Chapter Five
A couple of days after Dad’s trip to the emergency room, a neural ophthalmologist confirmed the diagnosis that Dad would be blind in a measly six months. In the week since then, we’d been on a yo-yo diet of denial, bouncing between Mom’s manic optimism and Dad’s stoic silence. Case in point: Dad had insisted on trail running with me this afternoon like everything was normal. Not that I would ever tell him this, but I kept worrying that he was going to trip on some tree root he couldn’t see and knock out his teeth or worse.
Then, as luck would have it, our next-door neighbor Mrs. Harris—beloved resident watchdog—spied my dad and me returning from our run. Her warm gray eyes disappeared into a frown that compressed her double chin as we walked past her house. A few weeks ago, Mrs. Harris had questioned our goal of climbing Rainier this summer with a “Why on earth would you do that?” Today, she questioned our sanity: “Why on earth would you still want to do that?”
Who knew that concern could be so suffocating? At her question, I felt the wild rush of colossal unfairness. Here was just one more way our lives would change, one more plan being stripped from Dad. I made a hasty excuse to leave, but in my hurry to get away from her prying eyes, I almost tripped on a box left on our doorstep. My irritation was two seconds away from boiling over until I noticed the logo of my dad’s favorite camera supply store on the label.
My camera had arrived.
I cast a guilty glance at Dad, who was still chatting with Mrs. Harris on her porch. How could I have wasted a fortune when he was worried about earning a living once he was blind? I rested the box on my hip as I opened the front door quietly. Without a word, I crept upstairs like I was stashing contraband drugs inside our home.
“Shana, that you?” Mom called.
“I’ll be down in a sec!” I answered, leaving the box on my bedroom floor. After I shut the door with a firm click, I trotted downstairs toward the tantalizing scent of garlic. Foil-wrapped baguettes rested on the kitchen counter alongside a pan of roasted Brussels sprouts and crispy pancetta. “Wow, Mom, you went all out.” I examined the half dozen types of cookies tucked in plastic bags.
“Ginny sent another care package,” she said.
“That’s so Ginny.”
Mom leaned down to peer into the oven. “I thought I should start freezing some meals for later.”
“Later,” I silently translated, meant “after blindness.”
“Mom,” I said, “we still have months.…”
“Maybe.”
Half of Mom refused to believe that Dad’s sight was moving from endangered to extinct; the other half seemed to be hunkering down for war. At the sound of the front door opening, Mom called out eagerly, “Gregor!” But there was no returning “Hey, hey! Where are my best girls?” Instead, we got a sepia version of Dad, bled of color: “Hey.”
Mom chirped, “Hope you’re hungry!”
Dad managed a limp smile. In the dim kitchen light, I couldn’t see the last traces of the bruises from his fall, but there was no missing the dark bags pleating the skin under his eyes. Never a great sleeper, Dad looked like he hadn’t managed more than a few hours since his diagnosis.
“So lasagna and burritos. We might get tired of eating them,” Mom babbled, “but they freeze really well.”
Few people are immune to the call of Mom’s four-cheese lasagna, the one dish she can cook reliably well. But tonight, not even this could cajole a real smile from Dad, not when he spotted his camera and their Fifty by Fifty Manifesto alongside a new guidebook, 1,000 Ultimate Adventures, on the kitchen table.
“Mollie…” Dad sighed and bypassed the table for the living room, where he all but fell into his old, fraying armchair, imprinted with his shape.
If he thought he could escape Mom, he was wrong. She followed and perched on the coffee table in front of him. “Gregor, listen. I think we should cash out our retirement.”
Dad stood, shaking his head, and sidestepped around her to the kitchen, where he reached for a beer in the fridge. Now didn’t seem like a good time to remind him that we’d been told alcohol might accelerate his blindness. Mom couldn’t care less that he had his back to her. She plodded on. “Let’s take the next six months and travel. You can do your photography. We’ve got forty-nine places left on our manifesto. So let’s choose the places you want to see the most. And just go.”
Finally, Dad turned and took her hand, leading her to the kitchen table as though she were the one going blind. He sat at the head of the table and said, “Mollie, I love you for suggesting that, but it’s totally impractical. You know that.”
Mom’s eyes burned with evangelical intensity. “No, you listen to me, Gregor Wilde. I don’t want us to look back on life and regret that we didn’t do more before it was too late. I’m not going to just sit around for the next six months playing wait and see.”
“So to speak.” Dad laughed so grimly that I flinched.
“Aside from money, what’s keeping us?” Mom argued.
“What are we going to do about Shana, for one? Junior year’s the most important year. We can’t exactly pull her out of school and take her with us.”
“Why not? We can homeschool. She’s only got three more months of junior year. Colleges would love that she went traveling, and just think of her portfolio. Right, Shana?” Mom’s gaze slipped over to me as she nodded her head vigorously, willing me to agree. “Right?”
