“He’s still in surgery. There are two ophthalmologic surgeons. They got here right away. It’s his left eye. It’s pretty bad. But they said they would give it their best. The nurses said these guys are amazing.”
“His eye…？ What?”
“It will be a while yet.”
“What happened to his eye? Did something go wrong with the machinery?”
“Thea, there was a fight.”
We listened as Andy pieced together what had happened. From what he heard, a kid not much older than Stefan hit him in the back with a two-by-four, knocking him down. Stefan stood up, waiting for the guy to say something, but the kid just walked away. Andy heard Stefan say, “Man, what’s up with this?” The kid’s reply was something like, you don’t want to get going with me, I’m not a girl. Stefan asked him to say it again, to his face. In reply, another guy charged him. Stefan knocked that guy down. There was a melee, six or seven people scuffling, some on Stefan’s side, some on the other guy’s. A few of them, not Stefan, picked up boards and swung away. Evidently, one board had a nail in it and the nail went into the outside corner of Stefan’s eye. “Which was good, I guess, that it didn’t go right into the middle…”
“Which is the good part?” I said. Andy’s face was all concern and kindness, and I knew enough to see that a workplace injury with possible criminal charges was going to cost him time and money, not even reckoning the cost of Stefan’s surgery. “That board with a nail in it, that was no accident.”
“Let’s deal with all this later,” Amelia said. “Let’s just wait until we can talk to the doctors.”
Conversation ran out before the end of the first hour. I wanted to ask Amelia over and over, do you think he’ll be all right? Do you think he’ll lose his eye? She was the sister most tolerant of my anxieties. But it would have driven her and Jep nuts. So I got up and took a long walk. Another hour went by. I checked my phone when I got back and saw a text from Julie, on her way, and one from my mother—Please call and let me know how he is. A third text was from the girl with the crying voice, ever a presence. It was as if she had some kind of uncanny ability to catch me in moments of maximum stress.
I have to tell someone, she wrote. I deleted it. Then I prayed.
Now, I was never really a believer. The sounds and scents of the Orthodox Church in which my parents raised me were precious childhood images, but I had never felt the presence of God. Still, helpless, I now prayed to the blank, impassive universe, offering my sight in exchange for Stefan’s. That night in Black Creek three years ago, I had offered my life in exchange for Belinda’s—but not Stefan’s life in exchange. Perhaps that was the turn of the key. Maybe they don’t listen on high unless you offer up what is most precious to you.
After three hours, one of the doctors emerged, looking just as an eye surgeon should look—thin, ascetic, gentle. “I hope we got lucky,” he said. “I hope so. We won’t know how much of a genius I am until the healing is complete, and that’s going to take a while. A good while.” Briefly but not unkindly, he explained that Stefan’s eye socket and nose were broken and that the nail had pierced the eye. There had been some muscle damage, which the surgeon was reasonably sure he had addressed. The worries were function and nerve damage. The best was a full recovery, which the doctor thought we could honestly hope for. The worst was diminished vision and lingering pain. The eye would not “look funny” long-term, he explained, adding that young people cared about that, and they were right to care. Either way, Stefan would be able to drive and do most things and if there were lingering nerve pain, that could possibly be addressed with another operation. “For now, let’s hope that’s something you folks never have to consider. Tell him to stay out of bar fights after this!”
A bar was where we all went after Stefan was moved from recovery to a private room. We looked in on him, but he was sound asleep, lost to the world for the moment, gauze covering both his eyes.
Andy explained his quandary. Somebody knew who’d actually wielded the board with the nail in it. Somebody knew just how the whole event was planned to injure Stefan. Somebody knew why now, instead of six weeks or a month ago. Andy had no idea who that someone was, and he was certain that the group would never give up the individual who planned it all. Andy’s was not a union shop, so that was one worry off his plate. I didn’t like the sound of that. His concern was about whether to report the incident to the police.