been stitched back together by a plastic surgeon. Zachariah’s short, jagged fingernails had pierced the sclera, but not the choroid or the optic nerve, the retina or the cornea.
The thief of sight was a hemorrhagic stroke, subsequent to a congenital cerebral aneurysm rupturing during surgery, that had damaged some of the fibers responsible for transmitting visual information from Sam’s eyes to her brain. Her vision corrected to 20/40, a threshold for driving in most states, but the peripheral vision in her right eye fell below twenty degrees of vision.
For legal purposes, Sam was considered blind.
Fortunately, there never seemed to be a need for Sam to drive herself. She took cars to and from the airport. She walked to work, or to the market, or to various appointments and social gatherings in her immediate neighborhood. If she needed to go uptown, she could hail a cab or ask Eldrin to book a car. She had never been one of those New Yorkers who claimed to love the city but couldn’t wait to escape to the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard the moment they were able to buy a second home. Sam and Anton had never even discussed the possibility. If they wanted to see open water, they could go to Palioxori or Korčula, not trap themselves in the cloistered equivalent of a Manhattan Disney beach vacation.
Sam’s phone vibrated. She hadn’t realized she was holding it so tightly until she saw her own sweat on the margins of the screen.
Ben had been sporadically updating her since Sam had emailed back last night. First, Rusty was in surgery, then he was out of surgery and in the ICU, then he was back in surgery for a bleed that had been missed, then he was back in the ICU again.
The latest update was the same she’d seen before the plane had taken off:
No change.
Sam looked at the time. Ben had tracked the Delta flight number that Sam had provided him. His email came ten minutes after the scheduled landing time. He had no idea that Sam had lied about the flight number as well as the flight itself. Stehlik, Elton, Mallory and Sanders had a corporate jet that was kept available for partners by level of seniority. Sam’s name was not yet on the stainless steel sign opposite the elevator doors, but the contracts had been signed, her buy-in had been wired, and the jet was made ready the moment she’d had Eldrin place the call.
But Sam had not left last night.
She had looked up the number of the early Delta flight to send to Ben. She had packed a bag. She had emailed the cat sitter. She had sat at her kitchen counter. She had listened to Fosco snore and grunt as he settled on the chair beside her, and she had cried.
What was she giving up to return to Pikeville?
Sam had promised Gamma she would never return.
Though if her mother had lived, if Gamma was still inhabiting the higgledy-piggledy farmhouse, surely Sam would have returned at Christmastime, perhaps even holidays in between. Gamma would have driven down for dinners in Atlanta when Sam had business in the city. Sam would have taken her mother to Brazil or New Zealand or wherever Gamma wanted to go. The break with Charlie would not have happened. Sam would have been a proper sister, sister-in-law, perhaps even an aunt.
Sam’s relationship with Rusty would likely be the same, if not worse, because she would have to see him, but Rusty thrived on that type of adversity. Maybe Sam would have too—in that other life, the one she would have lived had she not been shot in the head.
Sam would be able-bodied.
She could be running every morning rather than swimming her lackadaisical laps. She could walk without pain. Raise her hand in the air without wondering how high it would reach that day. She could trust her mouth to clearly articulate the words in her head. She could drive herself up the interstate. She could relish the freedom of knowing that her body, her mind, her brain, were whole.
Sam swallowed back the grief that sat at the base of her throat. She had not indulged herself in these what-if scenarios since leaving the Shepherd Spinal Center. If she allowed herself the luxury of sadness now, she would become paralyzed.
She looked down at her phone, skimmed up to Ben’s first email.
Charlie needs you.
He had found the one phrase that would make Sam respond.
But not quickly. Not without considerable equivocation.
Last night,