His expression softens, his eyes dropping for just a second before he looks back up at me.
“My daughter’s sick,” he says quietly.
My stomach tightens before my brain can catch up.
“She’s six. It’s called Usher syndrome Type 3,” he continues, his voice even, practiced. “It affectsboth hearing and vision. Her vision is okay right now. She wears glasses but she can see. In the last year, she lost all her hearing, and her vision will go at some point.”
Words like genetic, progressive, and permanent weigh heavily in my chest. Too heavy. My hand curls tighter around the side of my notepad.
Stu tells me how he and his wife learned sign language together. How they practice as a family every night at the kitchen table. How they narrate the world for her—colors, expressions, everything she won’t always be able to see clearly. He doesn’t dramatize it. He doesn’t ask for pity.
“We don’t know how fast it’ll progress,” he says. “So, we focus on what she can do now. We want our baby girl to experience and see everything she can, so in the future, when she can’t see, she’ll know. She’ll be able to imagine what the rest of us see clearly and take for granted.”
I nod, professional on the outside, unraveling just a little on the inside. My pulse stutters, my thoughts skidding into places I don’t want them to go.
What if?What if something goes wrong with my baby?What if love isn’t enough to protect a child from the things you can’t control?
I force myself back into the moment, back into my role. I ask the right follow-up questions. I thank him. I keep my voice steady.
But fear has already found its way in. What I learn from Stu islove is blind. It doesn’t matter what body part fails when you love someone. You do what you need to do to make that person feel loved and connected. Genetics give us hair and eye color but also things that require medical intervention.
The cameraman and my female producer give me thewrap signal. I thank Johnson for his openness and ask him to let me know if they need anything. And all the while, my hand rests unconsciously over my stomach, as if instinct already knows what my heart hasn’t fully accepted yet.
After camp concludes, I sit in my rental car longer than necessary, hands gripping the steering wheel while the sun dips lower. I pull out my phone and stare at Brooks’s name.
I hate that my stomach still reacts.
Me: Can we meet for dinner after camp?
The reply comes almost instantly.
Brooks: Thought you’d never ask.
Trademark Brooks.
He shows up cocky in text form too—assumes this is me circling back, realizing my mistake, missing the crumbs he offers. I let him think that. Let the arrogance sit between us unchallenged while we settle on a local dive just outside town.
Before I go inside, my phone buzzes again.
A voicemail from Matt. I step back into the quiet of my rental car and listen. He sounds tired. Regret laces every word.
“Noelle, umm… hey. I’m sorry about my reaction when you told me about the baby. I don’t want to leave it… I mean us. I don’t want to leave us the way we did. Have you told Brooks yet? I’m here if you need a shoulder to cry on or a person to yell at. God knows, I deserve it.”
He shouldn’t have snapped at me and been so curt. It cut me deeply when it was the last thing on earth I needed. Theknot in my chest loosens a fraction, so I text him back before I can overthink it.
Me: Meeting Brooks tonight. I’m telling him.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Then:
Matt: Be careful. I’m here if you need me.
I tuck my phone away and open the door.
The bar smells like fried food and old beer. Neon signs hum softly, casting everything in a hazy glow. Low lighting. Sticky floors. The kind of place where secrets blend into the background noise. Brooks is already here, lounging like he owns the place, a drink in hand, his grin firmly in place.
It feels fitting.
I slide into the booth across from him, my heart hammering so loud I swear he can hear it.
