In the Blink of an Eye Read Online Free Page B

hair is sticking out near her ear.
    â€œOnly a few miles now, I think,” Paine tells her as they leave behind the bustling stretch of Route 60 in Fredonia, a small college town perched in the southwesternmost corner of New York. This is where they got off the interstate, and even the unremarkable strip-mall sprawl is a welcome change from hundreds of miles of freeway driving.
    Only nobody calls it the “freeway” here in the East, Paine reminds himself. Yesterday, a service station attendant and a motel desk clerk corrected him about that. Here, it’s called the thruway.
    â€œOkay, tell me everything you see, Daddy.”
    He smiles at Dulcie’s familiar command—smiles at her innate bossiness, inherited from her mother, and at her insatiable thirst to know what’s going on around her.
    When she was younger, she was satisfied with broad descriptions: there’s a red barn or the sky is blue with a few white clouds. Now, at six, she wants him to paint verbal pictures that are as detailed as possible. How big is the barn? Does it have windows? How many windows? Are there horses and cows? How many clouds, Daddy? What are their shapes?
    When he isn’t with her, he finds himself noticing the most intricate aspects of ordinary things, just as he does when he’s being her eyes. Sometimes he catches himself scrutinizing strangers: subconsciously counting the rings on a woman’s fingers or noticing the color of the stripes in a man’s tie.
    â€œDaddy?”
    He smiles, clears his throat. “We’re heading south, and we just passed through what looks like the last busy intersection on the fast-food strip—Arby’s, McDonald’s, Wendy’s.”
    â€œWal-Mart, too?”
    â€œHow’d you know that?”
    â€œBecause there’s always a Wal-Mart. In every town we’ve stopped in, wherever that other stuff is, there’s a Wal-Mart”
    Nothing escapes Dulcie’s attention. Nothing. He smiles, thinking, as always, that she’s an incredible kid. So much like her mother.
    Oh, Kristin. If only you could see her. . .
    If only he could believe that she could, that her life didn’t end that traumatic day three years ago. That the essence of the woman he cherished still exists somewhere. That she’s with him and their daughter, and always will be.
    But that’s religious crap. Kristin never bought into it, and neither does he. As far as he’s concerned, when you’re dead, you’re dead. Gone. Buried. Forever.
    â€œGo on, Daddy.” In the rearview mirror, he sees Dulcie settling back, her face tilted toward the window as though she’s looking through it.
    He swallows the bitter grief swelling from his gut forcing an upbeat tone into his voice. “Now the road is two lanes instead of four, and it’s opening up more. I see hills ahead—we’re climbing. And there’s farmland—lots of corn, and it’s as high as an elephant’s eye.”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œNever mind, Dulc.” He smiles faintly to himself.
    The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye. . .
    Lyrics from the song “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! Paine performed it in summer stock at Chautauqua a full decade ago when he first met Kristin. He played Curly. Kristin was Ado Annie.
    â€œWhy am I always cast as the slut?” she only half jokingly asked the director at that point, having previously played Aldonza in Man of La Mancha and Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ, Superstar.
    â€œWhat else, Daddy?”
    Dulcie’s voice launches him back to the present.
    â€œThere are grape vineyards”—he glances from left to right—“and produce stands and two-story frame houses. Some of them have barns.”
    â€œNice houses?”
    â€œSome are,” he says, looking around as he gently presses the brake. “Some of them have nice