Deaf and going blind, she could no longer play Frisbee. The ball held no interest. My heart ached—and at first, I thought it ached for her. Surely, I thought, she must miss our hikes, our hours of play, racing across the field to catch the ball and the Frisbee. I was wrong. The heartache was my own. I was the one who longed for those younger, stronger days, for the magic of her more-than-human gifts of hearing frequencies I could not detect, seeing with surety in the dark. I missed traveling in the slipstream of her superpowers. I was sad—but Tess was not. One look at her showed she was happy.
...more
