From the Journal of Cedric De Changy

I have very little recall of my childhood. Its hard to have memories when you have been blind your entire life, for there are no images in your mind, no colors or faces to recall. Its so easy to forget the sound of someone's voice, so easy to forget the way it felt to have someone's arm around you- thus everything I can recall has become a sort of blur of emotions. However, there is one clear distinction in my mind, and that is how life felt before the night Erik left, and the way it felt afterwards.

He didn't say goodbye. I couldn't have been any older than six, but I can still remember the morning I woke up and he was gone. Even then my mother wouldn't let me talk about it. When I stopped crying and allowed her to speak, she told me it was for the best, and that I would have a real father now to love me. She said that I'd soon forget all about Erik.

But I didn't.

My father was overwhelmed even before he met me. The war had left him lame and in a wheel chair, and his helplessness was killing him inside. He was young, and he didn't know how to handle a child in my condition. My blindness made me frustrated, and without Erik's calm understanding protection, I grew wild and angry and lashed out at anyone who tried to reform me. I wouldn't let my parents hold me or console me. I avoided them both, angry at them and the world, and became lost deep within myself.

I learned quickly not to mention Erik. The one time I did, my mother insisted that I didn't know what I was talking about and that I had never met anyone named Erik. My father grew angry, and my mother cried for days. I didn't dare bring him up again; I was a bad child, but not to the point where I enjoyed to see others in pain.

I tried to hide my guilt, but I couldn't. I felt like I was some sort of ghost of the past, haunting my parents marriage. I didn't even fight when they took away my piano. I resented them with every inch of my heart, but I soon learned to keep it bottled inside.

I didn't' get along with my peers either. I was kicked out of all the schools my father sent me away to for fighting with other students. I made the children fear me so that they would push me around and steal my things, taking advantage of my handicap. It wasn't my fault entirely; I had to do something, and behaving like a violent animal was my only defense; acting like a human never got me any respect. I was treated like I was stupid by my teachers and was put in slower classes, despite the fact that I could do the work better than most the other students.

As I grew, I began to believe the entire world was against me. Sometimes I talked to my mother, only because I knew she knew the truth. I hoped that if I was good, she would give me some hint as to whom Erik had been, or what had become of him. She never did. And when she died suddenly in her sleep on the same night as my thirteenth birthday, I was left alone and clueless.

After my mother was gone, any ties that had been between my father and I were destroyed. He had screamed at me the night of her death. Her last words had been to my father: "Tell Cedric the truth about Erik." Soon after, I had asked him to please tell me, and he was furious. He claimed that it was all I cared about, and that my true family meant nothing to me. He said he wished that I wasn't his son, and that I had done nothing but make his and my mother's life miserable. I was hurt beyond words, and he was more than happy to be left alone. So we stopped speaking.

The night before the funeral, I cried alone in my room. I didn't see the point in living anymore; I had no family, no friends, no education or skills or any place in life. I was defected, worthless, broken, and I had done nothing but make other people's lives miserable. I wanted to die, and I was daring myself to just jump out the window of the mansion and end it all.

I was seriously considering this when I heard voices downstairs. My curiosity got the better of me, and I opened my door and crept down the hall. I had memorized the amount of steps it would take to get to different places in the house, and I counted in my head as I reached the top on the stairs, and bent down by the top banister to listen to the activity downstairs.

My father was speaking to people at the front door. God, how I wished I wasn't blind! I carefully made my way down the stairs, trying to be as silent as I could. The man speaking sounded like he had an accent of some sort…I wasn't sure what it was. Maybe Arabic.

I couldn't tell what was being said- everyone seemed to be speaking in hushed tones. There was a woman's voice, and the sound of my father, and then I heard another voice, slightly softer and clearer in frequency then the other men's. And my heart leapt.

I could remember him! I couldn't until I heard his voice, but now as I strained to listen, I was certain it was Erik! It was as if the memory of his voice was a passage to thousands of other memories. I suddenly could remember the smell of his jacket I used to bury my face in, and the way he would laugh and ruffle my hair. I remembered the songs he used to play for me, and the feeling of his bony fingers as they guided my tiny ones on the ivory keys of the old piano. I felt tears in my eyes, and I realized suddenly that I didn't want to die.

I hurried down the stairs, no longer bothering to hide that I was listening. I forgot to count my steps in my excitement, and when I reached the last step I fell hard on my chest, knocking my wind out of myself.

I felt someone help me to a sitting position on the steps, and I waited a few moments and soon I could breathe again.

The first words out of my mouth were, "Erik?"