Second Sight by David Williams

Author:David Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

14

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SHE HAD ALREADY PLANNED how to do it. On Sunday, while Michael was away on a golf date with some men he had met on the train, she called the real estate broker who had sold them the house; she knew he was open because Sunday was his day for showing houses to people up from the city. He did know of a summer house for rent—an old farmhouse really, right down the road from her. The owner, the widowed Mrs. Miller, lived in town now, with a sister, and rented it out when she could.

At two o’clock that afternoon, she picked up Mrs. Miller in town and drove out to look at the house. It sat just across Summer House Road from the lake, but a path led through the trees down to the water’s edge. It was precisely what she needed: a place from which to go back and forth to 1899, during the time Michael believed she was at Fire Island. She rented it on the spot, making a small deposit so there would be no record of a check transaction.

She had been avoiding all awareness of her session with Dr. Salzman, but the next morning’s train ride into the city made thinking about it inescapable. She had settled into a seat beside the window when the conductor came into the car and began punching tickets along the aisle. She watched her own eyes watching her in the reflection from the window. She was going to lie if necessary. She had to confront that. Because she had no intention of telling Dr. Salzman what was happening to her; she no longer had any need to convince someone else that it was real. All her energy now was concentrated on one task: to find some way to save David Reynolds’ life.

But when she was once again in that chair, in the dim light from the little lamp on his desk, her resolve almost faltered. He was such an earnest and sympathetic man; she hated to lie to him. She sensed him waiting patiently in the silence, just beyond her vision on the left. Finally the silence made her anxiety stronger than her fear of lying.

“I’ve had another hallucination,” she said.

“Hmmmn.” Beyond that simple sound of encouragement, he seemed to react not at all.

“It was last week. I met the man I’ve seen those other times.”

“Hmmmn.”

She went on to describe her first meeting with David Reynolds, condensing it, not mentioning the rest, so that he would believe there had been only one occurrence. She made herself color the description so as to lend it the quality of a genuine hallucination. When she finished, she waited in anxious silence for several seconds before he spoke.

“It’s been some time since you’ve had a relapse like this,” he said. “Can you think of anything that might have caused these symptoms to recur? What comes to mind?”

And she realized she was safe. There was no danger that his curiosity might be aroused, that he might sense between the lines the larger story she was concealing.

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