Chapter 2 - The Man by the River
The man who found me was fifty-eight years old.
His name was Dr. Elias Grant.
I did not learn the “doctor” part until three days later.
At first, he told me only that he lived near the river.
He had discovered me tangled in reeds nearly two miles downstream from Blackwater Bridge.
He had been checking flood barriers behind his property when he saw a piece of blue fabric caught beneath a fallen tree.
That fabric was my coat.
When he dragged me onto shore, I was barely breathing.
He performed CPR.
Then carried me to his truck and called emergency services.
A landslide had blocked the main road.
The ambulance took almost forty minutes.
I survived because Elias refused to stop.
At the hospital, doctors diagnosed a concussion, fractured ribs, hypothermia, and retrograde amnesia.
But there was another complication.
I could not see.
The physicians assumed the blindness was caused by my fall.
Elias did not.
He asked me whether I remembered being able to see before the accident.
I didn’t.
After two days, police came.
No missing-person report matched me.
I had no identification.
My purse was gone.
My phone was gone.
The wedding ring on my finger had disappeared in the river.
The only personal object still with me was a thin silver necklace engraved with a single letter.
A.
So the hospital began calling me Anna.
Elias visited every day.
At first I wondered why.
“You don’t know me,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why keep coming?”
He sat beside my bed.
“Because waking up alone is bad enough when you remember who you are.”
I turned toward his voice.
“And when you don’t?”
“Worse.”
Something about him made me trust him.
Maybe because he never touched me without asking.
Maybe because he never demanded gratitude.
Or maybe because, when everyone else discussed me like a mystery, Elias spoke to me like a person.
On the fourth day, he asked permission to examine my eyes.
That was when I learned he had once been an ophthalmic surgeon.
“Once?”
“I’m retired.”
“Why?”
“Long story.”
I smiled faintly.
“I seem to have plenty of time.”
He did not answer.
He examined my eyes for almost twenty minutes.
Then became very quiet.
“What?”
“I don’t want to give you false hope.”
My heart began racing.
“Hope about what?”
“Your blindness.”
I sat upright.
“What about it?”
“This wasn’t caused by the fall.”
Something inside me tightened.
“How can you know?”
“The damage is older.”
“How old?”
“Months, probably.”
My mouth went dry.
“So I was blind before I fell.”
“Yes.”
I tried to search my empty memory.
Nothing.
“Can it be fixed?”
Another pause.
“Possibly.”
That single word changed everything.
Possibly.
Elias contacted an old colleague, Dr. Nina Shah, who specialized in complex ocular trauma.
She came the following morning.
After scans and examinations, she explained that I had severe bilateral lens damage and scar tissue from an older injury.
Someone had apparently treated the condition conservatively.
Too conservatively.
Nina sounded confused.
“With surgery, someone should at least have discussed your options.”
“Maybe they did.”
“You don’t remember.”
“No.”
Elias said nothing.
But I heard concern in his silence.
Nina scheduled surgery.
For the first time since waking, I had something resembling a future.
A week later, while recovering in Elias’s guest room, I heard television from the kitchen.
A news anchor said:
“…the disappearance of thirty-one-year-old Beaumont Holdings heiress Amelia Hayes Reed…”
My entire body went cold.
Amelia.
The letter A.
I walked toward the sound.
The television continued.
“Authorities believe Mrs. Reed may have died after an apparent accident near Blackwater Bridge…”
Blackwater.
My knees weakened.
Then another voice came through the television.
A man crying during an interview.
“My wife was everything to me. I just want her home.”
I froze.
My head began pounding.
And from somewhere deep inside my broken memory, I heard that exact same voice whisper:
May you like
“I’ll be your eyes.”
I collapsed.
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