Author's note: I'm sorry about the delay in posting this chapter. Since I'm away on vacation until Aug 16, Chapter 11 will be posted on the Tuesday after my return, on Aug 19. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 10

Foggy was completely stunned. How on Earth did she know where to find him? He hadn't talked to her in about a month, and hadn't seen her in at least three. "Rosalind, how did you get this number?"

"Franklin, I haven't talked to you in weeks and now you're giving me the cold shoulder. How did that woman raise you?" It sounded to Foggy like she was moving papers around on her desk in the background. She was a master at multi-tasking so it didn't surprise him if she had managed to squeeze in some paperwork at the same time.

"I'm sorry, I was just surprised." What he really wanted to say was that his step-mother had actually been around to raise him, which was more than could be said for Rosalind.

"Well, we have investigators on staff so digging up a phone number wasn't hard. My nine o'clock canceled so I thought I should check in on my offspring." Most people would have used the word 'offspring' jokingly, but Rosalind Sharpe wasn't most people.

"Well, thanks. I guess." It was typical of her to use an unexpected opening in her schedule to call him. God forbid, she should ever actually purposely set something else aside.

"So how are things?" She didn't seem particularly interested and Foggy could hear her give an indistinct order to someone in the background.

"Everything's fine."

"Fine? I would certainly hope so with the amount of money I'm spending on your education. Franklin."

"Well, dad is paying too." It was true that these things didn't come cheap, but from her perspective it really wasn't that much money. Either way, he didn't like being thought of as some kind of investment. "Was there anything you wanted?"

"I'm getting the distinct feeling that you don't want to talk to me. Am I wrong to show a little concern for my son's wellbeing?"

"No, I just didn't expect you to call. And there isn't much to say yet. The school seems really nice, my roommate is not a jerk and we got invited to a party tomorrow night. But I haven't registered for any classes yet and I'm guessing that's what you wanted to hear about."

"Yes, well I suppose we'll have to talk more later then. I'm awfully busy with the Stetson case. I'm sure you read about it in the papers. The burden of having to deal with the rich and famous. I'm telling you Franklin, it's just not worth it sometimes." She let out a deep sigh.

"Well, I'm kind of busy right now. I'll call you in a month or so, okay? When I have something to report." Foggy knew she wanted him to ask questions about her cases. It was always that way with her. She would open up a conversation under the pretense of actually being interested in him, and then quickly turn herself into the topic of the day. He just wanted to finish his breakfast and not have to deal with it.

"A month?" She almost sounded a little hurt. Foggy didn't care. He admired her a great deal, but admiring people and liking them were not necessarily the same thing. "I can't help feeling that you are being a bit disrespectful here. I'm your mother, Franklin."

"I'm sorry. It's just that I was on my way out the door," he lied.

"All right. Well don't let me bother a busy college student with my petty concerns. Good bye, Franklin."

"Good bye, Rosalind." Foggy hung up the phone and leaned back into the couch. She was right, he had been disrespectful. She wasn't used to being brushed aside. Not by him or anyone else, and he usually didn't have the guts to be anything less than downright cordial. But talking to Rosalind never felt good. He always came away from it feeling worse about himself and he couldn't afford a dent to his self-esteem right now. Self-preservation; that was it.

He finished his coffee and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. He had finally gotten all of his unpacking done, but his half of the room still looked cluttered compared to Matt's. All the items on his roommate's desk, many of which Foggy couldn't even begin to identify, looked like they had been lined up according to a strict plan. He wondered if Matt would notice if something was half an inch out of place. As if daring himself to test that theory, he reached out and picked up a calculator that was lined up against the wall. He turned it on and pushed a number at random, almost jumping out of his skin as the thing talked back to him in a strange robot voice, despite the fact that he half-expected it to. He put it back in its place, exactly as he found it, and hoped Matt wouldn't notice he'd been poking around in his stuff.

But there was one thing that stood out; a framed photo of Matt and his dad. It struck him as odd until he realized that people usually kept pictures around as much for other people as they did for themselves. He hadn't even thought of bringing any pictures of his own family, and he suddenly thought about how absurd it would be to have one of Rosalind around. Foggy had contemplated mentioning her to Matt, especially since he had been so forthcoming about his own family, but seeing a picture of what a real family was supposed to be was enough for him to decide to just keep that skeleton in the closet. Everyone should be allowed at least one.

