Truth or Eyes

Standing on the corner of 40th and Main, Jeannie licked at her ice cream cone that was already dripping down her hand. It was one of those hot summer days where the air seemed to stick to you like lint. In her new blue dress she’d gotten as a gift for her birthday, she was lost in her imagination, quite content with her cone, watching the cars parade by. Sometimes, she’d make up stories about the passersby, what their lives were like and where they were going. She saw a pregnant woman getting into a car across the street, putting pretty bags into her trunk. “I bet she’s shopping for her baby,” Jeannie said with a smile. “She looks really pretty and happy.”

Seemingly out of nowhere, a car sped through the intersection, swerving out of control, and in an instant, collided with the pregnant woman’s car. Seven year old Jeannie let out a blood curdling scream dropping her cone on the pavement, deafened by the sound of breaks, burning rubber then the horrific clash of metal. A cacophony of screams, screeches, running and yelling ensued, a cloud of black smoke billowing from the mangled cars. Time seemed to be suspended as she stood there, tears streaming down her face.

She woke up gasping for breath. “I haven’t dreamt of that day in a really long time,” forty five year old Jeannie said aloud, voice shaking. She remembered feeling someone grab her and whisk her away. It must’ve been her father, but she didn’t remember how she got home. She just remembered sitting on her bed staring at the wall for what seemed like an eternity. Jeannie didn’t speak for days after the accident. In fact, she didn’t say much of anything at all after that day.

“Boy,” she said, “this book I got must’ve really shaken me up.” She lived a pretty simple life alone. Jeannie had been in the same job for thirteen years. It was monotonous and predictable just like she liked. She worked for a large insurance company taking data from one report and compiling it into another sending it into the abyss where all of the other paperwork goes to die. Never having to talk to anyone, she loved what she did. Her days were much the same. She’d wake up early, make a cup of black coffee and some cinnamon apple oatmeal, and she would read.

Then, she would get ready for work, wearing the same outfit everyday (she had five pairs): a simple white blouse, nude panty hose, a black skirt and a pair of comfortable black flats. She never felt the need to impress anyone. In fact, to the contrary, she’d rather be invisible. Her wild curly hair, thick, unattractive glasses and librarian style clothing hid striking beauty that was never revealed. Jeannie felt quite content going unnoticed.

She didn’t have any friends to speak of but would say hello to her neighbor Susan who almost always walked her dog by her house at the same time Jeannie would be getting into her car for work. Or, when she felt frisky, she’d frequent her favorite sandwich shop around the corner. Mr. Grigoryan, the owner, was a really warm older Armenian man who always told her she needed to find a man without fail. She’d always say she didn’t need one of those, and he’d respond with a bellowing laugh that shook his belly like Santa Clause. That always made her giggle to herself.

Still shaken from the nightmare, Jeannie laid in bed staring at the ceiling. She usually loved her seedy romance novels. Ten years after witnessing the accident, Jeannie had a boyfriend for a short time. Jasper was nerdy and seemed nice at the time. He was persistent, walking her home everyday even though she would have rather walked alone. It was nice to have someone to talk to, though. He got his driver’s license, and his father bought him a used car. Wanting to take her for a drive, he pulled up to her house. It took some convincing, but eventually Jeannie hopped in. He drove them to the park all the kids frequented to make out and do other things. She was upset, knowing why he took her there. Forcefully grabbing her to kiss and pulling at her blouse, she pushed him off, punched him square in the nose, and ran out of the car. That was the last time she had a boyfriend. She decided that wasn’t for her. So, she relinquished herself to just read and fantasize about other people enjoying romance.

She left her books in a book exchange at the library after reading them. A week ago, when she left her last book, she saw the cover of this one, called Truth or Eyes, and it drew her to it, a set of woman’s eyes looking longingly out what she imagined was a window opening to the ocean with the window blinds casting back a shadow on her. It was a haunting but compelling image.

The book was well-written but was about an accident and really shook up her memory of the pregnant woman. She cringed again thinking about it, her heart still racing. Sleepy but knowing there was no way she would be able to sleep now, she got up to make a cup of tea, then fell asleep at some point on the couch reading a heartwarming story about a dog who got lost on a family trip and found his way across two states to make his way home.

