AN: When I said the next chapter would be soon, I didn't mean half a year later. Whoops.
Shout out to amazing reviewers Pegasus M, smartyjonescrzy, RubyMarlin, and Adren, especially if they've been waiting this long. Hope the next part of the (incredibly depressing) Specs Saga lives up to your expectations.
-pen 'n notebook (Repeat)
Specs
His glasses were bent, scratched, and abused beyond their years by the time he arrived at the lodging house, but they were still his most valuable possession. No one would ever know how much they meant to him.
It was only fair they had given him his name.
Three days later Misha woke to his normal routine, dressed, and ate a small breakfast. The light meal was hardly filling, but he knew better than to complain. As usual, his father left for work and his mother gathered her fabric - her work - folding quickly it but neatly. Soon she too would leave for a while, only to return in an hour with new cloth to stitch and another full day's worth of pay.
In the mean time, he, his brothers and his sister occupied themselves. They had no other choice with no neighbor available to watch them. Sometimes Ivan went with Mama to help her, other times just for the company, but more often than not the four finished a chore Mama assigned and went back to sleep.
Misha listened to his mother sweep around the room. Bad as his eyes were, he watched her shadow-like form as she moved about, wiping crumbs and picking up her children's makeshift bedding from the floor.
He listened, and watched for just a moment before standing up and heading over to his place at the window, already anticipating the activity below.
The city never rested. There were a lot of people in the morning, all of them walking, talking, shouting, clanging. The sounds blended together, but Misha made of game of separating them. Horse. Wagon. Boy. Girl. Man. Woman. Machine...
Without warning, his mother's voice interrupted his thoughts. "Misha, I want you to come with me today."
She announced it casually, as if having said it dozens of times before.
He stopped instantly in mid-step and spun around to face her. Had he heard right? No, he couldn't have. Going with Mamma on her errands meant going outside, leaving the tenement.
"What?" Misha asked in confusion.
She still acted as if the news were nothing new.
"I want you to come with me to the factory today. You need to be outside more." She added offhandedly. The little boy's face lit up into a giant smile but his mother had already gone back to her cleaning, not taking notice. Everyday he dreamed about going outside, being in the center of activity and exploring all the streets had to offer. Hearing those words was a dream come true.
Ivan watched in disbelief, sitting on his father's armchair across the room. A flash of jealousy shot through his little body. "I want to go too."
"No!" His mother scolded more sharply than she intended.
Ivan flinched backward as if he had been slapped. He sank backward into the chair and nervously looked down to at floor in confusion. Mamma always snapped at Misha, never him. Suddenly the roles reversed and the little boy felt betrayed.
Their mother choose to ignore Ivan for now. He would be in the little apartment when she came back, and by that time he was likely to forget her error and welcome her back happily. Perhaps all the more happily since his brother wasn't returning too.
She was just tense she reasoned. Late sleepless nights and serious conversations between her and her husband over the last few days put her nerves on edge, taking away her patience.
"Hurry, Lace your shoes. We need to leave." She instructed gently to her oldest.
Ivan frowned angrily, not seeing why his brother had the right to go. He couldn't even help Mamma.
Gladly Misha pulled on his shoes, feeling another wave of excitement rush through him. Ivan wasn't allowed to come which meant today it was just him and Mamma. The satisfaction he felt overruled all rational thought. It never occurred to him to ask why after all this time he was allowed outside today.
"I'll be back soon." She reassured her other three children.
When he was ready to go, his mother took his hand. In her other she held her bag of laundry. The hallway was quite darker than their tenement room, much narrower too. His mother guided him through the hall to the stairs. Misha could see every blurred inch of it with his weak eyes, but unfamiliar with area his mother thought it best to take no chances.
Only once he had snuck out into the hall when his parents were away. He found the adventure harmless, despite his parent's warning. It would have been too, if Ivan hadn't tattled on him. He never tried again.