Matt knew Hell's Kitchen like the back of his hand. The Columbia campus was not Hell's Kitchen, which at the moment struck him as a little annoying. Remembering the right building from the day before and finding the right floor was a breeze, but once he got there, he had to swallow his pride and ask for directions since the entire floor was populated by anonymous and outwardly generic offices. Luckily, the directions were good and after reaching the end of the hall, he stepped into what immediately felt like a small room. There were additional rooms – probably offices – behind three doors. All were occupied by people typing on computers, talking on the phone and shuffling pieces of paper around. There was a foot tapping, the drawer of a filing cabinet opening and closing and what was probably a coffee machine spitting its liquid contents against the inside of a ceramic cup. It had to be coffee, the whole place had that smell to it.

He could feel a mass of something right in front of him to his right and as he focused on it, its shape immediately gave it away as a couch. There was a small table in front of it, and some kind of disturbance on the wall to his left. Was that a painting? No, a bulletin board. Definitely. He could smell the cork. This was how his world usually revealed itself to him. It wasn't like walking into a lit room, it was more like a sequential and almost instinctual process of piecing together disparate pieces of information until they made a whole. Oftentimes a very powerful whole, rich in details that others would miss or not be able to notice at all, while lacking any sort of color or contrast – a sound and scentscape draped over shapes that were perceived as differences in depth all around him.

Matt was half-considering knocking on one of the doors, but decided to sit down on the couch instead. He was a couple of minutes early and figured that someone would come out and get him when it was his turn. He reached for the cassette player in his backpack, turned it on, and tuned into a book on tape he'd been working on for the last week. He didn't really care for reading books that way, the process seemed too passive and his ears were usually taxed enough as it was without having to subject them to yet another burden. Unfortunately, Braille books were often too big and heavy to carry around, and he couldn't exactly be seen reading print. Not that it would have been his first choice anyway. It was an incredible skill to have, and a very liberating one, and he made almost daily use of it. He would sneak at peek at newspapers lying around, or read the things his school sent home that was about him, but usually addressed to his dad. But when given a choice, Braille was an obvious preference. Reading print by touch required an incredible amount of control. The amount of pressure had to be just right to pick out the information, and each movement across the page had to be closely checked so that he wouldn't lose the whisper thin line he was on and have to start over again. The amount of extra effort involved was a little too much, and the whole process a little too slow to make sense when compared to reading Braille, which had gradually become completely effortless.

After about five minutes, Matt started feeling nervous, though he couldn't quite put his finger on the exact reasons. Maybe the place reminded him too much of waiting at the dentist's, which he absolutely detested these day. There was something about the smell and all the loud dentistry equipment that made an already unpleasant activity even more nerve-wracking. When the door to one of the offices finally swung open and his name was called through the sound of the John Grisham novel he really wasn't paying attention to, it actually startled him. He must have really been on edge because very few things took him by surprise anymore.

He quickly removed the headphones, killed the cassette player and pushed it back into his backpack. "Murdock? Yeah, that's me."

"Yeah, I kinda figured. You know, with you being the only one here and everything. I'm Gina." She had just a hint of a Brooklyn accent, and sounded very nice, like she didn't take herself or anything else more seriously than what was strictly required.

Matt quickly got up and offered his hand. "Hi, nice to meet you." This was good; a positive first impression, and he felt himself start to relax a little.

"So what do I call you? Matthew, Matt? Mr. Murdock perhaps?" she asked jokingly

"It's Matt. Unless you're going to start yelling at me, in which case Matthew makes it sound like you really mean business." Matt figured he could counter with a joke of his own, and he heard the telltale signs of a smile before Gina turned around and retreated back into her office.

"Well, you just go ahead and call me Gina. I'm like Cher, but without Sonny and the fishnet stockings. Half the people I work with don't know my last name and I wanna to keep it that way." Matt followed her through the door. "Well you just go ahead and grab a seat, it's right in front of you."

"Thanks," he said as he pulled it out and sat down. His first impression of her office was that it was just littered with paperwork. Stacks of files everywhere, and big boxes on the floor.

"Need some coffee? You sort of look like it, if you don't mind the brutal honesty here."

He did? Either way, the stuff they had here smelled a lot better than the instant he'd had for breakfast. "Sure, I'll have some. Black, please." He wondered where she was going to find room for his cup.

Gina returned to the desk and put his cup on top of a pile of papers in front of him, holding it in place until he wrapped his hand around it. "So," she said, pulling out a file with one hand and pushing a couple of buttons on her keyboard with the other, "my files here say that you're blind."

