Helen Keller in Love by Kristin Cashore Read Free Book Online Page B

lunch?” I pushed him toward the edge of our seat. “Let’s put these away for now.” I slid the envelope of bills back toward him.
    “Your wishis my command. If you want to deny you have problems, I’m with you. When I come back with lunch we’ll talk about what will happen during our Wrentham swim, instead.” He moved away, leaving behind a pocket of air. He would soon realize the extent of the trouble Annie and I were in. But I pushed that thought out of my mind and thought about his return instead.
    I learned denial early. At age seventeen, I first felt sexual desire; it was while I was reading a romance novel. Then one morning I asked Annie about sex and she said, “Forget it. That’s not for you. Channel it into your work.” And I did. Fifteen cities in two months and I earned enough money for our house, clothes, and food. My very life depended on my never seeming different from those in the sighted world. My motto, according to Annie, was simple: never complain. So as the train shook furiously over the cross-country tracks, and I felt Peter approaching, I did what anyone good at denial would do. I picked up my paper napkin, and spread it over my lap.
    I was ready for a hearty lunch. Peter handed me a lunch bag. I pulled it open, plucked out a ham sandwich, with its scent of salt and the smokehouse, and bit in. I was famished. “Read me the news?” I pushed the newspaper toward him.
    While munching on his grilled cheese sandwich, Peter rattled the
New York Times
from where it had fallen to the floor. He shook it open to an article on the war wounded and read. “Listen to this. There’s this medical officer—Charles Meyers—who’s coined a new diagnosis. It’s called shell shock. It happens when soldiers—kids, really—see and hear too much death and they lose their minds. Some even become blind and mute. One seventeen-year-old in the trenches in the Battle of the Somme saw a shell explode fifty feet away; he was unconscious for days. When he woke up his hands and feet shook uncontrollably. The doctors found nothing physically wrong. Still, he was blind and mute.”
    “Like me.”
    “Not exactly.” Peter’s voice moved faster as he read. I kept my fingers close to his mouth to keep up. “This kind of blindness, or muteness, is all in the mind. According to the paper, two thousand seventeen men were sent to one British hospital for shell shock.”
    “Peter.” I turned and ran my fingers over the taut skin of his cheekbones. “Why don’t
you
write an article about that? I can just see it in the
New York Times
. ‘Special Report from Peter Fagan, Correspondent.’” I picked up my napkin, wiped my mouth, and hoped there were no crumbs.
    Peter leaned toward me. “You’re a mess, missy.” He deftly brushed the rest of the crumbs from my blouse. I wished I had made more of a mess.
    “Sure, I can write a piece on shell shock, but the
Times
will never take it. I’m just a former stringer for the
Boston Herald,
remember? Now let me clean off the rest of your pretty dress.”
    “Stop that. Eat your lunch. Keep your hands off me.” I laughed. “They’ll take it if
I
ask them. I wrote for them. They’ll take it if I say so. We’ll be a team. We’ll make the money we need.”
    “What do you mean, ‘we’? I’m just your secretary while Annie’s too sick to work. If you don’t mind my being so bold, it looks like the burden is on you. You’re the one who’s world famous.”
    He ran his fingers over my cheek. “I love that you’re an independent woman.” He lit a cigarette, the tobacco ripe and tart.
    I nodded, my jaw tensed.
    “Isn’t it something?” What I didn’t tell him is that I’m more dependent than he thinks. There are some things about which I keep mute. Because I have no intention of losing this man.
    “Wait.” I stopped Peter from reading more. “I think I’ve heard enough for one day.”
    Peterlet the paper slide from his hands.
    For the first time, we sat