At the stairs his mother gave him the exact number of steps before going down the steep, creaky planks together. The last thing she needed was for him to trip and break his neck.
Silently Misha counted each step, growing more anxious with each countdown.
He knew the door to the street stood at the bottom. Beyond it lay another world, one he had been kept away from. To any other kid it was a filthy, crumbling, crowed street, nothing special by any means. Misha knew it too, but in this mind there was something impressive about the cobblestone walkway.
Once again, his mother took his hand as she led him outside. It was so much brighter than the hallway. Right away he tried to shield his eyes from the light, but his mother kept walking, pulling him beside her. As they walked, her eyes darted down to watch him, making sure he was safe.
His mother lay awake all night. Unable to sleep, she replayed the last several evenings over and over in her mind: every argument with her husband about Misha's behavior, the way she continued to snap at Misha without reason. Three nights ago was the final straw. She couldn't handle her son anymore. She didn't want to handle him anymore.
Once the problem with Misha's eyes became severe, she and her husband knew someday the time would come when he had to leave. Food was expensive. Space for five growing children was limited. Their little struggling family could not afford to care for him any longer.
His parents knew soon enough he would grow into a useless adult, unable to either work or go to school. He would never be able to live his own life or provide for himself and his own family. The only thing he could do properly now is sit beside a window and in five years, they knew he would still be sitting beside that damned window. She would spend the rest of her life caring for him. Not her husband. Not her other other children. Her, his mother.
Over the years he suffered, but she suffered twice as much. Everyday she had to look at him and know he wasn't normal and there was nothing she could do to take that away. The burden sat on her shoulders with an unbearable weight.
She couldn't handle it anymore.
Sitting idly everyday in such a confined space may have damaged his mind by now, just another reason to hand him to an asylum where the blind went. However, she refused to believe he belonged there. The stories she had heard about those places . . . No, she did not want her son there.
In a few years he would be a faint memory, leaving his siblings to wonder if he ever existed. She would convince them he hadn't. He was the neighbor's child, a playmate . . . The lies came to her mind too quickly.
Together they walked around the city, up and and down an endless maze of streets. Misha listened to the city noise around him with rapt attention, absorbing them as if they he had never heard the familiar sounds of horse hooves clicking against the cobblestone pavement or the foreign shout of a man selling his wares. Everything was so much louder. Being at the heart of the street made him feel alive.
On a particular street, after winding through the crowds, Mamma led him onto the sidewalk, maneuvering him against the side of a building, exactly where she wanted him. They both stopped.
"Wait here." She explained. "I need to return my work. Don't move, I won't be long."
Something was wrong, he could hear it in her voice, but couldn't recognize why.
"Alright."
His mother took both his hands in hers desperately. "I mean it." he voice warned sternly. "If you wonder away you'll get lost. You don't know the city. Promise me you will not move."
If he moved an inch from this spot she would never let him leave the apartment again. "I promise." He agreed sincerely.
"Good. Stay here. Wait."
Simple as that. If only it were, she wished.
She quickly ran her fingers through his hair quickly and smoothed his shirt collar, not about to let seven years of maternal care go to waste. One last look showed her he looked so much like his parents, the perfect mix of all her and her husband's features. She took a moment to memorize his face, first his mouth and nose. Even his hair and ears. Finally she looked into his dark sightless eyes for the last time.
Why couldn't he see?
Why couldn't he be healthy and normal like her other children?
Those questions she wondered all too often.
Silently, she pushed her emotions back into her heart, not willing to let them escape now. Her hand brushed slowly over his shoulder and along his arm as she released him. Without looking back she turned away, walking down the street and into the nearest crowd.
Misha shifted from foot to foot and gently rocked back and forth while he waited. He wasn't a patient child, but he was trying his best. The street he stood on was relatively quiet, compared the ones they had come from earlier. From a distance he heard the other streets buzzing with activity, none of it close to him though. His mother was just testing him, he thought. Making sure he obeyed. If he passed, she would take him outside again, and he wouldn't cooped up in the dark apartment. Misha waited, determined to pass the teat.
