Free Mercury by Margot Livesey

said what a nice boy Luis was. I said he was, all credit to his mother, who worked two jobs and still helped with homework every night.
    â€œSo how can they afford to go to a ranch?” she asked.
    In the last few months she had often accused me of not paying attention. Now I refrained from retaliating as I explained that Luis’s uncle managed a ranch in Wyoming. He had hired the mother to cook for his summer guests. I was turning back to my book when Viv spoke again.
    â€œI’ve been thinking,” she said, “you’re right about Greenfield. There are all these good things—smaller classes, terrificteachers—but Marcus’s friends are important. We can volunteer at the middle school. Get him extra tutoring.”
    â€œIt is what he wants,” I said, trying not to sound too eager. Luis, I thought, with his tacos and his interest in horses, had changed her mind.

10
    P AINFULLY, ON PAGE AFTER page, I record my myopia. My wife was choosing a horse over our family, and what was I doing to lure her back? But I had my own distractions, some I was aware of, some not. On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Diane came to my office. The vision in her left eye was a little blurred. I checked the prescription and said that the eye had improved in the last couple of months. It sometimes happened when you first started wearing glasses.
    â€œWill it keep improving?” she said.
    â€œMaybe—eyes are unpredictable—but any further changes will probably be very small. You like science, don’t you?”
    She nodded. “What’s the problem with Jack’s eyes? He wasn’t always blind, was he?”
    â€œJack?” I said.
    â€œMom’s friend, your friend.”
    The week before, Jack had remarked that since he started carrying a cane, people often told him their secrets, but he found it hard to reciprocate. “All I can picture,” he said, “is me pouring out my heart, my listener yawning.” At the time I’d assumed he was rehearsing a new section of his book: how people treat the blind differently. Now I understood he’d been telling me thathe too had his secrets. I hid my hurt from Diane behind a stuffy speech about patient confidentiality.
    â€œAsk Jack,” I said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to explain his condition.”
    â€œHe tried, but it was hard to follow. He can’t draw a diagram.”
    Something about her seriousness made me reach for my model eye. “This is the iris,” I said. “And the pupil.” I was pointing out the optic nerve when Merrie knocked at the door: my last appointment of the day was here. I thanked her and finished my explanation. “So we think we see with our eyes,” I said, “but really we see with our brains.”
    Fifteen minutes later I emerged from the last appointment to find Merrie sitting on the edge of her desk. “If you want to give a biology lesson,” she said, “use the waiting room, or my office.”
    â€œI didn’t realize Mr. Kearney was waiting.”
    â€œMr. Kearney’s not the point. You shouldn’t see children alone in your office, with the door closed, beyond the necessary appointment.”
    How fast does sight travel? Diane had asked. As fast as Merrie’s meaning reached me. “Did Diane say something?”
    â€œOnly that it’s cool that the eye has a lens like her contact lens.”
    â€œBut something happened? Come on, Merrie, what are you really saying?”
    Still frowning, she said that a teacher at her daughters’ school was in trouble. “Ginny’s taught there for ten years. Now she’s been accused of ‘inappropriate behavior.’ She was helping a girl with extra homework, and the two of them were alone in the classroom. There’s no way she can prove her innocence.”
    â€œIt sounds like that famous case in Edinburgh,” I said. “You seem very sure the