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It was hot, unreasonably hot, even for New York. Matt hated it. He wanted nothing more than to sprawl out under a fan somewhere, to let the slight breeze chill the sweat that was beading up on his forehead and under his arms. Instead, he sat in his suit coat on the wooden pews of the church, trying desperately to focus on the sound of the priest’s voice over the thousands of other noises drifting in through the door. Without really thinking, he had started to tap the heel of his shoe against the ground, grounding himself amongst the chaos.
Someone else had picked up on his rhythm. Every time his heel came down on the smooth stone floor, he was met with the kick of a tiny foot right below his knee. If he focused, he could tell it was a little girl, maybe six or seven years old, scribbling intently with crayons on the back of a program. She swung her legs off the edge of the pew without thinking, but it didn't take any effort at all to coordinate his tapping so that it lined up perfectly with the pendulum of her legs.
Eventually, the motion drew the attention of the adult next to her, who leaned in and put a heavy hand over her knee.
“Nessa, we don’t touch people without asking,” the mother whispered before turning to Matt. “Sorry about that. She’s autistic. We’re trying to work on boundaries.”
“That’s alright,” he smiled back, “I have a little bit of experience with that, myself.”
Nessa turned to him, excited.
“Can I draw a picture of you?”
“You can, but I won’t be able to see it.”
“Why not?”
“I’m blind.”
He brought his hand up to tap on his glasses. She thought for a moment, then started digging around in her mother’s purse, pulling out other things to draw with.
“Blind people see with their hands.” She told him, in that confident way of a kid who’s been taught something in school.
“Yes, but that only works on things that aren’t flat. It doesn’t work very well on paper.”
“Ok.”
She scribbled quietly to herself for a while, switching between different markers and pencils as she worked. Her foot resumed its tapping, and so did his. That made her heart beat out a happy little rhythm in her chest, stretching a smile across Matt’s face when he heard it. He tried to bring his attention back to the priest, who was in the middle of delivering the homily. For a while he listened, thinking back on the times when he used to be Nessa’s size, hearing the same messages, praying the same prayers. He found comfort in the sameness of it all. Nessa’s tiny frame tilted towards him despite the oppressive heat, and he leaned in again to whisper with her.
“Are you blind because you have no eyes?”
Her well-meaning mother leaned over to chastise her again, but Matt waved the woman off. It wasn’t the first time a child had been curious.
“No, I still have eyes. They just can’t see.”
“Can I look at them? For my picture?”
He smiled, taking his glasses off and folding them in his lap. Nessa leaned in, face tilting up towards his.
“Pretty,” She whispered.
Matt’s cheeks flushed, past the point of its-too-hot and heading more towards the territory of someone-called-me-pretty. He felt his grin stretch wide over his teeth, and even when Nessa went back to her drawing, he left the glasses on his lap. As they prayed, Nessa dutifully set her crayons down and folded her hands. Matt could feel her curls bouncing as she mouthed the familiar phrases along with the priest. She had most of them memorized already, even if she still stumbled over some of her words.
She put the last flourish on her drawing just as they began to prepare the Eucharist for its consecration, and poked Matt gently to get his attention.
“Did you finish it?” He asked her.
“Yeah. Can I touch your hand?”
A little bit confused, he gave it over, letting her turn and fold his hand until his first two fingers were extended. She laid the paper out between their legs and gently brought his fingers down to brush over it. At once he could understand what she’d done. All of her art supplies had left different textures on the page, and her furious scribbling had exaggerated the differences between them.
“The one that feels slimy is markers, the lumpy one that sticks to your fingers is crayon, and the smooth one is pencils.”
“I can feel them all. It's beautiful.”
“That’s silly,” she giggled, “I haven’t even shown you what it is yet.”
She dragged his fingertips across a patchwork of slanted crayon lines, filled in with the slimy-feeling markers.
“That’s the big window at the back of the church. When the light comes in it makes everything turn colors.”
Underneath the window, he could feel the shape of a figure– slippery hair, smooth, even eyes, the chunky crayon outline of a chin. It was a simple enough drawing that he could tell what everything was supposed to be. It was him. Him, as seen through the eyes of a child, but it was still the closest he’d come to seeing his own face in years. When he said “Thank you, Nessa,” he meant it from the bottom of his heart.