A Blindness That Touches Perfection

We sit together, there in the darkness.

In momentary, fleeting bursts of light our features are illuminated — lit harsh and brilliant in xenon; then soft and shadow-drenched in gentle pulses of sodium. I glance up to the rear-view and see them sitting there, side by side by side, in their thick winter coats and warm, fleecy hats. They are luminous; effortlessly beautiful, and completely at ease in each other's company. Here, together, in this zone of familiar comforts, in these slipstream minutes of transition from the work of children to the shelter of home, they are unveiled.

In the middle is a 4-year old girl. From beneath the rounded flare of her soft blue hat long straws of blonde hair erupt in bold and random geysers, rays of tangential joy radiating out and away from the solar glow of her startling blue eyes, her pale skin, her crooked smile. In her small hands she holds a stuffed snowman — a gift from Santa, a sacred relic of a higher power cloaked in love and red velvet. She holds him close, as though trying to warm him after a long and trying day apart. "He's an inside snowman, Daddy. That's so he doesn't melt when I give him hugs." He grins up at her, his knitted smile reflecting her own.

"Dada," the other 4-year old girl says. It is a baby's name for a father, but one she still chooses to use. It is an intimate term: a source of comfort, meant only for ears that understand. She says it as if it is a question, but does not wait for an answer. "In school today, Gwenny and I were playing with the magnets, and we built a big big tower, and we were gonna build it way up high to the sky, and then Julia came over and she knocked it down, and she wouldn't even say she was sorry." Ah. This is a Julia story. Julia is the evil genius of pre-K, and variations on this story are a constant and recurring theme in our lives.

"I'm sorry," I say, because it is my turn to speak, and to spur the story forward. She continues on, detailing the other wrongs and small dramas of the day, choosing her words with a care and intelligence that belies her name for me. She is sitting behind me, her face obscured by night, but I know precisely what she is doing. She is looking out her window, staring out and through other lit windows and into the houses we pass, drinking in these flickering glimpses of other lives, her expression serious and thoughtful as she tells her story because it is her story and because it is important to tell. Her hair is a twisting cascade of dark water, framing her full face and infinitely huge brown eyes.

After a minute or two, her sister chimes in. Color commentary: details about who played with who, who was mean, who was sick, who wasn't nice to her, who said who was going to marry someone else, who... the details quickly spiral beyond my ability to follow, but their dialogue evolves and warps and swoops and soars, at turns complementary and contentious, an intricately detailed portrait of the hours that were and the lives that experienced them and the odd and shifting prisms of perspective that shaped their day, together and apart.

Quietly, my son sits to the other side. I glance back over my shoulder, watching him watching the night slide past, a thin blade of glass sheltering him from the frigid air and rigors of a demanding world. He is often quiet, on these drives. Letting the weight of expectation fall from his thin shoulders, freeing him at last to breathe easy. The days are long, for him — these hours of constant scrutiny, trial and error, trying and trying again. Carefully watched for a reason, with painstaking devotion and love. Those are Ian Curtis' words. And for a moment, I am grateful, because I know that during these long hours he is loved, and what a rare and wonderful thing that is. But I am also aware, keenly (and keenly, in the sense of something acute growing impossibly long and piercing), that his days are never recounted in the labyrinthine social algebras of his sisters. 

In time, the girls fall quiet. And after a moment, I broach the silence. I speak his name, softly. I ask him how his day was. "Fine," he answers. There is no affect to his voice, no hidden messages in the answer. Fine is the response because he has learned that fine is how people respond. I know he would prefer that I let it lie. This once, I do not. I speak his name again, softly. "Buddy," I ask. "Do you... are you lonely, at school?"

There is time for a breath, then two, and then he replies. His voice is as gentle as the voice of a six-year old boy might ever be. "I don't want to talk about that," he says. His gaze never wavers from the window. I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. Then I tell him that I love him. Then I say nothing again. We listen to the engine, and the rumble of wind pressing through the trees and brushing against glass.

A blindness that touches perfection,
But hurts just like anything else.

We drive, carving a careful pattern across our small corner of the world. Our headlights bathe the path ahead with shimmering fluorescence, casting enough light to allow us to think we know the way. The road behind glows with a soft throb of dimming amber, the night pouring in to fill the empty spaces we once filled with voices and laughter and the knowing smile of snowmen. 

It is a cold night.