kat Collins—this mountain girl who exuded so much goodness and
enthusiasm? He thought that he was now ready to explore possibilities, and
instinct told him that Kathleen Collins might be feeling the same way. They had
talked about previous relationships—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and they
had learned that their views were very similar when it came to what each wanted
in a partner.

So how would
he cross the line? That was the problem. And the nervousness in the pit of his
stomach told him that he really wasn't as secure as he might have thought.
What
if she turns me down? What if she isn't really interested?

Automatically,
he patted the big dog at his feet to gain confidence, and the animal, sensing
his friend's nervousness, licked his hand as if to say,
I got
your back, Master. Don't worry about a thing.

That day the skiing was
awesome. At about two o'clock,
the snow started to fall. First in soft, lazy flakes that floated down from
high, dreamlike clouds, and then as the storm dropped into the valley and the
clouds settled over the Continental Divide, the intensity built as the wind
rose and the flakes became smaller, thicker, and faster.

Kat and
Brenden had just completed a rundown Mary Jane Trail on the back side of the
mountain and arrived at the chair lift with the girl studying the sky.

"I think
we'd better call it a day, Brenden," she said, above the wind. "This
is getting pretty serious."

"Aw,
come on, Kat. It's just a little snow, and anyway this is probably my last run
for the year. You guys close up here next week. Let's just have one mote.
There'll be nobody up there, and you'll be able to let me ski on my own."

"All
right, Brenden," Kat said reluctantly. "Just one more."

"Last
run," the chair lift operator told them as they got on. "We're
closing the lifts after this. It's getting too tough up there, so make it
quick, and get off the mountain."

By the time
they arrived at the top, the conditions had worsened by at least 50 percent.
Brenden registered the concern in Kat's voice.

"Listen,"
she said, "I can't really see where we're going. I mean, I can see the
sides of the trail with the tree line, but bumps and terrain changes, I can't
read them in this flat light."

Having been
sighted, Brenden understood exactly what the girl meant, and yet the touch of
danger excited him, challenged something inside him.

"We've
skied this run a lot. It's an even fall line, and if you just keep me centered,
I think I can actually help ski us down."

Kat's laugh
held a hint of nervousness. "Oh, you mean the blind leading the
blind?"

"That's
about it," Brenden replied. "Let's go for it."

Brenden's
senses were heightened as they began the descent. He read every nuance of the
snow as his skis glided silently through the powder. Keeping his turns uniform,
he kept them moving, ghostlike through the storm. Turn and release. Turn and
release. Turn and release.

Over the next
fifteen or twenty minutes, there wasn't much talk between the two young people,
but in their working together, in their sharing, a real sense of partnership
was expressed, and they both knew it.

Brenden felt
the run leveling off at the same time Kat saw the outlines of the buildings
below. The two skiers skidded to a stop.

"Yeah,"
she cried. "You did it, Brenden. You got us down."

Kat threw her
arms around the tall young man. In a magical moment, without either of them
expecting it, their lips touched. And somehow, even with their goggles and
hats, gloves and heavy clothes, they both felt warmed, melting into the kiss.

After picking
Nelson up at the kennel, they headed for a German restaurant called Eichler's
to celebrate with an end-of- the-season dinner. Yeager schnitzel with spaetzle
and a delicious apple cobbler gave them just the reason they needed for a long
walk under the stars.

The storm
lessened, and Brenden hated the thought that he would be staying in the youth
hostel run by the Winter Park disabled program. So it came as a surprise to
him, and to Nelson, when Kat kept walking and arrived at the mountain cabin she
shared with two roommates, who were both away for the weekend.

"Hey,
Kat," Brenden said, smiling in the dark. "I thought I was the blind
man. Aren't you a little lost? This isn't where I'm staying."

"I
know," she said, stopping under the stars and turning to face him.
"This is where I live, and I'm not ready to have this evening end."

As if it were
the most natural thing in the world, the two young people kissed, not with the
erotic passion that Brenden had experienced with Lindsey, but with an intimacy
and softness that spoke of something much deeper.

Kat pulled
back, her breath coming in gasps. Taking Breden's arm and pointing it to the
sky, she said, "I wish you could see them, Brenden. I wish you could see
God's light show."

"You're
the star, Kat," he said softly, drawing her close. "You're all the
light I need."

They went
inside, lit a fire, and sat, warmed by its glow and by each other.

Brenden knew
that he wanted to marry Kat. He knew it at his very core, and yet the shadow of
his blindness and what it meant seemed to sit between them in the firelight.
Could he make a living? Could he take care of Kat and potentially a family?
Would he be a burden, requiring her to do so much more than other wives,
reducing him in her eyes as a husband, a lover, and a man?

She watched the
expressions play
over his face in the light. She knew how much she loved him and how
much she wanted him to be hers forever. All evening she had sensed that this
moment might be the right one. She felt instinctively that he wanted to ask her
to marry him. And now, as she watched his face, she saw—what? Indecision?
Conflict? Fear? That was it. It had to be fear—his fear—that being newly blind
he would not be able to fulfill what she needed. And so she reached out and
touched his face with her fingertips, tracing the worry lines she saw furrowing
around his mouth.

