Helen Keller in Love by Kristin Cashore Read Free Book Online

floor-length calico dress and swept it free of dust.
    “Keeping you on your own two feet is more like it.” He followed me back into my room.
    “Kiss me.” He pulled me back to him.
    His mouth salt, willow trees, pear.
    I held his face with my hands, his button-down shirt scratchy as he pulled me close. His hands warmed my back.
    “Annieis sick. I have to check on her upstairs.”
    “Right. Another person who needs you.” He stroked my cheek.
    I leaned forward. “We’ll be home soon. When we get there, walk down the hill behind my house to King’s Pond. Meet me there for a swim. I promise you’ll like what you see.”
    He paused, his palm tentative. “Listen. I can barely do the crawl. But if you want me in the water with you, I’m there.”
    I was so relieved that I joked, “If you start drowning I’ll let you sink like a stone.”
    “You’re not my lifeguard?” He felt the smile on my face, and pulled me closer. “Helen, if I start slipping under, I’ll take you down with me.”
    We both laughed.

Chapter Eight

    W hy was I so brazen—so forward with Peter? I was thirty-seven years old and had never before been alone with a man, never mind with a man with a mouth like night. And yet I’d always preferred men’s company to women’s. When I was at Radcliffe, Annie wanted to hire a smart young man to help me with my studies. But Mother immediately stopped her. She’d met with the young man. With his deep brown eyes and lovely Italian hands he was far too handsome to work with me, Mother said. I might be taken with him, and forget about my studies. She ordered him replaced. Now, with Peter near, all that was pent up inside me came alive. I was a rushing train.
    He saw so much—maybe too much—of me.
    I waited, fidgeting, on the hotel’s sweltering front porch the next day. The morning air crackled around me, the
ting-ting-ting
of the flagpole’s metal reverberated in the breeze, and the scent of motor oil and rubber tires rose from the hotel driveway. I inhaled Peter’s scent of pine soap and coffee as he ran up and down the steps. I knew he was packing the waiting taxi cab with our six trunks.
    Just then the slap of footsteps on the porch made me stand up straight. “Where are our suitcases?” Annie had come out of her room and stood beside me, brushing her fingers against my hand. I inhaled her menthol cough.
    “Peter put them in the cab.”
    “Well, at least he’s learning how to treat women. Not like most men we know.” Her hand was tense in mine, and my heart sank at how sick I felt she was. Then Peter returned for us. He installed Annie in the front seat of the cab. The closing door made a reassuring thump.
    He tookmy arm.
    “I’m sure you’re a crack navigator.” Peter guided me into the backseat. As he slid in beside me, I was oddly relieved that Annie was in the front.
    I felt the car roar to life.
    “Boston, here we come,” Peter yelled. The cab swerved through town. I rolled down the window. The scent of the bakery, the gas station, and then the camphor scent of the Baptist Church I knew stood at the far edge of town told me we were leaving Wisconsin for good, but then the cab came to a stop. The rumble and bustle of Appleton’s train station moved through my arms and legs.
    “Train station. Time to get out.”
    “Wait a minute. Aren’t we taking the bus?”
    “I checked the schedules. The bus takes seventeen days. Nothing personal, but you’d die of boredom. I can’t spell into your hand for that long and she”—he jerked his head toward Annie—“looks to me like she needs to see a doctor pretty quick.”
    “But you read the paper to me this morning. The local railroad workers are striking for an eight-hour workday. I won’t cross a picket line. We’ll hire a car.”
    “Quiet, lady.” Peter went on, “Annie’s too sick to share the driving. And as far as I can tell you’re not exactly an ace behind the wheel.”
    “You’ve got a point there.” I felt the