Chương 2
“I know who he is.”
“He was at the hospital.”
“All right.”
“He sat beside me when they told me Caroline and Emma were dead.”
Hannah said nothing.
“He came to the funeral.”
“I’m not accusing him of anything.”
“You’re doing an impressive imitation.”
“I’m saying you need an independent examination.”
“From whom?”
“Someone he doesn’t choose.”
That landed differently.
For years, almost everyone who entered my life had been chosen by someone.
Hale selected specialists.
Daniel Cross handled security.
My attorney, Martin Shaw, managed the trusts.
Staff came through an agency Cross had used for years.
Drivers were vetted.
Deliveries were screened.
My blindness had turned independence into a word other people used around me while making decisions on my behalf.
I hated Hannah for making me notice it.
“Mommy,” Lucy said, “I’m hungry.”
“You had crackers.”
“That was before.”
Hannah sighed.
“What would you like?”
“Different crackers.”
The absurdity cracked something in me.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
It sounded rusty.
Lucy laughed because I had.
Hannah did not, though I heard a smile enter her voice when she said, “Apparently hunger has stages now.”
I stood.
Hannah moved automatically toward me.
“Don’t.”
She stopped.
I found my cane beside the chair.
The rubber tip touched the rug, then hardwood.
“I want the name of someone.”
“For an examination?”
“For a retinal specialist who has never met Vernon Hale.”
“I can find one.”
“Not through my office.”
“All right.”
“Not through Cross.”
“All right.”
“And nobody hears about Lucy’s flashlight.”
Hannah hesitated.
That hesitation made my skin tighten.
“What?”
“Mr. Mercer, if there is something medically significant happening, secrecy can make things complicated.”
“So can trust.”
She accepted that without answering.
I crouched toward where I had last heard Lucy.
“Lucy.”
“I’m here.”
“This is a secret.”
“I’m good at secrets.”
Hannah made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh.
“She told the grocery delivery guy my birthday last week.”
“He asked.”
“He asked if we needed a receipt.”
Lucy considered this.
“Oh.”
I held out my hand.
Small fingers found mine.
“Can you keep this one?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother says so.”
“That’s not why.”
Smart kid.
“Because I need time to find out what it means.”
Her fingers squeezed mine.
“Okay.”
She released me and immediately asked Hannah about the different crackers.
They left the library arguing over whether cheese crackers counted as different if they came from the same box.
I remained standing.
The house settled around me in its familiar language.
Air moved through a vent overhead.
A truck passed beyond the front gates.
Somewhere downstairs, a cabinet closed.
For five years, those sounds had been the edges of my world.
Now every familiar thing seemed fractionally misplaced.
Hale came Thursday morning at ten precisely.
I had been awake since four.
At nine fifty-eight, I sat in my bedroom chair wearing dark glasses I had not bothered with inside the house for years.
The decision felt childish.
That was partly why I kept them on.
At ten, his knock came.
“Grant?”
“Come in.”
Vernon Hale had a heavy step and a mild smoker’s cough he denied having.
His medical bag clicked onto the table.
“You look ready for a deposition.”
“Bad night.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Any eye pain?”
“No.”
He washed his hands in the bathroom.
I listened to the water run.
Five years of Thursdays passed through my mind, indistinguishable except for holidays and the morning Hale had arrived late because his Mercedes battery died.
He returned and snapped on gloves.
“Glasses off for me.”
I removed them.
His fingers touched beneath my right eye.
“Look up.”
I obeyed.
Then came the first drop.
Cold.
A little sting.
“What is that?”
Hale paused.
“You’ve asked me that before.”
“Humor me.”
“Anti-inflammatory medication.”
“Which one?”
His pause was barely a second.
Before yesterday, I would never have noticed it.
“Prednisolone formulation.”
“For inflammation I still have after five years?”
“Chronic traumatic inflammation isn’t unusual in an injury like yours.”
“What happens if I stop?”
“Why would you?”
“Curiosity.”
He shifted a bottle in his hand.
“You could experience increased inflammation, discomfort, potentially further damage.”
“Further damage to what?”
This time, the silence lasted longer.
“Grant.”
“What?”
“You seem tense.”
“I’m blind, Vernon.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly are we protecting from further damage?”
He sat back.
The leather chair creaked beneath him.
“Residual ocular health matters even without functional vision.”
There was nothing obviously wrong with the answer.
That made it worse.
I held my face still.
“When was my last retinal scan?”
“The hospital performed extensive imaging.”
“I asked when.”
“After the accident.”
“Why haven’t we done another?”
He exhaled through his nose.
“Because your optic injuries were catastrophic.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“Repeated imaging would not restore damaged neural tissue.”
“Would it tell us whether anything changed?”
Another small silence.
“Not in a way that would alter your prognosis.”
I reached for the coffee beside me and found it exactly four inches from the plate.
My hand was steady.
“Schedule one.”
“Grant—”
“Schedule one.”
“I don’t recommend putting yourself through that.”
“An eye scan?”
“I mean psychologically.”
There it was.
Not refusal.
Concern.
The gentlest possible door being closed.
“You’ve built a life around accepting what happened,” Hale said.
“You’ve done extraordinarily well.”
“Have I?”
“Considering.”
I smiled without warmth.
“I always enjoy that word.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I want new imaging.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“When?”
“I have patients today.”
“So do it tomorrow.”
His gloves made a faint snapping sound as he removed them.
“You’re fixating.”
The word chilled me.
Five years earlier, during the worst months after the funeral, Hale had used it whenever I asked to review the explosion reports.
Fixating.
When I questioned why Caroline had gone to the pier that afternoon.
Fixating.
When I asked whether Emma had died instantly.
Fixating.
May you like
When I demanded to hear the security recordings again.
Grant, you are fixating because grief needs somewhere to go.
