“To be fair I think it’s more important that you’re used to them rather than me.” He stopped before adding any more inane comments.
Frances smiled: not so much at the words themselves, she had always been what other people termed 'blind' whatever that meant, of course she was used to it. It was just her world. It was hard to imagine what 'sighted' even meant. She knew that most other people had some extra sense that meant they didn't have to feel for things the way she did, and that they could differentiate between two things that felt and smelled and tasted the same to her: it didn't seem any great gain, expect that the world was designed for people to use this extra sense to get around and do things.
No, what made her smile was the sentiment behind James' words. He was sensitive, nervous, empathetic, he was trying to say the right thing while not knowing the right thing to say. He heart reached out to him.
James nodded, then realized what he’d just done in front of the blind woman and spoke, “I’d be delighted to assist you in any way that I can Miss Grimes.” He hurriedly assured her.
Again, the man's essential goodness warmed her.
"I only hope I can carry all this scrap metal, Marshall!" she joked. But the more elderly voiced man was right. Oh, Frances could feel the difference between notes which looked about the same to a sighted person, the problem was the plethora of different notes issues by different banks at different times: even the National Currency was far from uniform: printed by different printers in different places, but all backed up by the Federal Reserve. It was a problem that would puzzle blind people for a long, long time.
Then she felt a pang of guilt. Her brother, only a few hours dead, and here she was... flirting! The nice Mr Vaughn probably didn't realise it, he sounded rather innocent of such things, but she suspected the more experienced Mr Guyer might be observing it somehow: a flush of her cheek, the way she leant into Mr Vaughn when he spoke, a stupid, sloppy look on her face! Oh Dear! Things she couldn't always monitor and correct!
