The Lighthouse Road(27)

Danny had been sitting outside the surgery since early morning, and when Hosea stepped out of the room Danny stood with a questioning look on his face.



Hosea took a deep breath, he cracked his knuckles. "Hello, Daniel."



"How is he, Mister Grimm?"



"I think he'll be fine. He's lost his eye. It will take him some long time to recover. He'll need visitors. I hope you'll come see him."



"I will. Every day."



"I believe you will."



"Can I go in and sit next to him?"



"Don't touch or otherwise disturb him. Do you understand?"



Danny nodded.



"And if he wakes, or if anything seems strange, come up and fetch me."



"I will."



Hosea turned to leave as Danny stepped into the room, but Hosea paused and turned. "Daniel."



Danny paused in turn. "Yes?"



" Where were you boys when this happened?"



"Up on the Burnt Wood. We spent the day on my trapline."



"Why did you call Odd a chickenshit?"



Danny blushed.



"I already told you it's not your fault, son."

"He told me about learning to fish with Arne and I couldn't help it. I just don't see him out on the big water all by himself."



Hosea considered this for a moment. "So he went bear hunting."



"Mister Grimm, I wish I wouldn't have said it."



"I'm sure. Go on in there, sit next to your friend."



Danny did.





Twice each day Hosea cleaned the wound and changed the bandages. He administered smaller and smaller doses of morphine until finally none was needed. Danny came every day and sat on the bedside chair. Rebekah brought Odd his meals and watched over him when Danny wasn't there.



After a week Odd was well enough to convalesce up in the flat, so Hosea moved a chair to the front window and piled books around the boy and in this way Odd ushered in spring. Danny still came often and the two boys spent the first days of April playing chess or card games rather than romping through the woods.



On one such day, as the boys sat in the flat putting new backing and line on their fly reels, Hosea joined them.



"I've something to show you, Odd."



Three weeks had passed since the surgery and except for the regular, dull throbbing in his eyeless socket Odd was feeling fine. The boys set their fly reels down and looked at Hosea standing above them. He held a metal box.



"What is it?" Odd asked.



Hosea set the box on the coffee table, knelt on one knee, and opened the box. He withdrew one of a dozen silken handkerchiefs. He peeled the silk back as though it were a banana skin and withdrew from its center a glass eyeball. He offered it to Odd, who took it and held it close to his good eye.



"What is it?" Odd asked again.



"It's a glass eye, son. I have several here. Wanted to see whether any of them might fit."



Odd was transfixed by the eyeball. He held it up to the sunlight in the window and rotated it as though he had in his hand a precious jewel. The sunlight caught the glass and flashed brilliant penumbras on the floor.



"I don't understand," Odd said.



"You put it in place of the eyeball you lost to the bear."



"Will I see from it?"



"No, it's cosmetic. It will look just like a regular eye, but it serves no purposes for sight."



"So he won't have to walk around with a patch over his eye for the rest of his life?" Daniel ventured.



"Precisely," Hosea said. He removed another of the silk handkerchiefs and extracted a second glass eye. "If none of these work, we'll have to order one."



Odd reached into the box himself now, pulled another out, and unwrapped it. He couldn't imagine it in his eye socket. For that matter, he couldn't imagine that he'd lost one of his eyes. The thought quickened his heart and the pulsing behind the bandages intensified.



"We'll have to wait another month or so, until the eye has healed some. But I wanted to show you. What do you think?"



"I don't know what to think."



"It's a good thing, Odd."



Odd said, "What if it shatters? What if someone hits me in the eye? What if I slip out on the boat, hit my eye on the deck?"



"I believe they're quite durable, though I suppose there's always a chance of the eye shattering. Or cracking. In which case we'll replace it."



Odd was now holding the second glass eye up to the light. The quizzical expression on his face suggested he'd heard none of what Hosea said.



"In any case, wearing a glass eye will be better than walking around looking as though your face were half melted away. Hell, it might even help you find a wife someday."