We So Seldom Look on Love Read Online Free Page B

case—she can’t grasp the idea of black against white, and Aunt Bea finally gives up trying to explain. “You’ll see,” she says.
    “I’ll
see!” Terry loves saying this. She thinks it’s the cleverest joke.
She’ll
see—everything will become clear to her in a few days. She takes it for granted that she will know how to read as soon as she opens a book.
    She also takes it for granted that people will want to adopt her, now that she’s “normal.” Aunt Bea is wounded by the eagerness in her voice. In a cautiously optimistic tone she says, “They probably will.” Aunt Bea realizes, of course, that more couples will be interested, but there are still the adjustment problems that the doctor mentioned. And there’s the birthmark, not just the first, startling sight of it, but having to deal with the laser-beam operation and
its
aftermath—expensive lotions or infections or whatever. In Aunt Bea’s experience, there’s always something. She can’t help feeling the faintest breath of relief when she takes into account the birthmark. She hugs Julie and says, “Don’t you worry. Penny will be back home before you know it.”
    Julie says, “Can Penny see yet?”
    She asks every ten minutes. She is also suddenly obsessed by Terry’s mother. Whenever they pass a woman in the hall of their apartment building—even a woman she knows—she asks, “Is that Penny’s mother?”
    “How many times have I told you?” Aunt Bea says, and this becomes another worry, not Julie’s questions (who can hope to fathom what goes on in that child’s damaged head?) but her own impatience with them. To strengthen herself she sings “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” One night she falls into such a swamp of pity over Julie’s childhood that she gets out of bed and sews her a dress out of the green velvet and white silk she’d intended to make Terry a dress out of. But when she presentsthe dress to Julie the next morning, Julie plants her fists on her hips and says, “Throw it in the garbage.” So Aunt Bea cuts the threads and turns the dress into Terry’s after all. She takes it to the hospital, her intention all along being that when the bandage is removed Terry should see the colour she has decided will be her favourite.
    The doctor leads Terry to a chair and asks her to sit. Aunt Bea sits at the edge of the sofa.
    “I just hope the blinds are closed,” Terry says.
    “They are.” The doctor laughs.
    “She doesn’t miss a trick, that one,” Aunt Bea says, leaning forward to smooth Terry’s dress. She regrets the white sash and trim—she thinks they give the impression that she had bandages on the brain. She startles herself by letting out an explosive sob.
    “It’s so gloomy in here,” the nurse says sympathetically.
    “Are you crying?” Terry asks. “What are you crying for?”
    Aunt Bea extracts a wad of Kleenex from the sleeve of her sweater. “I always cry at miracles,” she says. She squeezes Terry’s bony knee. Terry is so keyed up that her legs are sticking straight out like a doll’s. She tucks them in fast, however, when the doctor asks if she’s all set. He moves a stool in front of her, sits, then signals to the nurse, who turns a dial on the wall.
    The room darkens. Everything white seems to leap out—his gown, the silk, the bandage, the moons of his fingers touching the bandage. Aunt Bea looks at the moons in her own fingers, at the Kleenex. She glances up at the light, wondering if it has a special bulb. On the far wall are staves of light from the gaps between the venetian blinds.
    “Oh,” Terry says.
    The bandage is off.
    The whites of her eyes are so white.
    “Do your eyes hurt?” the doctor asks.
    Terry blinks. “No,” she whispers. The doctor waits a moment, then raises his hand a fraction and the nurse turns the dial.
    “Angels,” Terry says. All she can see are dazzling slashes and spots.
    Aunt Bea is overcome. “Oh, dear Lord,” she sobs.
    “That is light,” the doctor