that there wasn’t enough money, that education after a certain point was a waste of time and money; he was better off learning the family business. And so, feeling the burden of being the eldest son and probably because it was the safer and easier thing to do, he gave up on his dream of learning and seeing the world. Then his mother told him he was getting too old and he had to get married and start a family. His grandmother, my great-grandmother, urged my father in that direction as well, believing that his marriage and her first great-grandchildren would bring her fortune and much luck in combating her ailments. So he did what he was supposed to do and married the girl his mother chose for him. Always the dutiful son. He had no idea what was about to happen.
“Your daughter is blind,” my grandmother announced to my parents in her loud whisper. This was not a family that minced words.
My father was silent for just a second but then regained his voice. “What do you mean she’s blind? What’s wrong with her?” He turned to gaze at me in denial. In the darkness of the room lit only by one bare incandescent bulb, he could see nothing wrong.
“She has the cataracts, the same thing as Na, but much more severe, it appears. Na can at least see with glasses. This one is not even seeing big things.” My grandmother spoke with the authority of the quack doctors she so despised.
My mother knew what my father was thinking, could feel the fear even—was it genetic, was it her fault, his fault? One child to have cataracts could be a fluke, but two? Would Mau go blind, too? She could not look at him.
My grandmother gestured to my grandfather, who had turned to stare out the window with his back to us, and then said, “Dieh and I have been thinking about what should be done, and we feel that there’s no chance of fixing her eyes. There are no doctors left, and even if there were, the doctors in this country are incompetent. They could do nothing to help her. We feel that it would be best to give her something so she can sleep and never wake up. It’s better to put her out of her misery, so she doesn’t have to suffer needlessly.”
In unison, my parents sucked in air so they would not faint from the horror of my grandmother’s words, gaping up at her, searching for signs of insanity. But her dark eyes were steady and her jaw set. In her most reasonable tone, she said, “I know what I’m saying sounds drastic, but you have to think about what’s best for her and what’s best for this family.”
My mother, so caught up in self-blame, guilt, and grief, had simply assumed that she would continue to care for me as she had cared for Lyna, hopeful that there would be a doctor, an herbalist, someone who could help now or later. She spoke for the first time, daring to challenge her mother-in-law, as she had never done before. “I can’t do that to my own child. She’s my flesh, my responsibility. I will care for her by myself.”
My grandmother could and would punish anyone who dared to challenge her, especially a daughter-in-law who lived under her roof. “You cannot care for her by yourself, or don’t you realize that? Have you forgotten that you have other children, one of whom already has vision problems? Have you thought about what her life is going to be like? Have you? I have! Can you imagine what it’s like not to be able to see? It would be a miserable, horrible existence. I’d rather be deaf than blind. She won’t be able to walk down the street by herself. She won’t even be able to get around the house without bumping into things. And what about when she starts getting her period? She’ll bleed all over the place, dripping like a wild bitch. And who would ever want to marry a blind girl? Who could love a blind girl? Who would voluntarily want to take care of her? No one. And without anyone to take care of her after you are gone, she’s just going to end up on the streets begging for food like the armless and legless people you see now. Do you want your daughter to end up like that? Do you?”
My mother