It was one thing to declare to Reb and Ginny and anyone who would listen that I was done with high school. College couldn’t come any faster. And another to pull out halfway through junior year.
Mom urged, “Let’s choose one trip, then.”
“We’re already climbing Rainier,” Dad said. “Isn’t that enough?”
“That’s three months from now.…” Mom’s voice trailed off as each of us filled in the blank. It might be too late in three months. Her face brightened. “Machu Picchu.” Mom held up their frayed napkin of dreams, stained with age, and pointed at its primo spot at the top of the list. “We’ve always wanted to see Machu Picchu.”
“Reb said the trail passes have already been sold out for the season,” I murmured.
Dad latched on to the excuse. “See? This is so slapdash. It’d be a total waste of money.”
“So okay, maybe not Machu Picchu. What about Patagonia? Or Kili? Something’s got to be in season now.” Mom held the thick guidebook out to Dad, but when he didn’t take it, she opened it randomly. “Or a month from now. We have enough saved for three big trips. We could take each of the kids on one. Spend some quality time with each one alone.”
“I won’t do this,” Dad said firmly. “Not to you, not to the kids. I won’t be selfish.”
Selfish.
“The boys haven’t needed our money for years, and I’ll work full-time.…” Mom’s voice faded. We all knew Mom’s refusal to travel for work because she wanted to stay close to home had limited the projects she was offered since so many executives required on-site support for their keynote speeches. How could she travel when Dad would need her soon? She glanced at me like I might betray her again by sharing that thought. “Shana, why don’t you give your dad and me some privacy, okay?”
Unable to think or breathe, I was only too happy to leave my parents, as they began to talk about how Dad had had to take over the family business. And set aside his own college education. And then the twins arrived. And then unexpected me.
Selfish.
My heart tilted as I rounded the main stairs and stopped at the second set of narrower steps, which led to Dad’s attic office. As always, the treads were stacked with travel books that Mom collected from around the house for him to reshelve. Where other girls got bedtime stories, I got death-defying stories from memoirs filled with the epic adventures Dad had intended to have… before the diagnosis ground his dreams to dust.
Once in my bedroom, I banished the package to the corner, still unopened. I couldn’t bring myself to unpack the camera. How on earth could I possibly be a photographer when Dad had sacrificed that same dream career to take care of us?
The eggplant dark of early evening shrouded the room. I was glad for it. The presence of my new camera felt reproachful, but I didn’t know where to store it—my microscopic closet was already crammed with shoes, books, old art projects. Then I glanced at the hope chest and knew I’d found the perfect coffin. When I opened the lid, I caught the familiar whiff of cedar along with the expensive perfume Dom had given to me on our third-to-last date. I had tucked that bottle away along with every gift Dom had given me because they were too painful to see out in the open. As I nudged aside the boxes filled with other childhood mementos that Mom had saved, I touched the plastic container that held my first camera, bright red, inherited from Dad. My hand recoiled.
Selfish.
The night after the ophthalmologist confirmed that Dad was going blind, Mom had come into my bedroom to check on me. Sitting beside her on the bed, I asked, “Is Dad going to be okay?” Mom’s answer had been an emphatic “yes,” but she had worried her bottom lip.
Dad would never be okay if he didn’t take this chance to travel and photograph. I knew that. I lay down on my bed now, my eyes tearing. I was selfish to stand in his way. What was the worst thing that could happen to me? Repeat junior year because I bombed Chem?
Selfish.
My entire life of the best still lay in front of me; Dad had spent a life settling for second best because of us. Me.
Selfish.
I finally opened the package, labeled with my name, and withdrew the brand-new camera from its plastic bag. Once it was freed, I blew a speck of dust from its sleek black exterior. The weight of the camera felt right in my hands, but I knew which hands would appreciate it more. Which hands should have been documenting life. Which hands were empty now.
So I picked up the phone and dialed a number I knew by heart: Reb.
“Hey, are there still two spots left on your trip?” I asked.
“Oh, my gosh! Your parents actually want to go?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Then I’m pretty sure there’s room for them.” Reb continued in a breathless rush, “You have to go with them.”
“How? You said there were only two spots left.”
“There are. But if you’re okay helping Grandma Stesha out during the trek, I’ll ask her if you can take my place.”
“I can’t do that.”
“This is probably going to be the only time you’ll ever photograph Machu Picchu with your dad.”
My eyes overflowed with tears at her offer. I bit my lip. “I know.”
“So just say yes.”
Down in the living room, my parents were sitting on the couch, the flames in the potbellied stove banked low. I lifted the dream camera and took their photo. The flash startled them.
“Shana!” Mom said, hand to her heart. “You scared me half to death.”
Into my father’s hands, I placed the new camera, the next best thing to lifelong sight.
“Dad,” I said. “We’re taking you on a photo safari to Machu Picchu.”