When I Was Whole (And When I Fell Apart)

3 - Trois

        Arthur was diagnosed with congenital glaucoma when he was two, and to say their mother was devastated would be an understatement.

        When Arthur was born, his gaze always had that empty, unfocused air, like he was staring at both nothing and everything at all. Laurence wasn't particularly concerned, he didn't see what was wrong with Arthur constantly squinting at the light. Even when his pupils began tearing up, even when the white of his eyes grew an unsettling shade of crimson; to him, it had always just seemed that he was a regular baby, and weren't babies supposed to cry?

        But as time went on, it became apparent that something was off.

        And it all started with the color of his eyes.

        Elisabeth and Laurence hardly looked like siblings. While Laurence had always resembled their mother with her dirty blonde hair, Elisabeth felt eerily similar to staring at the visage of their dead father. Her dark brown hair was neatly kept, a low bob that hung at her shoulders and bounced every time she moved. Laurence opted to cut his hair short, his bangs hanging at his face so that he had to sweep it to the side to keep it out of his face.

        There was one thing, however, that they had in common: a pair of deep, glistening blue eyes.

        When they were younger, their mother used to say that those eyes were the only reason anyone could tell they were family, beacons of light blue a stark contrast against the dark of their hair–angelic, cold, but blue all the same. He and Elisabeth always had a laugh at that; it was a running joke that if they ever had another brother, or sister, as Elisabeth always insisted, they'd be a trio of bright blue pupils, with dark blonde and even darker brown hair.

        So it was with great alarm when Arthur's eyes, even as he neared his second birthday, stayed that same, pale shade of gray.

        Their mother was frantic with worry; what once could have easily been brushed off while he was a growing infant soon became very obvious as a toddler. Arthur's eyes were constantly watering, avoiding the light like a mere glance would be the equivalent of a death wish.

        And perhaps it was, with the number of times he kept crying every time he turned to the light.

        The glaze in his eyes never went away. His irises were now engulfed entirely in gray, pale blue bearing no resemblance to Laurence's own, and it wasn't soon after they moved into their new apartment that she took Arthur to the hospital.

        Laurence still remembers the day she came back from the ophthalmologist, the door slowly creaking as she walked inside, carrying a sleeping Arthur on her shoulder. A pair of keys jangled in her hands, the sound of metal clattering against the kitchen counter as she threw them to the side.

        Her heavy footsteps echoed in the hall as she passed by his bedroom, gently placing Arthur into his crib, and completely ignoring Laurence in his place on the bunk bed. Breathing shakily, she took a seat at the dining table, face buried in her palms as she propped her elbows onto the dining table.

        Her head was raised to the ceiling, hands clasped in prayer as though she was begging, pleading for someone to help.

        It was midnight, far past his bedtime, but somehow he could still hear his mother muttering to herself from the kitchen.

        "Frank," she seemed to say, "what am I supposed to do?"