PART 1 — THE FIRST FACE I SAW

My six-year-old son pushed me down the stairs.

By the time I hit the hardwood floor, two things I believed about my life had already begun to collapse.

The first was impossible.

I could see.

The second was worse.

The child I had spent six years calling my son looked nothing like me.

I had lived in darkness for almost seven years.

Not shadows.

Not blurry shapes.

Darkness.

I knew our Pacific Palisades house by touch.

Eight steps from the breakfast room to the foyer.

Three from the hall table to the bottom of the staircase.

The rough patch in the banister where Douglas kept promising to have the wood refinished.

The different echoes that told me whether I had entered the kitchen, library, or enormous living room I had never actually seen.

Douglas described things for me.

The ocean view.

Sunsets.