RUNNING INTO THE Weasel in the elevator was not the worst part of coming home from the hospital.
The worst part of coming home was Lucinda. Who had decided to try to help me.
Of all things.
Starting with forcing me into accepting a ride home.
To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed Lucinda when she’d first arrived that morning. That Pepto-Bismol-pink cardigan she’d chosen was almost the exact shade as the nurses’ scrubs, and I just assumed she was one of them. She chatted with the nurses a good while, and I didn’t catch on until she came over and said, “Ready to go?” You’d think I might have recognized the voice of the person who ruined my life pretty easily … but I didn’t.
She could have been anybody.
Dr. Nicole had explained about voices, too—that my brain was used to all my senses working together in an ecosystem. Having one sense out of whack could throw the others off, too, for a while. So it might take some time to learn to recognize voices without the usual visual clues of the face. Over time, she promised, I’d get better at voices alone.
“You might even wind up better at recognizing voices than you were before. Eventually. If—” But she stopped herself.
“If I don’t get the faces back?” I finished.
She nodded. “Be patient with yourself,” she said. “Your brain has a lot to adjust to right now. We think of the senses like they’re separate, distinct things. But they’re really interconnected. It’s going to be chaos in there until things settle. Even easy things will be hard for a while.”
“How long?” I asked.
But I knew the answer, even as she said it. “We just don’t know.” Anyway, that could turn out to be an upside, in a way.
I was in no hurry to recognize Lucinda’s voice.
I’d agreed to the ride only after I made her swear up and down that she would drop me at the door—only—and not come up.
“But I have to get your prescriptions,” she protested. “I can get my own damn prescriptions,” I insisted.
But one guess for how the drop-off went down.
That’s right. She picked up my prescriptions without permission and then came up to my hovel un-frigging-invited.
I hadn’t been home fifteen minutes when she showed up.
I was still standing in the entryway, trying to adjust to the unfamiliar silence. Peanut was still being boarded. There was no jangle of tags or scuttling of dog paws as he scrambled to greet me at the door, wagging his tail so hard he bapped himself on the ears. There was no—hopefully still- recognizable—loving little dog face to make me feel like everything could be okay.
It was bad.
And then, suddenly, there was Lucinda. Knocking on my hovel door. Even worse.
After a lifetime of trying to hide my extreme lack of life success from both her and my dad, her arrival was pure insult to injury.
I thought about ignoring her. But then I decided not to prolong the agony.
“This is where you live?” she asked, stepping in as I opened the door. “I thought you went home,” I said.
“I picked up your prescriptions,” Lucinda said, like she’d done me a favor.
“Didn’t I tell you not to do that?”
But Lucinda was looking around. “It’s very … bohemian,” she said, like that was the nicest thing she could come up with.
“How did you get up here?” I demanded. “Mr. Kim gave me the code.”
“You met Mr. Kim?”
She nodded, still looking around. “He kept calling me Martha Stewart.”
At that, I stifled a smile. Mr. Kim always had everybody’s number. I sighed. “That’s actually a great nickname for you.”
She considered that. Was she complimented or insulted?
Either way, I didn’t like seeing my worlds collide. “Don’t bother Mr.
Kim, okay?” Mr. Kim, along with the whole Kim family, belonged to me.
But she wasn’t listening. “You live here?”
I could have lied, I guess. But maybe I was tired of lying. And it was hopeless anyway. She was here. It was what it was. “It’s temporary,” I said.
And then, with her trademark decisiveness, she pulled out her wallet, scanned down her credit cards, and took one out. “Take it,” she said.
“I don’t need it,” I said.
“Just take it,” she insisted. “Your dad will never know.” “I’m fine,” I said.
“This one gives you points,” she said, waving it at me. “So?”
“So every time you use it, we’re making money.” “That is not how that works.”
But she gave me a wink. “Just use it. I do all the bills, anyway. I’ll never tell.”
How dare she act like I needed her?
I never needed anyone. Ever. For anything.
And the reason that was true? The reason I never let myself do a very simple thing like need other people that the rest of humanity got to do all the time? That reason was standing right here in a hot-pink sweater.
I took hold of her shoulders and steered her toward the door. “I don’t need your help. And I don’t want you up here. And I’m changing the passcode. So go home, okay? And take your credit card with you.”
