“Okay,” Chaz said “I can’t say no to a chance of seeing better,” she said.
“I’ll see if you can get an appointment next week,” I said and then frowned when I thought about Kayden. We couldn’t go with him. It would be too exhausting.
“You’re frowning,” Chaz said.
“Yeah. I’m thinking about Kayden.”
“Lulu can watch him. She’s my colleague at work. She has a boy who is Kayden’s age and they’ve played together a few times.”
“That’s settled then,” I said and shifted my thoughts to Chaz. So many things made sense now. Her refusal to drive. It wasn’t a matter of vanity as I’d suspected. It was that she couldn’t see.
“How much do you see?” I asked her.
“Blurry. I can’t see details in a person’s face except for people I knew before my eyesight deteriorated.” She laughed softly. “Those ones have their faces ingrained in my brain.”
A thought came to me that also filled another hole. “Is that why he left you? Because of your eyesight?”
Chaz dropped her head. That was enough of an answer. I folded my right hand into a fist and wished the loser was here so that I could slam it into his face. What kind of man left his woman when she got sick?
“I’m so sorry, Chaz,” I said, fighting to control the anger in my voice. “He was a loser. Any man who can leave his woman because of an illness should not be called a man.”
She never spoke.
Kayden woke up after half an hour, energized and ready to continue with the zoo adventures. My earlier joy had disappeared and I felt both angry and guilty about Chaz’s eye illness. I was angry at her lover who had hightailed it when she got sick and also for Kayden.
How could you abandon your pregnant lover in her hour of need? It baffled me and no matter which way I looked at it, the man was an asshole.
I felt guilty that I’d believed her when she implied that she didn’t want to wear glasses because of her looks. That wasn’t Charlotte. She was beautiful in a way that could stop traffic but she had never been obsessed with her looks in any way.
The monkey enclosure was the last one and I was glad when it was time to go home. I was eager to get on my laptop and do some research. The sooner I got Charlotte that appointment the better I would feel.
“I wish you would have gotten in touch with me when you were diagnosed,” I said to her as we drove back. “Or even later when Kayden’s dad left.”
“I did,” she said.
“What?”
“You had changed cell phone numbers so I called your parents’ house,” she said. “I left a message with your mom.”
Fresh anger gripped me. “She never told me.”
“Yeah, I have since figured that out,” she said, her voice casual.
I gripped the steering wheel harder. How could she not have told me? I loved my mother but I disliked her interference in people’s lives! This time, it had cost Charlotte a friend when she desperately needed one.
“I’m very, very sorry,” I said.
“Hey, don’t be upset.” She patted my shoulder. “It was a long time ago and I did manage after all.”
“I’m just glad that my mother’s not here.”
Back home, Chaz carried a tired but still awake Kayden into the house while I carried the bags and carrier. I helped Chaz prepare Kayden’s bath and then left to go check myself out of the B&B.
I packed all my stuff while my mind came up with a plan. Finally, I decided on the people I needed to call. First on my list was Sam. He was an old friend and his father was a renowned ophthalmologist.
He promised to speak to his dad and call be back pronto. If Sam didn’t work out, I would call Lisa, another old friend. Her mother was also in the eye medical field.
Sam called me back after ten minutes. It turned out that his father and Dr. Mueller were friends and Chaz had an appointment to see him on Monday.
“Sweet,” I said to Sam. “I owe you man!”
That settled, I grabbed my two suitcases when a switch suddenly turned on in my mind. A thought so clear and so shocking that I dropped them and sat back down on the bed.
My chest rose up and down as I stared straight ahead unseeing him. Kayden. He was my son. Thoughts jumbled in my brain. Memories. Snippets of conversations. Amy’s words.
Charlotte must have had another reason. She loved you.
Even her sister, who had not known Charlotte for long, had insisted that there must have been another reason why Charlotte left and not the one she said.
I searched my memory for another instance that was significant. I searched and sieved until I found it. Charlotte losing her balance a lot and walking into things in the last few months before she left.