Don't Talk to Me About the War by David A. Adler

one eye.
    Blind people use long white sticks and guide dogs. If Mom can’t see, she’ll spend the whole day with her programs, with Helen Trent, Mary Noble, and Ma Perkins. With no one around, how will she eat her lunch? Maybe her friends Mrs. Muir and Mrs. Taylor could help.
    Thinking of Mom like that upsets me.
    I look up. The man is still looking at me. What’s so interesting to him about a thirteen-year-old kid in a doctor’s office?
    The woman in the nurse’s uniform returns to her desk. I go to her and whisper, “What’s wrong with my mother?”
    “I don’t know. The doctor is examining her.”
    I go back to my seat and try to think of something other than Mom.
    The Dodgers.
    Fat Freddy is pitching tonight. It’s the first night game of the year at Ebbets Field, and it’s on the radio, on WOR at nine. Maybe by then we’ll be home, hopefully with good news about Mom. She probably just got something in her eye and the doctor is taking it out. That’s what’s taking him so long.
    The door behind the nurse’s desk opens. Mom and Dad walk out with the doctor. Dad is holding on to Mom.
    “Dr. Kellerman is waiting for you,” the doctor says. “Get over there as quickly as you can.”
    Dad stops by the nurse’s desk. He reaches into his pocket.
    The doctor shakes his head. “You don’t have to pay.”
    Of course they don’t have to pay! They paid when he said mom was “just tired”! Why should they pay again when he corrects his mistake!
    I follow Dad and Mom to the door.
    “Good luck,” says a woman who has been sitting quietly in the waiting room. The man with the mustache just watches us leave the office.
    We’re in the lobby of the building now and I ask Dad, “What did the doctor say? What’s wrong with Mom?”
    “He’s not sure. He wants Mom to see another doctor, an oph . . . an oph . . .”
    “An ophthalmologist,” Mom says, “an eye doctor.”
    Once we’re outside, Dad asks me to help Mom. I take her hand as he goes to the curb. He looks up and down the street and then returns to us.
    “There are no cabs, and if we call one, we’ll have to wait.” He looks at Mom and asks, “Can you walk? It’s only a few blocks.”
    Mom nods.
    He takes Mom’s arm again. I walk behind them.
    Dad is usually very talkative, but not today.
    Mom doesn’t need help because she can’t see anything, but because she’s so upset. I don’t blame her. I hate seeing her like this, like she can no longer do anything on her own, so I look away.
    After two blocks I begin to recognize some of the stores, the Rexall Drug Store on the corner and Fancy Nancy’s Dried Fruits. And there’s the clothing store where Dad works.
    The buildings here are nicer than the ones where we live. There are awnings leading all the way to the street, so when it rains people can get into the buildings without getting wet.
    About a block from Dad’s store, as we pass one real nice building, the doorman looks at me and then quickly turns away. I think I know him, but who is he? Maybe I saw him when I visited Dad’s store.
    We keep walking for two more blocks until we come to the eye doctor’s office. The entrance is not through the lobby. It’s a bit before the awning and a few steps down. Inside, the waiting room is a lot smaller than the other doctor’s office. When we step on the mat, a bell rings, and the white door opposite the entrance opens.
    “Hello,” the man who opened the door says. “I’m Dr. Kellerman.”
    He’s a short, bald man. He’s wearing a white doctor’s jacket.
    “Are you Barbara Duncan?”
    “Yes,” Mom answers.
    “Come in.”
    Dad tells me to sit and wait. Then he and Mom follow the doctor.
    There are magazines here, too, but I don’t feel like reading them. I sit opposite the entrance and look out the window.
    It’s odd watching people walk by. This is a basement office, so when I look out, all I see are people’s feet and legs.
    A woman with shiny high-heeled brown shoes and brown