There’s a smile in his voice. He sounds kind of excited about this “challenge” he’s created for me.
But as far as teaching methods go, wouldn’t it make more sense to give me some easy ones to start off with? Why not let me build my confidence by, say, going into the kitchen and finding the blender and the coffeemaker? Going into the living room and finding the TV? That kind of thing. Why deliberately make it more difficult by bringing an object out of its native habitat?
“Fine,” I say with annoyance. “I’ll attempt your ‘challenge.’”
Instinctively, my hands draw up from my waist the way people say gunslingers draw from their holsters in Western movies.
“Sorry,” I say. “Old habit.”
Dad grunts something indecipherable.
I scan the wall with my eyes. It seems to be white. That’s something I’ve learned this week: Most walls are white. I never knew that when I was blind. I guess I always thought most walls were black. Some of the kids at my old school, who weren’t totally blind, told me how they’d invert the colors on their computer screens so that the background is blue or black, to make the white text and colored images easier to see. And I know people like to hang colorful decorations on their walls. So I’d always assumed they’d want black walls to make the decorations more visible. Apparently I assumed wrong.
Below the mass of white and the rectangles of the picture frames, I observe a complex, multicolored object. The shapes bounce and swirl as I try to pin them down with my gaze. I feel like I am angling my chin to look at it, which suggests it is below my eye level. So I squat. Sure enough, the object appears to grow in front of me. It’s now massive and a little overwhelming. I decide to break it into its component shapes, figure them out one at a time. But whenever I identify a single shape and move on to another, I lose track of the first one and have to start all over again. It feels like when I couldn’t count the dots on that die.
The task is even more difficult for me because the shapes overlap one another. Presumably if I had a better understanding of depth, I could differentiate which shape is at which depth, but because the world appears essentially flat to me, all the lines run together, crisscrossing, bending, curling over one another. Is that line important? How about this one? Which lines make up the most essential outline of this object?
“Want a clue?” Dad asks.
“No,” I snap, sounding angrier than I intend to. I don’t want to let on that his little challenge is getting to me.
When I read braille, I move from left to right. So I decide to try that method.
I step back and stare at the left side of the object. After a while, I notice a circle. It is crisscrossed with an incalculable number of lines, but there is definitely a circle around the edges. I move right from the circle to the middle of the object. That section is complete nonsense to me, all the colors and shapes stacked up on each other. I move to the right again. After a while, I notice another circle, similar to the one on the left. Two circles. One on each side.
“I’ve got it!” I say, jumping up, ready to prove Dad wrong with my realization. “It’s a pair of glasses!”
“No, guess again,” he says, disappointed.
Two circles. One on each side.
“A dumbbell? From the weight set in the basement?”
“It’s much, much larger than glasses or a dumbbell.”
Well, if he’s trying to demonstrate that I can’t judge size, he’s right. I can’t. Yet.
But then it hits me. Two circles. Two wheels.
“A bike!”
“Yes!” he exclaims, clapping me on the shoulder. “A bike!”
I reach out and touch the circles, and the rubber treads light up for me: Tires, say my fingers. I run my hands along the center, and it names itself: Metal bike frame.
“You probably thought—” I begin to lash out at him for his attempt to stump me, but he interrupts.
“It’s for you!”
“What?”
“A gift! For you!” He’s almost giddy now. And let me emphasize this: My father is not an emotional man. I witness him get this excited maybe once a year, like when the Tour de France is on TV or something.
“I can’t even walk, Dad. Much less ride a bike,” I say, confused.
“That’s why I got it for you!”
“I don’t get it.”
“I know you can’t walk by sight yet, but soon you’ll be able to. And soon after that, you’ll be able to ride a bike. I want you to know that I believe in you. I believe you’ll one day be able to ride this thing.”
I’m speechless.
“Will, I know I advised you not to get the operation. And maybe I wasn’t as supportive as I should have been. But you are braver than me, son. You are in some ways… in some ways more of a man than I am. And that’s why you went through with it anyway. Now you can see. And one day, we’ll go on a bike ride together.”
“Thanks, Dad.” It means a lot. More than I can express, or want to express.