She didn’t fight me. She left without protest.
But it was only after I’d dead-bolted the door that I saw, on the table beside it, looking defiantly up at me … her credit card.
 |
IT ONLY HIT me, really, after I’d gotten rid of her.
My entire life up until now had been a before. And now I was in the after.
I couldn’t see faces. Not even my own. I was face-blind.
Maybe I’d stay that way, and maybe I wouldn’t. But one thing was certain. I would never be the same.
It was like suddenly finding myself on an alien planet. Even in the hospital, where caretaking was literally the job of every person I interacted with, people felt strange and foreign and vaguely unsafe. Either I was thinking about all the missing faces and working to avert my eyes, or I was staring at them, still disbelieving, or I was forgetting about my brain situation—and then looking up only to be startled by yet another faceless face.
To be clear, I knew intellectually that the faces were still there. If I looked carefully, I could see the individual parts. What I couldn’t do was glance at a face and know in an instant exactly who that was and remember everything I’d ever learned about that person. Or in the case of strangers: know immediately that I didn’t know.
This new way of being was a conscious process of deduction. There was nothing effortless about it.
Now, most of the time, rather than trying, I just let everybody be a blur.
My conscious mind understood what had happened. The FFG wasn’t working. Got it. Just a little brain snafu. Not reality. Just a glitch in my system.
But my subconscious mind—the one that wasn’t too used to having to rethink reality—was deeply, profoundly freaked out.
I could understand in theory that I was face-blind. But in practice? It made no sense at all.
I learned pretty quick from obsessive research on the internet that two percent of the world’s population has face blindness. So I definitely wasn’t alone. Out of 8 billion people in the world—and I got out the calculator for this—there were 160 million other people who were face-blind. Besides me. That figure was larger than the population of Russia. We could start our own country and compete in the Olympics.
Except a lot of them, it turned out, didn’t know they were face-blind.
I had a kind of face blindness known as acquired. The kind people procured somewhere along the way—strokes, head injuries, brain surgery. Most people with acquired face blindness know they have it. If you’ve
always been able to recognize faces and then suddenly you can’t anymore … you notice that.
But the much more common type was known as developmental. These folks had been face-blind all their lives—and many of them didn’t even know it. Which makes sense. Because if that’s how the world has always been for you, then that’s how it’s always been. Nothing about that would seem odd. You’d assume that everybody else was exactly the same way.
I found a couple of Facebook groups and read every comment on every post, trying to get the skinny on what it was really like to function in the world like this. Most people had tips and tricks for recognizing people without using faces as the main clue, and some people seemed very good at it.
As for how everyone felt about having the condition, I found a wide spectrum of opinions. Some people found it limiting or frustrating or depressing … while others thought it was so not a big deal that they didn’t know why it merited discussion. One woman wanted to know the point of even talking about it when there were “people with actual problems” out there. Another highly likable woman described her face blindness as a “superpower,” saying she treated every person she interacted with like a dear friend—just in case those people turned out to actually be dear friends. When people talked to her in the grocery store as if they knew her, she pretended she knew them right back, and asked them question after question until she could solve the mystery for herself. She learned a lot about people that way, she said—but more than that, it meant that almost every interaction she had with other people was infused with warmth and affection. In a way, there were no strangers.
She loved her face blindness. She felt like it brought her out of her shell. She wholeheartedly believed it was a gift.
Huh.
I closed my eyes and tried to see this moment in my life as a gift. Yeah. No.
My experience of all this so far was the opposite of living in a world with no strangers. For me, right now, everyone felt like a stranger. Even me.
I mean, I just genuinely couldn’t imagine walking out into a world where everyone looked like bowler-hat figures in a Magritte painting and feeling … awash in a gentle sea of human kindness.
Maybe it was more about the adjustment than anything. The before- and-afterness. The fact that the world—my world—was changed in ways I’d never even imagined before all this happened. The fact that a central tool for relating to the rest of humanity—one I’d relied on constantly, every day, my entire life—was suddenly just … gone?
It was scary, if I’m honest. I was never all that great with people to start with.
All to say, for the first three days I was home, I couldn’t seem to make myself leave my apartment.
I mostly just did wound care. And ordered takeout. And watched old movies.
And availed myself—after much hemming and hawing—of Lucinda’s credit card.
