My Aunt Aggie's best friend was a blind man. When I was four, she took me to visit him in his dim, sparsely furnished apartment.
"I feel sorry for Mr. Jacobs," I whispered into Aunt Aggie's ear.
"Because he's blind?"
"No, because he's poor. His apartment's dirty and ugly. All he's got is a sofa and his plants are all dead."
Aunt Aggie gave me a funny look. "Hey, Jake," she said. Mr. Jacobs smiled straight at Aunt Aggie, even though he couldn't see her. "Why don't you show Annie around?"
"Only if she closes her eyes," he said. "If she wants to see my place, she' s got to see it my way." He held out his hand. I took it, and closed my eyes...
Mr. Jacobs's bare, grease-smudged living room walls made perfect, uninterrupted finger-holds for a blind man and a girl with her eyes shut. His stained sofa cushions felt clean and smooth. His dead plants were fragrant: dried bouquets of rosemary, eucalyptus, and lavender. The absence of all furniture except the sofa made for unimpeded shuffling across the scuffed pea-green linoleum floor. Once, twice, three times across — and then there we were, me and Mr. Jacobs, dancing blind, whirling free and easy across cool, dark, empty space.