Worth a Thousand Words by Stacy Adams Page A

from trying to maintain her stare for two minutes.
    “There,” the ophthalmologist said. She sat back in her chair for a few minutes before positioning the instrument to zap the other eye.
    When she was done, she kept the lights low. Dr. Woodman’s assistant put drops in Indigo’s eyes and gave her a pair of flimsy paper sunglasses to block the light.
    “We’ll monitor you for about an hour before we send you home,” the cheerful young lady said. “Step down from the exam chair carefully and sit in this wheelchair; I’ll take you next door to the postsurgery room, where you can stretch out on one of the cots and nap if you’d like.”
    The wheelchair ride was quick. Indigo climbed onto one of the low beds, with help from the assistant, and lay back. She relaxed and folded her arms across her belly. If this brief, but focused, work paid what Indigo believed it did, she needed to switch careers. Indigo knew the specialized procedure required expertise; still, she couldn’t help but marvel at its swiftness.
    God, let this work. No more eye problems, please? You said ask and you would answer. I’m begging you to preserve my eyesight.
    Those clichés were always true—you didn’t miss your water ’til your well ran dry; it was easy to take something for granted if you had no reason to doubt that it would always be there.
    She wasn’t going blind and prayed that the glaucoma would never get to that point. But the diagnosis alone had been enough to fill her with dread. Getting it at age twenty-two versus sixty-two made a world of difference.
    While the laser surgery was a gift that would soon give her freedom from having to use prescription eyedrops, the reality that she had a condition that needed to be managed for the rest of her life was still overwhelming.
    Dr. Woodman felt certain that Indigo wouldn’t have problems pursuing her photography goals.
    “We’ll monitor you every six months—every three if that’s what makes you comfortable. I’m in this with you,” she had promised. “Don’t let this little hiccup keep you from living life.
    I’m looking forward to seeing your photographs in some amazing places.”
    Yet, as Indigo rested on the thin cot and felt herself drifting to sleep, she couldn’t help but fret.
    How often would she have to have this procedure to maintain a normal life? What if the doctors were wrong about the disease’s progression? Should she get a desk job where her eyes weren’t central to her work?
    Maybe she should take the bird in her hand—marriage to a man she loved—and let whatever else happened, happen. She wondered what Shelby would advise her to do. But then, Shelby had never been one to make choices based on matters of the heart. She flew through boyfriends the way some women changed shoes.
    Indigo felt the knots in her stomach as she tossed around all of her options.
    She loved Brian, but she needed to be able to breathe without him. She had learned from the women she cared about most—Mama, Rachelle, Aunt Melba—that life got hard sometimes, and she’d be wise to make sure she could take care of herself.
    Before she could wrestle with herself any further, Dr. Woodman’s assistant returned and told her she could go.
    Mama and Daddy had been watching the clock in the eye clinic’s waiting room. They stood to greet her when she emerged from the post-op area and peered at her expectantly.
    Indigo shrugged and answered the questions they were asking with their eyes. “I’m okay; no pain or anything. Dr. Woodman says I’ll be ready to move forward with life by tomorrow.”
    She tried not to sound glum, but truth be told, she had only partially pulled herself out of the pity party she had lapsed into a few days ago, when Claude Ingram seemed so thrilled to bid her farewell. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he hadn’t acknowledged the pictures she’d left with him.
    Indigo knew the newspaper would still be produced and photos would still be published, but