For twenty years, I built a picture of my husband in my mind.

I imagined the curve of his smile, the color of his eyes, the way light might catch in his hair. I constructed him from touch and tone and breath against my cheek.

The day I finally saw his face was the day I realized the foundation of our life had a crack running straight through it.I lost my sight when I was eight.

It began as a childish dare on a playground. I was on the swings, pushing myself higher and higher because I loved that dizzy feeling of flying. A boy from our street stood behind me, laughing.

“Bet you can’t go higher than that!”“Watch me!” I shouted back.

Then came the shove.

My hands slipped from the chains. Instead of soaring forward, I flew backward. There was a sharp crack when my head hit a jagged rock near the mulch border.

I don’t remember the ambulance. I remember waking up to my mother crying and doctors whispering about “optic nerve damage” and “severe trauma.”I hated the dark. I hated depending on people. I hated hearing classmates rush past while I traced lockers with my fingertips.

But I refused to disappear.