Free Second Sight by George D Shuman Page A

thumbed open one of Sherry’s eyelids and she let out a bloodcurdling scream.

6
    Garland Brigham sat in his favorite rocking chair in front of Sherry’s gas fireplace. His work boots lay by the door with his old U.S. Navy peacoat. He had propped his wool socks on the hearth to warm. Sherry reposed on a couch.
    He sipped coffee and watched her reaction to the front page of the newspaper he’d brought. He had been working in his yard most of the morning, organizing the woodpile and raking last winter’s leaves from beneath the rhododendrons.
    “The fire feels good,” she said, turning toward Brigham. She tried to dry her cheeks with the fingers of both hands.
    It was June, but the unseasonably cold nights held a chill within the heavy stone walls of Sherry’s house on the Delaware.
    He stood and leaned toward the coffee table, pushing the tissue box a few inches closer. She pulled one out and dabbed her face.
    “Hurt?”
    “Still tearing a lot. The light hurts.”
    “So don’t overdo it, Sherry. Put your glasses back on.”
    She made a face and did, feeling remotely silly. The glasses were as big as ski goggles and wrapped around the sides of her face.
    “Better?”
    She nodded.
    Sherry turned to face him. The room was blurred and smoky gray. She knew now that the small mark on the breast pocket of Brigham’s plaid shirt was a polo pony. He had also explained the anchor carved on the buttons of his peacoat and the tiny scar that split one of his eyebrows. She couldn’t see things clearly for any length of time, but Dr. Salix warned that her eyes were still weak and would take time to gain strength.
    She closed her eyes and waited for the headache to recede. Then she squinted to watch the flames, more shadow than light as they danced beyond the lenses, never the same way twice, and she found them mesmerizing. How amazing, she thought, to put an image to the sounds and sensations around her.
    “I can go outside.” She studied Brigham for his reaction.
    He nodded. “I know.”
    “Will you show me your house soon?”
    Brigham shrugged. “Sure. When are you going to answer Brian Metcalf’s calls?”
    “You have photo albums, wedding pictures. I want to see what you looked like when you were young.”
    He made a face. She kept steering away from the subject.
    “Mr. Brigham,” she said sternly. “Let me worry about Brian and you show me the photographs.”
    “If you insist.” He yawned and reached to test the toes of his socks and found them dry. “But not today. Maybe this weekend.”
    “You don’t seem very happy about it.”
    “I’m never happy when you strong-arm me. What did you think of your picture in the paper?”
    Sherry reached for the coffee table and picked up the Inquirer, tossing it irritably next to the tissues.
    “It doesn’t look like me.”
    “Pictures never do. Get used to it.”
    Sherry scratched a fingernail across the fabric of the sofa, watching the lighter image of her hand as it moved beneath the dark glasses on her face. “I’m sorry, Mr. Brigham, but I have to find out who he was. I want to meet his family.”
    “They don’t give out that kind of information, Sherry.”
    “They certainly could. I don’t want his Social Security number, for crying out loud. I want to call his wife, his children, anyone.”
    “You know what you saw on that table wasn’t all that pleasant. You said it yourself. Something was very wrong about the man before he died.”
    “And yet it changed me, Mr. Brigham. I let go of his hand and I opened my eyes to see for the first time in thirty-two years! What in the heck do you do with that? How do you move on without acknowledging the miracle?”
    “The man was preoccupied with death and still thinking about it fifty years after the fact. That’s a little nuts, Sherry.”
    She shook her head firmly. “We don’t know that. He was in a vegetative state. Maybe it’s all he ever remembered about anything.”
    “All right, we’ll ask Dr. Salix