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Putting on makeup wasn’t easy as a legally blind person, but it had been one thing Abbey was determined not to give up as she lost her vision. She had always loved makeup—it made her feel put-together and polished—and she refused to relinquish that feeling just because she was losing her sight.
Luckily, she had good skin and didn’t need very much of it. Working by touch, she rubbed a thin layer of concealer under her eyes and an even thinner layer of foundation over the rest of her face. She felt through her makeup brushes until she found the one with the puffiest and largest end and used it to apply powder.
The brush with the angled tip was for blush—Abbey spread a bit over her cheekbones, leaning far forward to see the pinkish blurs on either side of the tan blur that was her face. Again she felt grateful that she could still see colors.
Of course, the condition that had stolen her detailed vision might still decide to take the colors as well and leave her in a dull gray world, but she hoped that it wouldn’t. So far she’d been lucky—well, as lucky as she could be considering the circumstances. She chose to believe that her luck would hold and she would continue to see the colorful blurs that filled her field of vision.
“Always choose the positive over the negative,” Aunt Rose often told her. “Always choose hope.” And Abbey did.
Lip-liner and lipstick were the trickiest part. Using her fingers, Abbey followed the contours of her lips as she traced on a brownish-pink lip-liner. She then filled it in with a similar colored lipstick. The hardest part was the points of her upper lip—she had a mouth shaped like a Cupid’s bow—at least according to Aunt Rose. And of course it was impossible to see if she was getting it exactly right or not.
Back when she was sighted, Abbey would have finished her makeup routine with a spray of perfume on her pulse points. However, now that her sense of smell had gotten so acute, she found most of the fragrances she’d loved when she was younger were simply too strong. Even the deodorant she wore was unscented. Besides, she was going to be dealing with the strong scent of the flowers in the shop all day, so she didn’t wear any perfume.
Turning to the left, Abbey walked straight ahead. Leaving the bathroom behind, she counted twelve steps down the hallway until she came to the kitchen. Turning right, she stepped in and found herself in front of the stove.
To her left was the Keurig coffee maker and a mug rack. Abbey chose her favorite mug—a bright yellow one that showed the contrast between the mug and the dark brown coffee she was going to drink from it. It was much easier to see how much coffee she had left in a lighter and brighter mug.
She started a cup of coffee, feeling for the accessibility buttons or “bump dots” she’d placed on the important buttons of the Keurig, and then turned back to the stove.
“Aunt Rose, do you want eggs this morning?” she called. “I’m making one for myself.”
“Sure, honey—I’ll take one,” her aunt called back from somewhere else in the house.
“Scrambled okay?” Abbey asked. She preferred scrambled eggs herself—not because she loved the taste but because they were much easier to make than any style of egg where you didn’t break the yoke.
Also, sunny side up eggs were so easy to get wrong—it was hard to tell if the whites were cooked all the way through. And even if she did get them perfect, eating them was messy. It was too easy to get yoke all down her front when she had a difficult time seeing what she was putting in her mouth. Everything she ate just looked like a colorful blob.
For that same reason, she preferred to eat dry foods, without too many condiments or gravies or sauces. She always wanted to look neat and put together—that was difficult if she had spilled sauce on herself and couldn’t tell it.
“Scrambled is fine. Can you make some toast too?” Aunt Rose called.
“Sure.”
Abbey bent down and reached for the cabinet to the right of the stove. She already knew what she would find before she opened it because she had memorized the exact content of all the kitchen cabinets. By touch she found the pan rack which had all the frying pans they used stacked in order. Above that was a shelf which held two sauce pots—one large and one small.
Feeling down the line of pans, Abbey chose the middle one which was medium sized and pulled it out. Holding it in one hand, she felt for the bump dots on the stove and pressed the one for the right lower corner burner.
The stove top was black but when the burner began to glow red, Molly was able to distinguish the color change. Carefully, she placed the frying pan down on the burner and turned to the refrigerator.
The inside of the fridge was as meticulously organized as everything else in the house. Abbey found the egg holder and took out two, which she placed in a bowl that she took from the left-hand cabinet beside the stove. Then she found the butter holder and took it out to place on the counter beside the bowl. It was bright pink and was easy to distinguish against the white countertop.
She closed the fridge, opened the drawer to her left, and pulled out a butter knife, her fingertips skating delicately along its serrated edge. She lifted the lid of the butter holder—(Aunt Rose refused to use anything but real butter)—and, measuring with the index finger of her left hand, cut off a chunk that was about half an inch wide.
Lifting the small blob of butter, she dropped it into the frying pan where it began sizzling immediately. Abbey put the butter knife in the left side of the sink—the dirty side—and felt for the roll of paper towels sitting beside it. She tore one off and cleaned the butter off her fingers—cooking as a visually impaired person often meant getting her hands dirty since her fingers were basically her eyes in most instances. Then she turned back to the bowl with the two eggs in it.
Abbey chose one of the eggs and, feeling for the rim of the bowl with her left hand, cracked the shell against it with her right. She was glad again for her color vision as she saw the vague yellow blob fall into the bright blue bowl. Many of their plates and dishes were brightly colored because she relied so much on color contrast. She cracked the second egg and reached back into the silverware drawer, finding a fork by the pricking of its tines against her fingertips.
She whipped the eggs into a froth and then poured them carefully into the pan where they began sizzling as well. Abbey placed the dirty bowl and fork into the sink—clutter was a blind person’s worst enemy, so everything had to go where it belonged immediately. Then she reached for the salt and pepper shakers which she knew were located on the countertop directly to the right of the stovetop.
After seasoning the eggs, she reached for the large round utensil holder which housed the spatulas, wooden spoons, whisks, and other cooking implements. Abbey’s vision was too bad to distinguish one from another but she was able to feel through the utensils until she found the one she wanted. Holding it firmly in her right hand, she used it to stir the eggs, making sure they were cooking evenly.
After placing the spatula on the counter beside her and mentally noting its place, she reached into the dish cabinet again and got out two bright blue dishes.
At that point, Aunt Rose came into the kitchen.
“Mmm—smells good!” she remarked. “Looks almost done, too.”
“Is it?” Abbey picked up the spatula and stirred the eggs again. “Would you mind making the toast? I didn’t get around to it yet.”
