THE PORT WINE STAIN
by Irv Pliskin
What kind of a woman, Jason often wondered, marries a man who had lost his sight?
He knew about her goodness, her caring, her giving but what must such a person look like?
He wondered often, “Is she ugly? Is she misshapen? Is she some kind of cretin, a miserable looking creature whose features are such that she welcomes a relationship with someone who can’t see just to have a relationship?
These thoughts soared into his head occasionally as he tapped his way through the streets,or felt her arm guiding him onto the bus or into the train.
He wondered this more often when they first met. He worked in the college library his fingers moving rapidly over the page of braille, studying .
His questioning started the day she sat down next to him at the big library table. He could tell she was there by the delicate odor of her soap, the sound of the chair moving, the sound of a book opening.
Her voice was beautiful. “Hello, I’m Elizabeth. We've been in class together. I have always wanted to talk to you, but you've been so intense. This is the first time I've seen you sitting down so I could say hello.”
He nodded his head.”Hello. Nice of you to want to chat with me.”
“I've wondered, and please don't be offended. Were you born sightless?”
No beating about the bush. No euphemisms. No how did it happen.
“No, I started going blind when I was three. It got progressively worse. By the time I was five I could hardly see light and now, I’m totally blind. They tell me there are no remedies.”
That's the way it had started with them. First the conversation, then she asked him if he would like to have coffee, then lunch and they began dating. He wondered often about her. As their relationship grew,and he began to feel great warmth, and maybe love, he wondered less,and became accepting. He began to know her. He traced her features with sensitive fingertips to get a sense of her face and head, her tiny, delicate ears,the somewhat pouty lips, the slope of her nose.
Still he wondered, and sometimes, he asked himself what was it that attracted a woman whom people had told him was good looking, wholesome looking and brilliant, to him?
He couldn’t know. When he asked her, in their beginning over their morning coffee and their daily lunch she told him she was impressed with his dedication, his continuous humor, his unwillingness to give in to his handicap and what she was sure was a brilliant mind. She had once, in passing, said something about a port wine stain that covered her midriff, a rather large birthmark she had said. But he had no experience with that, and could not visualize it in his mind’s eye. “It doesn't ever show when I’m dressed,” she said, “so it is no problem.”
What started in the library that afternoon progressed, and soon they were sharing hours together. She let his tactile fingers learn about girls and all their private places. Together, they began to share their lives.
Standing in front of the minister, the day they got married,the week after he graduated from Law School,he again wondered what God had blessed him with this woman. He loved her for her wit, her kindness, her caring, her dedication to his limitations. Together they built a home,and had two great children. No matter what, he knew she loved him. He was her choice, not because of the perceived blemish, but because he was her choice, unequivocally.
And then, came the news that could well be a cataclysmic change in their future. A new experimental procedure involved an injection of cells behind the cornea, and if it worked it could restore some vision.
Together they decided to take the chance, and now they were waiting for the results.
When the bandages came off this afternoon, if the procedure was effective, he would know if he could see again. He was terrified sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting to be led into the operatory by Elizabeth to get the news.
The traumatic part was sitting in the doctor’s chair waiting, thinking, imagining as he had for all the years, what his darling Elizabeth really looked like. When the bandages were removed and he slowly opened his eyes to see light for the first time in 40 years, his initial reaction was a joy that suffused him, overcame him, enveloped him. He could see light and that,that was an epiphany.
It took a few minutes before he could see objects and things around him in the darkened office. He could see the white coat the doctor wore and he could see the trim, slim, well put together woman sitting by his side, holding his clenched hand.
It was she, it was Elizabeth and she looked wonderful. Everything was where it should be, a charming face, lovely eyes and now tears running down handsome cheeks. He stared, whispered, “I adore yo,u, and wept.
Later, together, after the tears and the reassurance, he saw the full size of the birthmark. Shaped like a huge oval starting at her naval it covered the bottom of her torso.It was that thing, he now believed, that had led her to him, although she had never mentioned it, except the one time he remembered. And he understood: with her sensibility she may have felt that the skin coloration could repulse another, a sighted man. With him she had been safe,
In the dim light of the bedroom, he began to kiss the skin around the blue discoloration. He kissed it, all the way around and then kissed into the center, her center. To him, the unimportant blemish was a cherished gift that had given him this extraordinary woman.
Irv Pliskin is a retired advertising agency owner. He is a combat veteran of World War II and an Ex Prisoner of War of the Germans. Married, with three kids, and four grandchildren he devotes his time to writing flash fiction. He hopes, that someday, he may become the Grandma Moses of flash fiction. He lives with his wife of 57 years in Cherry Hill,NJ. Contact Irv.
