Red Heart Tattoo by Lurlene McDaniel Page A

voice made fresh tears well up and spill into the bandages on her eyes.
    “Why did this happen, Morgan? Why did someone set off a bomb and change all our lives?”
    Morgan had no answers. She tugged Kelli out of the wheelchair and pulled her onto the bed with her. The friends wrapped their arms around each other and cried for what was gone and for what could never be again.
    Morgan went home on Monday, five days after the bombing. She was both happy and scared about going home, away from the security of the nurses. Her dad took her on a tour of the house, with her holding his elbow as the therapist had trained her to do when she was being led. The trainer had given her one of the sticks used by blind people. She used it gingerly, halfheartedly, self-conscious about the red-tipped stick that announced she couldn’t see. Inside the house, her father insisted that she use it.
    “This is just temporary,” he kept saying. “The bandages won’t be on forever.”
    Weeks seemed like an eternity to Morgan at the moment.
    “I picked up in every room,” Paige said, following along behind, then walking beside and finally in front of Morgan and Hal as they toured. “Nothing to trip you up, honey.”
    Morgan made a complete circuit of the first floor and stopped at the stairs. “I don’t need help to get up to my room,” she said, grabbing hold of the banister and dropping her dad’s arm.
    “Maybe you shouldn’t—”
    “Mom … I can do this.” The therapist had been very clear with Morgan’s parents about allowing her to navigate her own path through the days of darkness and letting her choose what she felt comfortable doing. It wasn’t as if she’d been blind since birth. She had been part of the seeing world and would be again. All she needed were basics to help her through the short haul. “You and Dad have to go back to work.”
    “Not right away.”
    “We can hire a helper,” Hal said. “You don’t need to be alone.”
    Morgan knew her parents were anxious to fence her in, keep her safe. She didn’t want to be afraid either, but when she’d been a kid learning how to ride a bike, she got back on it immediately no matter how many times she fell, no matter how many scrapes she received. “I know how to make a sandwich, get around the house, go to the bathroom by myself, wipe my backside—”
    “No need to enumerate your skills,” Paige said, cutting Morgan off. “We get the message.”
    Hal chuckled.
    Morgan stepped onto the stairs she’d once crawled up as an infant, grasped the rail with both hands. By the time she reached the top, she’d figured out her pace, the width and height of each step. At the top she felt her way along the wall to her bedroom, opened the door and was rewarded by a familiar sense of comfort and belonging. Her parents followed behind her.
    “Uh-oh,” Paige muttered.
    Hal cleared his throat awkwardly.
    “What’s happening?” Morgan asked.
    “Um … I put up a banner and helium balloons to welcome you home, but …,” Paige said meekly.
    “But I can’t see them.”
    “A miscalculation,” Paige said contritely.
    Morgan burst out laughing. She turned and opened her arms and the three of them stood hugging and laughing until they were weeping with the absurdity of a mother’s carefully planned homecoming for the daughter who could not see it.

M organ woke that night to the sound of Trent whispering her name. She bolted upright in bed. “Trent?”
    “None other.”
    Incredulous, she asked, “How did you get in?”
    “Climbed,” he said.
    “To the second floor?” He’d never done that in the past. He’d always just tossed grit at her window until she opened it, then she’d meet him under their tree.
    “Well, I can’t fly,” he said.
    “But—but Dad put up storm windows. And Mom always locks them.”
    “Must have forgotten this one. Hey, aren’t you glad I’m here?”
    “Oh yes.” She opened her arms, still warm from being under her covers. She