Second Sight by George D Shuman Read Free Book Online

Sherry had an acute awareness of the myriad sensations in her mind. She was like a marathoner, very much in tune with her body. But this time she wasn’t convinced one way or the other. There might be something just a little bit different this time. Something infinitesimal might have shifted. Something in New Mexico could have altered her brain.
    Here in the hospital, with all this time to think, she began to feel cheated.
    It seemed so wrong, she thought. That this should happen after thirty-odd years of living alone. After such a great weekend in Boston with Brian’s parents, and then the romantic weekend in Delaware before that fateful call from New Mexico.
    Sherry had found Boston quite the complex affair. Everyone going overboard to be nice to Brian’s new blind girlfriend: parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. Nice, though you knew you were constantly under the microscope and that a critique followed every act and every scene. But she had pulled it off, she was sure, and without a hitch. The weekend had gone fabulously and after that she was one step closer to…what?
    Now that she’d been exposed to radiation in New Mexico, she couldn’t help but wonder if everything had changed.
    She had already lost one of the most important people in her life when a bullet felled Philadelphia police detective John Payne two years before. She had already survived a year of self-medicating in a haze of severe depression. Wasn’t it enough to be blind and without parents? she lamented. Couldn’t she find happiness without all the doubt and fear of drawing someone who was innocent into her world? Of becoming someone else’s burden?
    She could actually see now why some people choose the solitary life. It wasn’t the life she wanted, but then people don’t always get what they want. It would be selfish to misrepresent herself, to occupy the dream of another without knowing if she was going to live.
    But why now? she kept thinking. Why had she let Brian Metcalf rekindle her heart?
    In a week or so, Brian would leave for Little Creek, Virginia, where he would deploy to Kabul. Time apart would do them both good, she’d decided. Perhaps a relationship wasn’t the be-all-end-all she’d imagined it might be. Perhaps fate had something else in store, and who was she to doubt the cards?
    She heard familiar footsteps in the corridor, which stopped at her door. A polite knock, a gentle whisper.
    “Sherry?”
    She turned to face her neighbor and confidant. “Come in, Mr. Brigham,” she said.
    “I didn’t know if you were sleeping.” He put his coat on a hook behind the door.
    “I was just thinking,” she said.
    Brigham kissed her forehead and took a seat between the bed and window. “What did he say?”
    “Something’s changed in the EEG, he thinks. He doesn’t know what it means. They never do.”
    “You’re not in pain?”
    She shook her head. “I’m thinking I should just try to live with it.”
    “Which would be like me living with random bouts of blindness. Don’t be silly,” Brigham said. “You’ve come this far. Maybe it’s a good time to take your friend the neurologist up on his offer. Dr. Salix has been trying to get you back on his table for some time.”
    “To screw around with my head a little longer.”
    “What could it hurt? The weather’s still cold. You’re on medication for another month and not missing a ray of sunshine, I promise.”
    “He’d need months to set it up.”
    “You know as well as I do, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing for a shot at getting you on his table.”
    Sherry smiled weakly. She could feel tears welling in one eye. “You’ll make the call?”
    “That’s better,” Brigham said.
    “I’m just making up to you for all the times I’ve been stubborn.”
    “Like in Haiti,” he said sternly.
    “I’m especially sorry for Haiti, Mr. Brigham,” Sherry said meekly.
    “And well you should be.” Brigham took Sherry’s hand. “I’ll call the doctor and see if