Before the accident took her sight, she was a sculptor of some note.
Unlike most of the modern sculptors, whose work too often resembled random junk welded together under some pretentious "title," she carved her figures in the classic mode, realistically and in detail, paying sincere homage to the human figure.
But one night a deer stepped out of the trees close to the side of the road. She swerved to miss it, and her car struck a tree. While the only apparent mark from the mishap was a tiny scar on her forehead, her head hit the dashboard with enough force to detach the optic nerve, and her world had been dark ever since.
That was nearly a year ago, and she had not worked since.
She was adapting to her blindness, learning how to read Braille, learning how to get around independently, re-learning the myriad mundane tasks she once did without thinking when she had her sight, but her one trip to the basement workshop was a short one -- for a few moments she handled the tools she had once used with such joy and to such beautiful ends before an overwhelming sense of loss washed over her and she left the shop in tears.
It just was not possible, she thought, to create something visually compelling without being able to see. She cursed the misfortune that had robbed her of her life's work.
Her husband was supportive and patient and comforted her when the inevitable depressions enveloped her, and his compassion went a long way toward bringing her back into the world around her, but there remained a bitterness she simply could not overcome.
Eventually, she began to visit old friends and entertain those who came to see her, to do many of the things she used to enjoy, but the loss of her artistic ability was never far from her mind.
Her husband recognized what was going on, and was at a loss. As one of her biggest fans, one truly amazed at what she produced, it bothered him that he could not coax her back into her shop to turn the blocks of stone and wood into the detailed and stunning figures she once created. Try as he might, he could not figure out how to accomplish that mission -- until it came to him one day, a plan so simple he thought at first it could not work. The more he turned it over in his mind, however, the more it seemed workable. He decided he might be able to provide her the inspiration she so desperately needed after all.
One night, soon after his epiphany, she came home from a dinner date with a girlfriend. As she shucked her coat and scarf in the hallway, she called out to him, and was mildly surprised to find him absent. Carefully, she felt her way to the phone and the answering machine and hit the button -- thinking bitterly "I used to be able to just look at the display to see if there was a message." He had called, and she learned he was staying late at work and would be home in a few hours, adding that he had left a surprise for her in the workshop and would like for her to go ahead and "look it over."
She was a trifle miffed at his vagueness and the insensitivity of the "look it over" remark, but intrigued nevertheless, so she ventured down to the basement.
It was eight steps down the stairs, two more steps forward and five to the left to enter her shop - she had familiarized herself anew with the dimensions of her home since the accident, but having been away from the shop for so long it still felt foreign for her to be there. She flicked on the light - old habits die hard - then flicked it back off, exasperated, when she realized what she'd done.
The room smelled familiarly of sawdust and rock dust, a scent that in the past never failed to stir her creative juices. She made her way to the tool bench, but found nothing there that had been changed since her only post-accident visit. Her tools - the chisels, hammers, saws, knives and sanding blocks - were right where she left them when she ran out in tears all those months before, and she could feel the fine layer of dust that had settled over them in her absence.
Around the edges of the room she discovered the blocks of granite and wood just as she had left them, almost a year ago now, and she stopped to run her hands over them, feeling the textures, the rustic roughness of a large maple log, the striations of the white-and-gray granite block delivered the very day of the accident. Still, nothing "surprising" she thought as she absently brushed her fingertips over the flat, rough surface of the stone.
In the corner was the chain hoist she used to move the heavy blocks to and from her work platform. She pressed the "up" button, listening to the metallic tinkle of the chain as the main sprocket reeled it in, providing a stark counterpoint to the loud industrial hum of the motor. When she shut it off, the silence seemed deafening.
The surprise must be in the center of the room, near where she did the carving, chiseling, sanding and shaping of her sculptures.
"Dammit," she said aloud. "Why couldn't he just leave whatever the hell it is upstairs?"
Carefully she felt her way to the platform and began to carefully pat down the surface, looking for something, not knowing what. Frustration built in her, exacerbated by her presence in the workshop and the way it reminded her of her former life. Finally, on the corner of the platform, she felt a piece of paper.
It was a note, written in Braille - he also had learned to use the Braille typewriter they kept in the den so he could leave her messages. The note read "Your surprise is eight feet out from this corner of the platform."
Puzzled, yet intrigued, she positioned herself at the corner and began to shuffle forward slowly, one hand straight out in front of her. After a few steps, her hand touched something.
It was a body.
Frightened and startled, she pulled her hand away and stepped back.
