McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [95]
She was, Suze had to say, scrupulous about bringing the drops and pills that kept down the intraocular pressure. It had, of course, occurred to Suze that cannabis was a specific for her type of eye degeneration, but she had instantly dismissed the possibility of asking the girl for the phone number of one of the high-school potheads. Sooner or later, the ophthalmologist would decide the standard medications weren’t keeping her IOP low enough, and they’d start the rounds of medicinal pot. In the meantime, she’d just have to wait— with the way her luck had been going lately, the first person she asked about buying grass would turn out to be a narc.
Courtney might look askance on a lesbian relationship, but she was dutiful at her Christian goodwill, and as she sat down to eat, she asked, “Any news on Janna last night?”
“Much the same. That new nurse suggested I bring some music when we go on Sunday.”
“You want me to help pick some out?”
“I’ll do it,” Suze said. Then, hearing the shortness in her answer, she added, “If I have any problems, I’ll ask for help.”
“We prayed for her in youth group last night. I hope you don’t mind.”
Suze did, but what could she do? Tell the girl to stop? “Of course not.”
“My friend Lin’s grandmother had a stroke last year; she’s a lot better now, just a small limp and she slurs certain words.”
“Good for her.”
“I only meant—”
“I know, Courtney. I’m just finding it tough to be upbeat.” Five weeks of limbo; at what point should she think about getting on with her own life? And maybe she should let the girl choose the music; Courtney probably knew more about Janna’s taste than Janna’s whirlwind lover did.
When Courtney drove away, as always, Suze felt a great relief. With, as always, a sense that the cabin was terribly remote.
Some evenings, after her ritual call to Janna’s nursing home, Suze turned up every light in the cabin, setting the small world to blazing, giving form to the uncertainty in which she lived. Other nights she settled into the darkness as she would have stepped into a woodland pool, slowly, half apprehensive of encountering some slippery creature underfoot, but intimately aware of the rich sensations to be gained by allowing the cool water to rise around her, submerge her, transform her into one of its own.
Tonight was a night for darkness. For one thing, she was nearly finished with the piece on the loom, and tomorrow or the next day she would cut it off, put it aside for finishing, and prepare the warp for the next one. The next piece would be black, and she needed to think about it for a while, in the darkness.
The night was cool. She poured a glass of whiskey and picked up the thick alpaca-and-silk blanket she had made for Janna, her first piece off the new loom, finished just days before the stroke. She curled into the deck chair on the porch, wrapped in warmth, sipping the drink, shaping the weaving in her inner eye. It would be a big one, as wide as this sixteen-harness loom would take. And for once, she would incorporate color—although even the sighted would only be aware of it peripherally, as a texture in the darkness. She had once, several years ago, worked with a glossy, seemingly black thread that in fact had a few, a very few infinitesimal threads of intense color spun into it, turquoise and coral and emerald, invisible from more than a few inches but adding an emotional richness to the final black. She’d already had the spinner do the yarn for her, knew it would be precisely as her memory held it, knew that if she blended it on the loom with the same unrelieved flat ebony linen as the warp threads, it would give her a strong contrast while appearing monochromatic. The mind, she reflected, often saw things the eyes did not perceive.
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