Free Together by Tom Sullivan, Betty White Page A

time."
    "Well,
good," Barnes said. "I'm on the racing team at Winter Park, and we
need new blind skiers for the World Championships in a couple of years."
    Brenden came
to attention. "Excuse me?" he asked. "You mean you're—"
    Barnes
interrupted. "Blind? You bet, kid! Blind as a bat and black to boot! What
a combo."
    Barnes hit a
button, and Brenden heard a synthetic voice coming through a couple of speakers
he figured were probably on a computer on the man's desk.
    "Ten
thirty intake appointment with Brenden McCarthy, age twenty-five, practicing
physician doing his internship, newly blind, hurt in a mountain climbing
accident up on the Bells." Barnes hit the stop button.
    "Is that
about right, Brenden? Are those the basic facts?"
    "Yes,"
Brenden said in a flat tone.
    "Well,
your mother and your friend, Charlie, tell me you've been hanging out in your
room, feeling sorry for yourself. Is that about it?"
    Brenden felt
the color rise in his face, and the anger began to bubble up inside him like a
volcano about to blow.
    "Who are
you to say that?" he asked defiantly. "We don't even know each other,
and you're already judging me, like you have all the information about who I am
or what I feel?"
    The chair
indicated that the man sat back. "That's good," he said. "Very
good. At least I know that you can get emotional. If
    I can get a
rise out of you, that's the right first step. Now we just have to channel it.
What do you know about being blind, Brenden, beyond that it means your eyes
don't work?"
    The clocked
ticked off a few more seconds.
    "It
means that life sucks." Brenden spit out the words. "It means that
I'll never be able to enjoy the things that have always brought me pleasure in
life. It means that I won't have independence. It means that people will pity
me. It means that I have to give up my career in medicine. It means that I'll
probably be caning chairs or selling pencils or something like that. Isn't that
what all of you do? Or maybe I'll become musical— tune pianos. How about
that?"
    The big man
laughed quietly. "You know the guy who won the blind World Championships
as a downhill skier went faster than Jean-Claude Killy did in the 1964 Olympic
Games? Do you know that there's an amputee who holds many speed records for
freeform skiing? Have you read about Eric Weihenmayer— the guy who climbed
Mount Everest—or what about the blind people who become judges, senators,
lawyers? There's even a fellow named David Hartman in Baltimore who is a
practicing psychiatrist. He's got a medical degree like you, doesn't he? You
can do all those things, Brenden, if you simply decide you want to. And if you
want to, we'll give you all the training you need.
    "And
then there's something else. You'll learn that a life in the dark can open up
levels of sensory awareness that you would never have believed possible. Talk
about your mountains? I don't just go there in the winter to ski. I enjoy
mountain bike riding in the summer on the back of a tandem with some poor soul
driving on the front, working much too hard to pedal my fat self up and down
the hills. And while I'm up there, I listen to meadowlarks and mountain
streams. Things I might not have taken in before. You know what, kid? I've even
heard deer running free and the trumpeting of elk in the fall during mating
season. I've sat on a rock and enjoyed the best ham and cheese sandwich I've
ever eaten in my life. Did you ever notice that food tastes a lot better at
fourteen thousand feet?"
    Brenden
couldn't help but smile, and the big man heard it.
    "I just
heard you smile, young fella, and it's a wonderful sound. Give me five."
    The giant
reached over the desk and once again engulfed Brenden's hand, this time pumping
it up and down for emphasis.
    "What
did you get out of that handshake, kid? What did it tell you?"
    Despite
himself, Brenden thought about it. "It says you ought to be a politician.
It says you're trying to impress me with a lot of bravado about the beauty