"What's
wrong?" she asked quietly. "What's going on inside that big
brain?"

Brenden
reached up, took her hand, and pressed it to his cheek. "Kat, I . . . I .
. ."

"Brenden
McCarthy"—she laughed quietly—"are you trying to ask me to marry
you?"

His sigh was
audible. "Yes. Yes, I am, but maybe ..."

She
interrupted. "Maybe you won't be able to drive? No problem. Maybe I'll
have to tell you what's going on in a movie when we snuggle in the dark? That
sounds pretty great, doesn't it? And about your clothes, I'll have to keep them
organized so you don't go out looking like Stevie Wonder. And then there will
be our bills and the mail and the Sunday paper. I guess you'll just have to put
up with me reading those things to you, which means we'll have to spend a lot
of time together. Isn't that too bad?"

"Kat, I
need to . . ."

"Brenden,"
she said, leaning forward and kissing him, "don't you know how much I love
who you are? Who you are as a person? I love the way when you talk to me
nothing else seems to exist in your world. You're always right there with me
all the time. I love to look at your smile because it's so real. It comes from
deep inside you. It's as if your soul is speaking to me. I love how you touch
me in a way that's intimate and reserved only for us. I know you'll work hard
and that together we'll have a great life because we fit and because God made
us for each other."

Brenden was
crying now. He couldn't help it. But he pulled it together and dropped onto his
knees in front of the girl.

"Kathleen
Collins," he said formally, "will you marry me?"

He was
surprised, very surprised, when Kat rose and stepped around him, going to the
corner of the room where Nelson lay quietly.

Dropping down
to the rug and taking the dog's head in her hands, she said, "Your master
is asking me to marry him and make us a family. I'm saying yes, yes, yes, if
that's all right with you."

The dog
stretched and looked up at the young woman as if he understood the importance
of her words. Holding her eyes and reaching up, he licked her cheek and thumped
his tail in a rhythmic response that said, "It's okay with me, Kat."

Brenden
joined them on the floor, and the group hug said life is going to be okay. No,
more than just okay, much, much more.

chapter twenty-one

As Mora
watched Brenden and Charlie shooting baskets in the backyard, she considered
the way he had learned to cope with his blindness nothing short of a miracle.
She credited most of that miracle to Nelson, the marvelous guide dog that right
now worked to bite a hole in the basketball. Every time Brenden dribbled it,
Nelson tried to grab it. And Gus tried to grab Nelson while Charlie kept
calling fouls on everybody.

Mora loved
the peals of laughter and the enthusiastic play barking of both dogs. She heard
another sound that also warmed her heart: the girl in the room with her,
humming as she set the table.

She really
liked Katherine Collins, especially because the girl never in any way
patronized her son's blindness. Actually Kat didn't cut Brenden any slack when
it came to taking responsibility for the ordinary things of life. Though she
was always there to help him, he cut his meat at the table, kept his clothes
organized, cleaned his apartment, and held the door for Kat like any young
gentleman should when they were on a date.

They set the
Columbus Day weekend for their wedding, and Brenden had done the right thing,
going back to Vermont and formally asking Katherine's father for her hand.

So here they
all were, including Charlie, preparing a special dinner to acknowledge the
anniversary of Brenden's accident. That was the only word Mora could think of—
acknowledge.
It wasn't to honor it or
celebrate it, or even to remember it with sadness. It was simply to acknowledge
the fact that on June twenty-first a year ago, a major event occurred that
changed everyone's life, most of all Brenden's.

The ball
stopped bouncing, and Charlie fired up the grill. Moments later steaks were
sizzling, soon to join a feast of baked potatoes with all the fixings, a Caesar
salad, and an apple pie. All Brenden's favorites, along with an expensive
cabernet that Mora selected as appropriate for the occasion.

"So what
should we toast to?" Kat asked, raising her glass.

"I
suppose you want me to say 'to us.'" Brenden laughed. "And that is
important, the most important thing. But I think tonight it's important to
toast to life and how precious it truly is."

There was a pause
of a heartbeat before the people at the table clinked their glasses, as if they
all were taking in the message and feeling it deep within their hearts.

"Slainte,"
Charlie said. "Isn't that the Irish toast your
dad used to say?"

"Slainte"
Mora intoned, and the glasses clinked again.

After the
dinner dishes were cleared away, they all settled down around the fire. Nelson
and Gus, who had finally played themselves out, sprawled on the cool cement of
the patio, not at all interested in what was going on with the humans.

For the first
time Charlie broached the subject of Brenden's last climb.

"Do you
miss it?" he asked. "I mean, climbing?"

Brenden took
the last sip of his wine and placed the glass on the table thoughtfully.

"Sure I
do, Charlie, and when you talk about climbing, I think about how much it always
meant to me. But not being able to see, well, you lose an awful lot."

Mora was
surprised when Kat jumped in.