Time was a concept that escaped the little blind boy years ago. There was a precise way to figure it out, like his parents did, but being unable to see well he had never been able to learn it. So instead he went by more simple measurements. Day and night he understood easily. It was one of the few things his eyes could see clearly. Then, day was broken into three parts: breakfast, lunch, and supper. It wasn't the most reliable time source, especially when his family skipped a meal, but it worked.
He lost track of how long he stood on the sidewalk. The bricks under his feet were not soft and his legs grew tired. Still, he stood. More than once he thought about sitting, but the reminder of his mother's strong reprimand stopped him each time.
Sarah Adams had worked at the West 32nd St. Orphanage for twelve years. In that time she had seen every possible type child enter the building from orphans, immigrants, the ill, the abandoned, the healthy, the innocent, and the hopeless. Every possible combination imaginable came to the orphanage in need of care and she and the others staff accepted them all. So when she opened the front door in the early afternoon, she was not shocked to find a child sitting at the doorstep.
She took one look at the sitting boy and crossed herself, praying he had not been left for the orphanage to find.
As she approached, he jumped almost nervously, and whipped around to face her. Startled, Misha stood up quickly, thinking it had been his mother. Mamma would be angry to find him sitting.
"What are you doing out here?" She asked gently, showing him her presence was nothing to fear.
The woman wore a simple tan skirt and dull white blouse. Instantly he knew it wasn't Mamma; she had been wearing a black skirt. The sun's brighter light barely helped his vision, still he preferred it to the dim apartment.
He didn't understand her words either. They were nonsense, nothing he had ever heard before.
When he did not respond she asked again, carefully watching his reaction. In a caring maternal gesture she stepped closer toward him.
A small panic raced through Misha's body as he saw the figure approach. He didn't know what the stranger wanted, how to react.
"No." He told her quickly, hoping it was enough to make her leave. "No, no, no. Please leave me alone."
Upon hearing the boy's foreign language, Sarah Adams sighed inwardly to herself. The boy had been left there, one more immigrant child for the city to care for.
Her own mind raced briefly trying to think of what language he spoke so she could find another child in the building to translate. In the meantime, he needed to be brought inside. The building already overflowed with homeless children, but she didn't have it in her heart to allow him to become another child of the street.
She motioned for him to follow her, but he didn't see the subtle movement. After a moment of waiting she realized, for whatever reason, he didn't understand, so this time she came to his side and put her hand on his shoulder to gently guide him toward the door. Immediately Misha shrugged out of her grasp and started protesting again.
She tried a second time, more forcefully coaxing him forward despite his pleading protests. Before he knew it she had him inside.
It only took minutes before Sarah Adams and the other staff realized the problem with his eyes. The first clue came when he tripped over the step in building's doorway, after that it took only a matter of moments for them to figure out he couldn't see a thing.
Misha felt the rest of the day pass by at break neck speed. He was bombarded with strangers who didn't speak the same language. A boy introduced as Matthew translated between Russian and English and Misha felt a wave of relief knowing someone spoke the same language in this crazy place. The people asked so many questions, more than he ever heard before: "What is your name? How old are you? Where did you live?" Over and over again.
The answers scared him - not the ones he gave - the ones he couldn't give. Misha had never thought about where he lived before because he had just always been there without the faintest clue of the exact street name, tenement building or room number. He never needed to know them until today.
All of a sudden it felt like the most important, most obvious information in the world and he didn't know it. How could he not know?
A new, more terrifying panic gripped Misha. Now Mamma couldn't find him and he couldn't find her.
As the knowledge sunk in, so did a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach that twisted uneasily. How had he never known something so simple? Everybody knew where they lived, everyone except him. It didn't matter he knew the sun rose facing the window, that the air outside the apartment smelled like smoke from the nearby factories, or that he knew every square inch of the interior by heart.
Until Misha gave the women a name, any name, he couldn't go home.