I had sworn never to need my dad or Lucinda’s help. But was using that card “needing” them, really? Especially if I was buying luxury items I didn’t need. That was something different from needing them. That was punishing them. Right?
If you thought about it the right way, it was a form of winning.
And so I went for it. I enjoyed my first bout of recreational shopping in years: a hygge-inspired tea kettle, a string of twinkle lights branded as “wishing stars,” a heart-shaped velveteen pillow … and a totally nutty hybrid cross between a pair of footed pajamas and a fuzzy blanket called a Pajanket.
The Pajanket came same-day delivery, and after I zipped myself into it, I swore I would never take it off ever again. It was basically a rectangular human-sized pillowcase with holes at each corner for hands and feet. The foot-holes had booties and the hand-holes had mittens. And the neck had a hoodie. And the plush, buttery, nothing-can-ever-hurt-you-again fabric they’d sewn it out of? Velvety on both sides.
It was all I could do not to order a thousand.
And so I stayed home. I was on this. I had this. I was fine.
I was, as always, completely, utterly, astonishingly okay—putting my life back in order without too much fuss.
I shut down my Etsy shop. I put a note on the page and on my Instagram that read: “AT CAPACITY! Thanks for all your orders! This shop is taking an eight-week hiatus. Not accepting new commissions.”
That sounded pretty good, right? Like I was just at capacity with work because of the unstoppable thirst the world had for my portraits?
Not like I was at capacity emotionally. Or like my entire life was crumbling. Or like I was afraid to leave the house.
Not doing any portraits would mean no money coming in. But there wasn’t a choice there. Maybe I’d charge all my bills to my dad’s credit card, too. Maybe it was all about attitude. If a little punishment was good, wouldn’t a lot of punishment be better?
I wondered if Mr. Kim would let me charge the rent.
When I felt a rising sense of panic, I tried to see it as a positive. After all these years of nonstop hustling, it might be nice to unchain myself from my Etsy shop for a bit. Though I’d still have to check the comments every day. Most people said nice things most of the time, but occasionally a nutter slipped through with a comment like “These portraits look like circus clowns.”
Anyway, that was life online. You had to keep an eye on the crazies.
Block and delete.
Kinda like the rest of my life right now.
I had groceries delivered. I took careful showers.
And I tried—and failed—over and over to make myself go get Peanut at the vet clinic.
Peanut, who I missed constantly in my Peanut-less apartment.
That’s how bad it was: I left my only family boarded at the vet for three extra days because I couldn’t talk myself into leaving my building. And also, more than anything, because I was terrified that when we were finally reunited, I might not be able to see his face.
|
FINALLY, IN A profound act of courage, I did it. I took a shower, got dressed, and walked—as carefully as if I might slip on an icy sidewalk— two blocks filled with pixelated-faced strangers until I arrived at a vet clinic I’d never been to filled with people I’d never met.
We were in the Warehouse District, so I wasn’t surprised to find that this clinic was in a warehouse. I was surprised, however, by the speaker
system blasting perky oldies into the waiting area.
As I checked in, I said, “Fun music.”
“What?” a faceless receptionist looked up and asked.
“The music!” I said, projecting a little louder. Then I gave a thumbs-up.
She pointed at the speakers. “We’re trying to mask all the jackhammering from the construction next door.”
“Ah,” I said.
“It stresses the animals out,” she said, clicking around on the computer to pull up my bill. “But playing Sam Cooke seems to help.”
As the bill came off the printer, she read it and said, “Oh, you’re Peanut’s mom!”
Mom? I don’t know. More like sibling. Or BFF. But I just said, “Yes.” “He’s a big fan of the music,” she said. “Did you know he’s a Louis
Armstrong guy?”
“I mean, it doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “He’s a very cultured dog.”
She gave me a nod, handed over the bill, and that’s when I saw it had already been paid.
Lucinda.
What a menace.
That said, it was also six hundred dollars I didn’t have, so I wasn’t complaining.
Could Lucinda just buy my affection like that? Today she could. I guess.
Next, I waited for the moment of truth with Peanut. When I saw him again, would I be able to see him?
What felt like a hundred years later, I had my answer. Yes.
