PANHANDLE

     Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately considering our dirt-poor childhood in the Florida panhandle, my sister was born blind.  She didn’t catch a fever and fry her eyeballs like the kid down the road or get a lid infection from a chigger bite.  Nope, she was born with eyes that just didn’t grow along with her.  Beady little things without any white, they sort of poked out unfocused and moved around every which-a-way, one looking at Paris while the other scanned for London.  

When they brought her home from the hospital, my parents looked worse than usual.  I rushed out to see, but my father pushed me away and my mother covered my sister’s head with a blanket.  I followed them into the house, knowing something was wrong.

     They lay her down on their bed and that’s when I knew for sure something wasn’t right.  I’d seen babies before, real fresh red ones, and even though some had their eyes buried in chubby slits, they would wobble their heads and you could tell they were trying to see what was going on around them.  But my sister just lay there, like she was expecting something, barely moving, like a surprised mouse caught in a corner when you turn on the lights.  I figured out later that she was listening, all her attention was focused on her ears.

     “What’s wrong with her?” I said.

     My daddy almost spit on the floor in disgust as he walked out of the room.  My mom stood there, face blank,  I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.  “She can’t see,” she said and left the room. 

I looked down at my sister.  I put my hands in front of her and wiggled my fingers.  I lowered my face down and stuck out my tongue.  I shook my head and scrunched up my eyes.  I smiled and frowned and bared my teeth and stuck my fingers in my nose.  It seemed like she knew I was there, but she didn’t move. 

Then I clapped my hands in front of her face and she bucked up like a rodeo bull.  I jumped back, scared for a second, and clapped again, louder.  This time she flipped all the way over onto her belly.  She lay on the bed squirming like a tadpole out of water, still wrapped up in the blanket, face down.  I was afraid she was going to suffocate.  I knew I scared her, but I started laughing, I couldn’t help myself, she looked so funny flopping over, and when I turned her back, she had the biggest grin on her mouth that I had ever seen on a baby.  It just kept getting wider and wider, her gums sticking out all pink and shiny, and suddenly she let out the biggest baby laugh I’d ever heard.  I couldn’t believe it came out of her.  She stopped for a second, took a big breath, and laughed even louder.  Tears streamed out of her eyes.  When she got older, my sister would be famous for her laugh. 

My mom and dad ran into the room.  “What in the hell are you doing?” my dad said.

“Nothing,” I said, and with that my sister and I started our long history of secrets.