Gingerbread Man

head and kept on talking before the arguments could begin. "I’m not putting myself through it again, Doc. You know I reject every set I get. It’s too much to—"
    "Just hear me out, Rachel. Let me explain why it’s different this time. Then make whatever decision you want."
    I bit my lip. I didn’t want to let my hopes start to climb. So far, they hadn’t, but if I let her talk they might, and I didn’t like the crushing disappointment of failure. I’d had transplants before. My body rejected them. Violently. I was sick all over. I know, another one of my endearing quirks. I’m a unique individual.
    "If everyone could leave us for a few minutes…?"
    "They can stay," I said. "They’re just going to torture it out of me later anyway. Go ahead, Doc, give it your best shot, but you know how I feel about beating this particular dead horse."
    "Okay." She cleared her throat. "It’s been several years since we’ve tried. There’s a new procedure. Descemet’s Stripping Endothelial Keratoplasty."
    "Oh, well in
that
case, let’s go for it. Anything with such an impressive sounding name is bound to work." I loaded on enough sarcasm to clog up a black hole.
    Doc Fenway sighed, then repeated herself, but in English this time. "We transplant a thin layer of the graft, not the entire cornea. The risk of rejection is minimal. Recovery time is faster. It’s light-years beyond what we’ve been able to do before. And I think it just might be your answer."
    My heart gave a ridiculously hopeful leap. I told it to lie back down and shut the fuck up.
    "The donor chose you specifically, Rachel. And we can do it today."
    "Oh my God." That was Sandra, and the words were damn near swimming in tears. "Oh my God, ohmyGod,
ohmyGod
!"
    I wasn’t quite as impressed. "Today? You want me to decide this today? Are you fucking kidding me?"
    Meanwhile Sandra was still going on, "You’re going to see! You’re going to see, ohmyGod!"
    The twins started with the teenage girl squealing thing that sounds like giant mice having their tails stepped on. Really, someone ought to be researching a cure for that. Screw Descemet’s Stripping-whatever.
    "This is a miracle!" Amy cried. And then she and Sandra were hugging and hopping around in what sounded like a circle. I don’t know.
Blind
, remember? Everyone was talking and crying and laughing—and squealing, let’s not forget the squealing—at the same time.
    I held up my hands. "Stop. Just stop." I had to speak very loudly.
    They all stopped, and I felt their eyes on me. "Okay. Okay." I took a deep breath, but I wasn’t processing this. This wasn’t real yet. I didn’t get it. "I
do
need everybody to get out, okay? Except you, Doc. Everybody else, just…just go get a coffee or something. Give me a minute here."
    I heard a keystroke and whipped my finger toward Amy. "Don’t you even
think
about tweeting anything about this. Understand?"
    "Yeah. No, I wasn’t—"
    "Close the lid, Amy."
    I heard the laptop close.
    "Come on, everyone, let’s give her some space," Sandra instructed. She was a little hurt that I’d asked. I could tell by the texture of her voice.
    "Yeah. I need space."
    Mott leaned in close. "You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, you know."
    "Right. Like
you
wouldn’t?"
    "No. I wouldn’t." Petulant, maybe a little combative? What the fuck?
    I frowned. I mean, I knew he thought of the blind as a minority group and himself as our Malcolm X, but I didn’t think he’d want to stay sightless if he had a choice. Then again, he’d been born blind. I hadn’t. I’d had twelve years of vision. Eleven of them twenty-twenty. And I’d had blurry, half-assed eyesight three times, after the last three transplants, a few days each time before my body threw a full-on, no-holds-barred revolt. I
knew
what I was missing.
    Mott kissed my cheek, and everyone left the room. Shuffling steps, grumbling complaints, whispers, and finally the door closing behind them. I lay there in the bed, listening to Doc Fenway come over, sit in Mott’s former place, clear her throat.
    "What do you need to know?" she asked.
    I thought for a long time, and then I said, "Is this for real?"
    "Yes."
    "Will it work?"
    "Almost certainly. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it, Rachel. This might be the miracle you didn’t think you’d ever get."
    She was telling the absolute truth, as she saw it. Lies were one of the easiest things to hear in people’s voices. I felt tears brimming