Page 79 of Playing By Ear

“Calling Mum.”

She answered right away. “You didn’t need to ring me. I know you’re busy.”

“I’m not. Jamie went to a party.”

“Everything okay with you two?”

“Fine. I had a headache from being out all day at the match.”

She made a wincing noise. “I know how that is. Have you tried the ice mask I gave you for Christmas?”

“Och, I keep forgetting I’ve got that.” He opened the freezer, hoping he’d stored it in there. The blast of cold air was a tiny relief to his blazing brain.

“So did they win?”

He slid his hand over the freezer’s interior, starting with the door racks. “Did who win?”

“Jamie’s team.”

“Oh! Yes. Jamie had a brilliant assist.” Where was that fucking ice mask? “Erm, did you ever have a day when your eyes got worse because you were tired? And then they got better the next day?”

“Sure. Why?”

He gave up his search for now and shut the freezer door. “I can’t exactly…read? Like, on paper, even with my magnifier and glasses. Did that ever happen to you and it got better?”

Silence. Perry swallowed the acid rising in his gullet.

“To some degree,” his mother said at last. She gave a fluttering laugh, like the wings of a nervous bird. “It’s been so long, I can’t remember the exact trajectory.”

Yes, you do. You kept notes, tracked every step of vision loss in case I faced it too, and though every RP journey is different, you wanted your child prepared.

She cleared her throat. “But if it doesn’t improve, if this is truly the end of sight-reading for you, it’s okay.”

It wasn’t fucking okay. His face was screaming again. Every last bit of him screamed, everything but his voice.

“Hm,” he said instead, his clamped lips keeping the howls inside.

“Your dad noticed you struggling with the menu on Easter, so this isn’t a complete shock.”

Perry couldn’t remember Easter. “Mum, I—” His eyes burned hotter, two supergiant stars in his skull. “M-maybe I can still read using that thingamie which enlarges documents and increases the contrast.” What was the bloody word? Was his vocabulary scorched too? “The-the-the desktop magnifier.”

“Listen to me, love.” Her voice held the forced calm of a hostage negotiator. “You’ve been preparing for this moment for years.”

“I know.”

“You use screen readers all the time, you love audiobooks, and you’ve even learned a bit of Braille.”

“I know.” He ground his teeth. He’d learned a bit of Braille, but a spice-jar label wasn’t the same as a book.

“So you can still read, just not with your eyes.”

“I know!” Perry wiped his mouth, wishing he could push his exclamation back inside.

“Think of this as a transition.”

Death was a transition, but he wouldn’t welcome that, either.

“Your annual exam’s in June,” his mum said, “but maybe Dr. Raskin could see you sooner.”