Perfect in My Sight Read Free Page A

determined to see it so.
    She was going to find that missing journal!
    Opening her desk drawer, she plucked up a sheet of paper and reached for her quill.
     She scribbled a brief note and then called for Hopkins, instructing him to hire a
     messenger to deliver her message to an address on Twelfth Street. That done, she returned
     to the desk and plucked out another sheet. Wholly absorbed now with the task at hand,
     she sat down to pen her resume.
    Inadvertently, with his very own ad, Peter Holland had given her the most ingenious
     idea how to search his house free of suspicion. Who would ever suspect a blind instructor
     for the blind? 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 2
     
     
    Most six-year-old boys might have entered a room with a boisterous shout and a slide
     to his knees, particularly in the case of this room, which was situated at the rear
     end of a long, wide corridor with bare wood floors, floors that were buffed to a brilliant,
     blinding shine. His son entered quietly with a smile that shone more brightly than
     any wood floors could possibly. His steps were cautious and yet unerring, his bearing
     straight and dignified.
    Pride filled him.
    “Daddy?”
    Peter Holland swallowed the knot that rose in his throat.
    Christopher couldn’t know that his father’s eyes had been trained upon him from his
     first glimpse of movement at the far end of the long hall. Even before Christopher
     had spoken, Peter’s attention had been fully riveted on his only son. It pained him
     that Christopher might scent his presence, hear his every movement even, but his son
     could never perceive the stillness of a loving stare.
    “Here, son,” he said, and his voice wavered a bit. Christopher’s smile brightened.
     “I knew that, Daddy,” he boasted, and spoiled the prideful boyish response with a
     statement that sounded entirely too mature. “I can smell your port.”
    Peter chuckled, but his gaze fell to the glass that remained ever before him upon
     his desk, never touched, never acknowledged, except by his child who couldn’t possibly
     understand its meaning. He turned away from it, his gaze returning to Christopher,
     but the sweet scent of the liquid lingered. He closed his eyes and took the scent
     into his lungs... a soft, sweet burn upon the air.
    But how much of the burn was remembered and how much was real?
    Did his son smell it the same way?
    Would he describe it as such when he had never felt the sweet, numbing heat slide
     down his throat?
    “Are you working, Daddy? Am I botherin’ you?”
    “Never,” Peter answered without hesitation. “Come in, son.”
    His steps were less cautious now, as Peter had never placed obstacles between his
     desk and his door. By design, the room was almost sterile in its decor, as was the
     rest of the house. And yet Chris did not run into his arms as Peter craved. His son
     had never done so. There seemed to be imaginary walls between Christopher’s black
     world and the universe beyond, barriers that barred far more than color and light.
     It was as though his blindness robbed him of confidence, as well.
    But this moment, Christopher’s expression was eager, and something more. “I can’t
     wait, Daddy! May I stay?”
    To listen to the interview, he meant. “Christopher,” Peter protested.
    “I’ll be quiet, Daddy. I promise! I promise!”
    Peter had never a doubt. His son’s deportment had never been anything less than upright.
     Christ, he was an old man at the ripe age of six.
    “It’s not that,” Peter said. “I just can’t imagine why you’d wish to. We don’t even
     know if this will be the one, Christopher.” Neither was he certain he wished his son
     to hear some of the answers the applicants gave. They angered him enough with their
     lack of regard for his son’s condition.
    Then again, admittedly, much of what angered Peter failed even to register with his
     patient young son. Certainly Christopher was wise beyond his years, but perhaps,