"Perhaps." Her tone said she didn't believe it.
There was no way out of it. Up till now I'd been pretty successful at keeping my appearance a secret from her, but I couldn't hide the truth any longer. I would have to tell her about my face. "If you weren't blind, Heather, you wouldn't have wanted to stay here ten minutes. I'm... my face is pretty badly disfigured."
She nodded casual acceptance of the information. Maybe she didn't believe it, either. "How did it happen?"
"I was a captain in the army during the Iranian segment of the Last War; you know, the Soviet drive toward the oil fields. They were using lots of elaborate nerve gases on us, and one of them found its way into the left side of my gas mask." I kept my voice even; I was just reciting facts. "None of it got into the nosepiece or respirator, so it didn't kill me, but it left one side of my face paralyzed. I won't trouble you with any details, but the net effect is pretty hideous."
"I thought something must have happened to you in the war," she murmured. "You never speak of your life during that time.... Is that why you were here when the missiles came?"
"Yes. I was in a hospital in Atlanta, undergoing tests to see if my condition could be reversed. They hadn't made any progress when I saw the handwriting on the wall and decided it was time to pull out. A friend of mine had told me about his cabin in the Appalachians, so I loaded some supplies in a Jeep and came here. I beat the missiles by about three hours."
"Oh, so this place wasn't originally yours. And I'd been thinking all along how terribly clever and foresighted you'd been to have built a cabin out here in case the world blew itself up."
"Sorry. Major Frank Matheson was the one with all the foresight. He was also one of the best friends I ever had." That sounded too much like an epitaph for my taste; I was still hoping he'd show up here someday. But he and his wife had been in Washington when the missiles started falling.... I shook my head to clear it. "Anyway, we're getting off the subject. The point is that I'm taking advantage of you by keeping you here. I think you'd be better off living in a community with other people."
"Yes, I suppose you would think that." Heather's lip curled, and for the first time since I'd met her I heard bitterness in her voice. "You probably think it's been beer and skittles for me. Well, it hasn't." She glowered at some unknown memory; but even as I groped for something to say, her anger turned to sadness, and when she spoke again her voice was quiet. "I went blind almost a year before the war; two weeks after my eighteenth birthday. I had a small brain tumor in the back of my head and was taking an experimental interferon derivative. Somehow, something went wrong with the batch they were giving me, and at about the same time I caught some kind of viral infection. The combination nearly killed me— they told me afterwards that I had delirium, high fever, and an absolutely crazy EEG trace for nearly forty hours. When I recovered, the tumor was shrinking and I was blind. That first morning, when I woke up... I thought I was either dead or insane." Her eyes closed, and she shivered violently. After a moment she continued. "People hate me, Neil. Either hate me or are afraid of me, especially now that civilization's becoming a thing of the past."
"Why would people hate you?" I asked. "I mean, that's a pretty drastic reaction."
She hesitated, and a series of unreadable expressions flashed across her face. The moment passed, and she shrugged. "I guess it's because I'm blind. It makes me an oddball and—well, something of a parasite."
I snorted. "You're no parasite."
"You're very kind, Neil. But I know better."
I shook my head, thinking of all the work she did around here. To me it was perfectly obvious that she was pulling her own weight, if not a little more. I wondered why she couldn't see that; and, in response, a fragment from a half- forgotten poem swam up from my subconscious. " 'O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us...' "I murmured, trailing off as the rest of the piece drifted from my grasp.
Surprisingly, Heather picked up where I'd left off: " 'It wad frae mony a blunder free us.
" 'And foolish notion: " 'What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
" 'And ev'n devotion!' "
She paused for a moment, as if listening to the last echoes from her words. "I've always liked Robert Burns," she said quietly.
"That's the only thing of his I know," I confessed. "My father used to quote it at us whenever our views of life were at odds with his. Despite your own estimation, Heather, the fact is that you're a very talented and hardworking woman and no one in his right mind is going to care whether you're blind or not. People won't think any less of you because of that."
A wry smile touched her lips. "You're not being consistent, Neil dear. That's exactly what you seem to think people are doing to you. If they can judge you by your face, why can't they judge me by my blindness?"
She had me there. I wanted to tell her that was different, but it was obvious she wouldn't buy any explanation like that—her blindness made it impossible for her to realize just how strongly my appearance affected everyone who saw it. I tried to think up some other reasoning I could use... and suddenly it dawned on me what I was doing. Here I was, sitting next to a lovely woman who was very possibly the last person on Earth who could endure my company—and I was trying to send her away from me!
Insanity has never run in my family, unless you count our military traditions. I'd tried being noble and honest, and my conscience was clear. If she wanted to think I was doing her a favor, that was up to her. "All right, Heather. If you're really sure you want to stay, I'll be more than happy to have you here. I have to admit that the thought of you leaving was pretty hard. But I had to—you know."
She reached over and touched my arm. "Yes. Thank you for being honest. And for letting me stay."
"Sure. Look, it's getting late, and we've got to get up by dawn. Let's get some rest."
"Okay." She paused. "Neil, were you ever married?"
I blinked at the abrupt change of subject. "Once, for a couple of years, when I was twenty-one. It ended in divorce. Why?"
She turned her head half away from me as if she didn't want me to see her face. "I was just wondering why you were still... sleeping on the couch instead of... with me."
The evening was rapidly taking on a feeling of unreality for me. I hadn't felt this strangely nervous since my first date in high school, and I opened my mouth twice before I got any words to come out. "I didn't want to impose on you." Damn, that sounded stupid! I tried again. "I mean, it wouldn't be fair for me to take advantage of you like that. You might just do it because you felt you owed it to me. I don't want it that way. I figured that if you ever wanted me like that you'd let me know somehow."
She nodded, her face still averted, and swallowed. "Neil... will you come to bed with me?"
I looked at her, my eyes sweeping her body, and for the first time I noticed that her hands were trembling. And suddenly I realized that she was not just offering an altruistic favor to a lonely hermit. In many ways Heather was an outcast, too, and she needed this as much as I did.
Never having been the romantic type, I didn't know the right words to say. So, instead, I blew out the candles, took Heather by the arm, and led her to the bedroom.
Afterwards she fell asleep next to me, one arm across my chest with her hand resting against my good right cheek. I watched the moonlight throwing shadows on the bedroom wall for a few minutes longer before drifting off myself, and I slept more restfully that night than I had in months.