A tech brought him out and I saw for sure as the second the door opened: Peanut’s little mug. There it was. His giant liquid-brown eyes. His yellow fur and Lorax-style mustache that got lopsided after he’d been resting his chin on something. His feathery ears that never seemed to both point up—or down—at the same time.
Question answered.
I’d know that face anywhere.
In a second, Peanut was in my arms and licking me all over. His tail was going full blast, his body was wriggling, his little heart was jumping
around in his chest. If he was mad about being abandoned for eight days, he certainly wasn’t holding a grudge.
Dogs were so good at forgiveness.
He alternated great-to-see-you licks with deep, soul-searching gazes— like he couldn’t believe his luck that I’d returned. And he wasn’t the only one feeling lucky. Because the only face I’d seen since the surgery just happened to be my very favorite one.
All to say, something about the feel of him—the softness of his fur, his salty, doggy smell, the unconditional love—made me start to cry right there in the waiting room.
Yeah. It was an emotional time.
I got started crying, and then … I couldn’t stop. Just stood there smiling and crying and cradling my little pal while he licked the salty tears off my cheeks over and over.
“Missed you, buddy,” I whispered, nuzzling his fur.
That’s when I looked up to see someone watching me. A man. A vet, from the looks of it. A tall, white-coated, tie-wearing vet with an up-and- back Ivy League haircut. He had his hands in his lab-coat pockets and just stood there, staring right at Peanut and me, taking in the sight.
And once again, Dr. Nicole was right because I could tell you without even putting his face pieces together that this guy was seriously handsome.
That must be its own brain system right there.
It was the way he stood there. The way he held himself. That haircut— so professional and competent. I’d always thought handsomeness must be all about facial features and shapes and mathematical proportions. And maybe it was. But this guy also just had a way about him—like he was commanding the room without even doing anything. Just standing there generating handsomeness like a sexy, living light-up statue.
Most people nowadays made me want to avert my eyes. The intensity of those puzzle-piece faces—the impossibility of it all—was physically uncomfortable, like a buzzing in my body.
But this guy? I couldn’t make myself look away. I took in the sight of him, and he did the same right back to me, for a good minute. Finally he turned and walked off down the hallway—hands in pockets and coattail trailing jauntily behind him like a male model on a runway—forcing me to note that Dr. Nicole was right yet again.
Because that man had one hell of a gait. Holy shit.
It was love at first sight—and I couldn’t even see him. Okay, I take it back. It wasn’t love.
Love requires actually having spoken to a person. At the minimum.
Maybe it was infatuation at first sight. Or preoccupation. Or obsession. Whatever it was, I wasn’t complaining.
All along, I’d been classifying leaving my textbook narcissist boyfriend Ezra and then running out of money and then almost dying in a crosswalk and then getting surprise brain surgery and then having to board my dog at an unfamiliar clinic and then going face-blind … as bad things.
But now?
I was all good.
The sight of that vet—for a minute there, anyway—seemed to fix everything.
I stopped crying, at least.
I turned to the receptionist to see if her world had also been rocked by the appearance of that mystery veterinarian across the room. But nope. She was checking her Instagram.
“Was that the vet?” I asked her.
She looked down the hallway. “Oh, yeah. One of them. That’s Dr. Addison.” Her voice was all casual, like he was just a regular, everyday person.
“He works here?”
She nodded. “Yeah. He’s the newest vet on staff.”
I wanted to ask more questions—What’s his deal? What’s he like? Is he as handsome as I think he is?—but I couldn’t settle on anything that didn’t sound bananas.
Instead, I just said, “I think I should probably schedule Peanut for a checkup.”
|
PEANUT, OF COURSE, had just had his checkup two months ago—with my old vet, a lady in her sixties who I’d known since I was a kid—and he was in perfect health. For a canine gentleman of his years.
But could you ever have too many checkups, really? Preventative pet health care is so important.
Though it turned out Dr. Addison—Dr. Oliver Addison, I noted, when I snagged his business card off the front desk—did not have any openings for a month.
“Wow,” I said. “He’s really booked.” “Yeah, he books up fast.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Plus he leaves a lot of space in his schedule for emergencies.”
See that? Not just handsome, but also a thoughtful planner. Leaving space for emergencies so no one was ever turned away. Was there anything about this guy that wasn’t perfect? More important, if I married him, would I change my name?