Waking, she sat up with a start, fumbling for her phone to look at the time. “Crap! I’m going to be late for work!” Running around frazzled, she forced herself to stop, make a cup of coffee and breathe for a moment. “Get it together, Jeannie,” she said. She talked to herself often. After trying to tame her messy curls and putting on her work clothes, she grabbed her purse and keys. As she threw open the front door, she almost tripped over a large box on her doorstep. That is weird, she thought as she looked around outside in hopes of seeing whoever left it. The box was wrapped in gold paper and a large black bow. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach and thought for a moment about leaving the box on her porch and just going to work. But, both curiosity and fear got the better of her.

She reached for the box to untie the ribbon, and the box moved. Jeannie jumped what seemed like ten feet back as her heart had made its way to her mouth, or at least that's what it felt like. ‘What the…?!” she said loudly to herself. Her heart pounding so loud it sounded audible, she lifted off the lid, finding a large curly haired puppy in the box with his nose buried in its paws as if he was frightened. “Oh my God! Where did you come from?!” she said, feeling relieved, her voice softening so as not to scare the puppy further. “You had my heart in my throat,” she said as she lifted him up.

He was so fluffy and warm, but as she lifted him, she saw that he did not have any eyes. She let out a scream that somehow took her back to that day on the street corner but was still careful not to drop him. “Oh God! Oh God! What is this?! Oh my God!” She paced around, her mind running through what felt like a million thoughts at once. “Breathe, Jeannie,” she reasoned with herself. “He is an adorable puppy with a disability. That’s all. And, someone thought I would take care of him. This doesn’t have to be scary, Jeannie,” she said to herself. She checked the puppy thoroughly to make sure he wasn’t injured. He seemed perfectly fine except he didn’t have eyes. There were no divots where there should be eyes or some notable injury to them that she could see. He simply had nothing but fur where his eyes should be. “Okay, just calm down. Everything is okay,” she reasoned with herself.

Frightened but feeling less panicked, she sat down with the puppy for a few minutes. It was a Friday. She never called off from work, but today she would make an exception, sure that no one would miss her. Putting the puppy down, she got out her phone and left a message with her work that she had a family emergency and wouldn’t be in for the day. “Well, I don’t know what to do with you, but I do know you need food. I will call you Charlie, I think. What do you think about that?” She put him on the bathroom floor on a blanket and left for the store. As she walked to the car, she felt like she was being watched. Looking around, she saw no one, but that didn’t keep her from getting goosebumps. She felt some relief driving away. It was her grandmother’s house she lived in. She would go to visit as a child, playing on the tire swing in the back while her grandmother would bustle around the house dusting. Jeannie could never figure out why her grandmother dusted so often. It was almost the only thing she could remember her doing.

One day after the accident, she overheard her grandmother and grandfather talking to her parents. Her mother said, “Jeannie’s Principal is suggesting that we put her in a special boarding school. He says that it’s not normal for a child her age not to speak, and she frightens the other children when they try talking to her, and she just stares back at them.” “Now, now dear,” she heard her grandmother say, “Jeannie has been through something really traumatic. It’s only been a year now. She is a sweet child who gets lost in thought and is really shy, but she will be okay. Don’t you worry.” Jeannie would never forget that and felt gratitude every time she thought of her.

Jeannie’s grandfather passed away first, then her grandmother a few months after. She was in her last semester of College for Literature when she got the news. It was a rainy night, and she was walking back to her car after a late class. Jeannie’s cell phone rang, and when she answered it, her mother told her the news that her grandmother passed away in her sleep. She dropped to her knees and cried, drenched by the time she got back to the car. Her grandmother left her the house, and Jeannie couldn’t bring herself to change much.

Returning with the food, she felt again as if someone was watching her while she walked from the car to the front door. She fumbled the key in the lock, rushed in, threw the door closed behind her, and locked the door with the dead bolt and the chain. Jeannie placed the bags on the kitchen counter and went around the whole house, checking to make sure all of the windows and doors were locked.

She let Charlie out of the bathroom. He was very sweet and very obviously loved being held and pet. Pouring some of the food into a bowl, she placed it by his feet. He smelled it but was disinterested. “Okay,” she told him. “I guess you aren’t hungry, huh?” By that time, it was the afternoon, and between the nightmare the night before and the happenings with someone leaving Charlie for her, Jeannie found herself frazzled and exhausted. She took Charlie to lay down with her, and she fell asleep almost instantly.