"Yeah, pretty much." Matt was wondering if she was kidding or if asking questions about the blatantly obvious was standard protocol.

"Hey, kid, don't worry. I'm pulling your leg here. Just checking to see if you're awake."

"Well, I am now."

"Well, first of all, welcome to Columbia. This is a great school, and I'm not just saying that 'cause they sign my paychecks and all that. And basically, my job is to make sure that if you ever decide to drop out, it won't be because of anything we did or didn't do. So any problems you might have you come to me, okay?"

"Okay."

"And I don't mean girl problems, we have other people here for that, but anything related to your disability. Hey, feel free to tell me about the girl problems too, I don't exactly frown on juicy gossip, but that's not really what I'm paid for."

"Okay, I think I got it." He smiled at her and took a sip of his coffee. It wasn't half bad.

"Well, why don't you start by telling me just a little bit about yourself, since we're going to be stuck with each other for four years. Then I'll tell you about what it is we do here."

"Okay, well…" Matt let out a sigh, and figured that he should just cut to the chase. It felt a little premature to bring up his hobbies, his dad's job or his list of future plans. "I'm from Hell's Kitchen where I was raised by my dad, and I lost my sight a little over four years ago in an accident."

"Sorry to interrupt, but you are totally blind, correct?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, go ahead. I just wanted to double-check."

"Well, I don't know what else to say about that. It happened right before my freshman year, so I missed half of the last semester of eight grade. I started school again in the fall, and it was a relatively smooth ride from there. Well, as smooth as can be expected anyway." He shrugged a little.

"How did things work out at your school? Did you have any problems with their services or anything like that."

"Everything was fine. I'm not sure they knew what to do with me at first, but it worked out great. I managed to get a scholarship anyway."

"Okay, well I'm just going to explain some things before we get into the details. The big difference between going from the regular public school system to anything on the post-secondary level is that the student personally has to request our services. We don't assess what you're needs are, you have to tell us. A lot of students aren't used to this, but it is a taste of what most things are like out in the real world. From this point forward, you advocate for yourself, there won't automatically be someone else to do that for you. You understand?"

"Yes, I think so. I know how it works." Matt wasn't really comfortable with the idea, even though it made perfect sense. It was easier to deal with needing special treatment when it just magically appeared.

"Naturally, we're available to offer suggestions, and answer questions, but we can't know what accommodations are right for you. It depends on the person as much as anything else. We all have different learning styles, skill sets and so on. Now, is there anything you're worried about?

"No. I don't know. Missing things in class maybe."

"You're probably going to notice that some classes are going to be very easy to follow. It all depends on the subject, the professor's teaching style and so on. Some subjects naturally have a lot of visual content and that will be more of a challenge, but in either case, the first rule is to talk to the professor. They have all been advised that they have a blind student in their class, but it's important that you talk to them personally. Many things are easy to fix, you just need to remind them to read out loud anything they write on the board and to describe any images they're using."

"Yeah, that's what I'm used to. I'm allowed to tape things, right?" It had been one of the options to fill out on the form, but he had the feeling there was more to it on the college level.

"It was on your form, and we passed it along to your professors who have all agreed to allow it. Truth be told, they have to allow it in a case like this, but some can get a little grouchy about it, force you to sign a waiver and so on. Needless to say, you're not allowed to share or distribute these recordings in any way, and they will have to be erased at the end of each semester.

"Okay, I'm fine with that."

"Okay, next item on the list is notes. So, a request will go out to students in each of the classes you're in for someone to make copies of their notes and hand them in for us to transfer into whatever format you prefer. The recipient remains anonymous."

"Not that it's a big deal, but won't they know it's for me?"

"Probably, but it's the best we can do."

"I don't know if I'll need that for all my classes. I mean, I can take my own notes. I was thinking that it's good for French class since I don't want to get the spelling wrong."

"That is totally up to you. What I would recommend is that you start with a combination of recordings, note takers and just taking your own notes, if that's something you're comfortable with. After a while, if there's something that feels redundant it might be a good idea to drop what you don't need, and that might even vary from one class to the next. One advantage of using someone else's notes, is the fact that your professors probably will slip every now and then and forget to make a verbal reference. If you're worried about missing something, it's a good option. I suggest you start with a broad approach until you figure out what works best for you."

"Okay, that sounds like a plan."