I pondered this on my walk home. Trying the sound out in my head as I mouthed the words: “Sadie Addison.”
Sadie Addison! It was the best name ever. All those S’s and D’s.
I could see myself at my engagement party—tipsy with joy as I explained, “I never planned to change my last name, but Addison just felt like such an upgrade.” I could see a future me, face blindness all cured, leaning confidently in to meet new people with an assertive little handshake, saying, “Good to meet you. Sadie Addison.” I could picture our newlywed holiday greeting card: “Happy Holidays from Oliver and Sadie Addison.” Maybe we’d wear matching Nordic sweaters.
Or should we hyphenate? “Warmest holiday wishes from the Montgomery-Addisons”?
No rush on that. So many options to consider.
I could see myself running into old beaus or former school mean girls at the grocery store while Dr. Addison and I held hands on, say, a late-night Ben & Jerry’s run. We’d be so happily goofing around in the freezer aisle— him maybe tickling me or trying to pick me up as I giggled wildly like the happiest in-love person in history—that we didn’t even notice whoever it was at first. Then we’d pause from our delirium for pleasant introductions. “Oh, hello. Look how well my life turned out. Please meet my so-gorgeous- he-doesn’t-even-need-a-face husband, Oliver. I’m Sadie Addison now, by the way.”
Yes. That worked.
Fine. Was I manufacturing a crush for myself to give my wounded brain something to focus on that wasn’t deeply, hopelessly depressing?
Sure. Probably.
Was there anything wrong with that? Not in the slightest.
If I needed a little oxytocin-filled romantic pick-me-up courtesy of Dr. Oliver Addison’s GQ-level hairdo and Olympically handsome gait, was that really such a crime? Why not, right?
Dr. Nicole said our thoughts create our feelings.
Maybe a few good thoughts were just what the doctor ordered. Or the veterinarian, as the case may be.
|
THE WALK HOME was surprisingly pleasant.
It was sunny and breezy out, and I cradled Peanut to my chest while we held our chins up and let the wind caress both of our faces. Meeting my future husband had renewed my strength and my courage, and I fearlessly enjoyed my journey back—and let all the faceless people flicker past me like butterflies.
Until I got stopped by one of them.
“Oh my god! Sadie?” It was a woman’s voice, from some distance away.
I turned toward the sound.
She was tall, dressed in all gray with a pop-of-color pink scarf, and had dyed blond hair … and a face like a cubist painting.
She ran over and grabbed me by the shoulders, pulling me into a hug that squeezed both me and Peanut tight.
I tried to fight the rising panic. I had absolutely no idea who this was. What were the tricks I’d read about online again? Smile a lot. Ask leading questions. Be warm and friendly. Don’t say anything to give it away. Beat the clock and solve the mystery before the person figures it out.
Before I could think of what to ask, this faceless woman said, “How long has it been?”
“Gosh,” I said, stalling. “How long has it been?” “You look amazing,” she said next.
What else could I say? “You look amazing.” “What are you up to these days?”
“Oh,” I said. “Same old, same old.” Then, trying to turn the tables. “What are you up to?”
“Same,” she said. “Just working and working. Trying to conquer the world. You get it.”
“I sure do.” I nodded big. Then there was a pause.
I’d never realized before how much personal questions needed a little something to go on.
But I tried to encourage myself. I was doing okay! I was passing! “Well,” she said then. “It’s been so great to see you.”
“You too,” I said with maximum warmth, like it really, really had been. She started to walk away, but then she turned back. “Oh—and Sadie?” “Yeah?” I asked, smiling big.
“I know you don’t know who I am.” My smile dropped.
She took a step closer. “You’d never be this nice if you had any idea.” “Who are you?” I asked.
“Mom told me all about it—but, I don’t know … it was kind of too good to be true. I had to see for myself.”
“Mom”? Told her “all about it”?
And then I knew. Just as she leaned close and spoke into my ear, I knew.
It was my evil stepsister. Parker.
It wasn’t until I realized who she was that I noticed her signature perfume as well. She always wears—and I swear this is true—a perfume by Dior called Poison.
So on the nose.
“Hey, Sis,” she whispered, and then she patted me on the butt and strutted away.
And that, right there, settled it. Optimism canceled.
I’d find a dog-sized Pajanket for Peanut and never leave my apartment again.