Awakening to a dark room, she said, “dang. How long have I been out? It’s nighttime already?” She must’ve slept for hours. She looked around but didn’t see Charlie. “Charlie?” she called. Jeannie got up from the bed and searched the house not finding either Charlie nor the box he had arrived in. “ I couldn’t have dreamt this up,” she thought. “There’s no way I could have dreamt this.” Just then, she noticed a hand-written note left on her dining room table written in large block letters, which read, “Would you give up your eyes to see the truth?”

Panic hit her in the gut and she fell to the floor shaking and crying. She ran to the front door to find that it was still locked. Running around the house, she feverishly checked the doors and windows again. Jeannie paused. “Oh God,” she thought to herself. “Could someone be inside my house? Wait… Eyes,” she said, thinking about the note that was left for her. “Truth?” she repeated back. She ran to grab the book that rested on her nightstand. The story as far as she had read was about a man’s wife who was blinded by a drunk driver who crashed into her car. The insurance company wouldn’t cover the medical bills, covering up that the driver was drunk, and she died waiting for a surgery. The husband was driven to madness, tracking down the owner of the insurance company and leaving him a note on his door that said, “Would you give up your eyes to see the truth?” That’s where she left off in the book. “I knew it!” she exclaimed. That was the exact quote.” The story of the wife’s accident felt eerily similar to what she’d witnessed as a child.

Forced to revisit a memory she buried long ago, Jeannie thought about the accident she witnessed as a child again. She remembered that her grandmother had kept news clippings of certain goings on in town, and Jeannie came across them when cleaning out her grandmother’s house after she died. She had put the box away in the attic with some of her grandparent’s things she couldn’t quite part with.

Pulling down the attic ladder, she ventured up into the darkness fumbling for the light. She found the box in the corner covered in dust and cobwebs. Opening the box, she trifled through it looking for something about the accident and found three clippings. The article spoke about the woman who was hit, said she’d lost the child and was left blind, dying a few months later. There was no mention of her husband. But, it did, however, mention the driver, named Frank. He had enlisted in the Marines and came back from war four years later a changed man. Known thereafter for always being drunk, he disappeared after the accident, never to be seen again. His father was the richest man in town owning the insurance company in which Jeannie worked.

“Frank,” she said. “I remember him vaguely.” He was a handsome young man that everyone felt sorry for until that day. She gasped at the thought that the book could be about the very accident she witnessed as a child. Putting the box away and climbing back down out of the

attic, she pondered anxiously what Charlie had to do with all of this and why he was left on her porch. Grabbing the book again, she skimmed the pages desperate for answers. She read how he began tracking down the witnesses because he believed they either lied about the accident or didn’t speak up for his wife. Heart pounding and hands shaking, she threw the book across the room.

It didn’t matter, she thought. This was obviously a threat. “Pack and go,” Jeannie said to herself out loud. “Just get the hell out of here.” Grabbing a suitcase from the closet, she threw clothes into it, added a few other personals, forced it closed and ran out to her car. It began raining hard. “Drive Jeannie. Just drive and don’t look back,”she said. She paused, went back into the house for a moment for her umbrella and coat and on the note left on her table, she flipped it over and wrote, “I’ll keep my eyes, thank you.”

She ran back to her car this time under the cover of her umbrella wrapped in the warmth of her coat, and without waiting for the car to warm up, she drove away. The rain was pouring. The ominous drive in the dark, washed out road through dumping rain where she could hardly see the reflection of her headlights left her feeling a deep panic in her core. All of a sudden, she saw what looked like Charlie in the middle of the road and swerved to miss him crashing her car into a telephone pole. Beginning to lose consciousness, Jeannie heard her car door open and was pulled out by a man in a raincoat carried somewhere in the rain. She only saw his shadow before she blacked out but remembered feeling his strong arms carrying her to safety.

Jeannie awoke in her bed in pajamas under the covers. She arose, her head pounding, looking around confused. She saw her wet clothes hanging in her shower, chills running through her body as she began realizing the man who rescued her knew where she lived, got into her house and undressed her. Then, Jeannie saw a note on the dining room table that read, “You can keep your eyes. They are beautiful.”