"Next up, I just want to ask you about all the Braille material you're going to be reading."

"What about it?" Matt wasn't sure what she was fishing for.

"Well, let's just say that most students in your situation that I've come into contact with have a pretty strong preference for audio recordings over Braille, and very few can comfortably read it at the kind of speed they need to in order to cover hundreds of pages a week. I just want to hear how you feel about the course load?"

"Well, I just don't like recordings very much. And I can read pretty fast, about three hundred words per minute." Gina was writing something on a pad as he was talking and now stopped abruptly. He could tell she was looking at him.

"Are you serious? You're telling me that you read Braille at three hundred words per minute?" She sounded completely baffled.

"Yes. I had a friend clock me once, not too long ago. I'm not worried about not keeping up with the reading."

"You do realize how extraordinary that is?"

"Well, I don't know. I'm certainly not the only one." He did know it was highly unusual for someone who had learned late to come even close to that kind of reading speed. In his case, he was sure it was a direct consequence of his heightened sense of touch. That and a lot of hard work.

"No, I'm aware of that, but those are usually people who learned very young. Wow, can I brag about you to the other coordinators?"

"Sure, if you want to. What can I say? I'm a freak." He smiled at her, silently wondering what she would say if he told her he could read regular print at close to one hundred and sixty. Not too shabby considering it shouldn't be possible at all.

"Well, then we'll have the notes transcribed if that's what you prefer. Speaking of which, the books you ordered have been sent here to this office so remind me to give them to you before you take off. As long as your professors let us know a couple of weeks in advance, we can transcribe hand-outs as well. If you're lucky we can get them to you on the day they're to be handed out, otherwise we'll put them with the weekly load for you to pick up at the library."

"Okay, so that's where I go to pick it up?"

"Yeah, it's more convenient than having to come up here. And, besides, it keeps me out of your hair. For everything else, you're going to have to hire readers. We will pay for that as long as it's reading that's essential for your classes. If you want some hot number coming over to read love poetry we can't cover that. If it were up to me and I was Bill Gates, I'd say go right ahead, but that's not how things work. I assume you've worked with readers before?"

"Yeah, all through high school." Ever since he'd successfully taught himself to read print, about three years ago, the whole notion of having someone read things to him that he could read just fine by himself had seemed a little silly. There were plenty of practical reasons for using Braille books, but sometimes a reading job was just a few pages, most definitely within the amount he could cover without developing the tactile equivalent of eye strain. But it was one of those things he knew he couldn't reveal. Besides, it had turned out to be a good way to make friends, in high school anyway. He'd gotten to know Jessie that way.

"Well, you decide who you want to hire, and you get to fire them as well if it's not working out. So, I suggest you start putting up some notes. Let's see… What else? Right, as you know there's an art requirement as part of the core curriculum. Unless that's something you'd be particularly interested in, I'd be more than happy to waive that."

"Well, that depends. What kind of class would that be?" He'd taken art in high school without any problems, but they had let him do things that didn't involve drawing.

"Well, that's part of the reason I'm suggesting a course substitution. It's an art history course and most of it is looking at slides of famous paintings and discussing various time periods. If you're interested in taking it, we could arrange for someone to sit next to you and describe each slide. However, if it doesn't sound too exciting you might get much more out of taking a different class altogether. You don't have to decide yet since it's not on your schedule for this semester anyway, but I want you to know that's an option."

"Okay, thanks for letting me know." From the sound of it, Matt figured that he'd rather do something else. Besides, having someone sit beside him sounded like it would attract a little too much attention. He hated that kind of attention.

"Finally, there's the testing situation. How are you with computers?"

"I'm not spectacular, but I manage."

"Okay, because that's an easy way to do it. But, we might want to talk more about this after I get some recommendations from your professors. Why don't you call to schedule another appointment after you've talked to them. Does that sound okay?"

"Sure, that's fine."

"Any other questions? I'll give you my card here, in case there's anything."

"No, it sounds like everything's covered." He was relieved to have this whole thing out of the way, and he liked Gina's no-nonsense approach. This would totally be okay. At least he hoped it would.

"Did we offer to have someone show you around, by the way?"

"I've got that covered already, but thanks."

"Okay, let's get your books and send you on your way then. And, Matt?"

"Yeah?"

"You're going to do fine here. I can tell about these things." She gave him a pat on the back as he stood back up and headed for the exit.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." The whole college thing might actually work out. Who would have guessed?