Helen Keller in Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

don’t want to argue.” I shifted toward the door to the porch. “Peter’s going to take me on stage tomorrow?” I asked again. “Where is he now? Is he still out there?” I felt her stiffen. I moved toward the door and swung it open.
    “Close that door.” She walked up behind me and put her hand on the doorknob. “Were you raised in a barn?”
    A warm wind mixed with the scent of brandy as she swung the door shut. “But Peter?” I said. My palm still held some of the warmth of his thumb.
    “He’s still out there.” Annie turned to the windows that faced the front porch. “You should see him. Pacing the floorboards like a loyal dog.” She paused. “What on earth is he waiting for? Why doesn’t he go to his room for the night?”
    “He’s waiting for me,” I said. Annie’s palm turned hard, almost metallic. Her suspicions rose between us, tightening the night air. “Why would he be waiting for you?”
    I kept my fingers still in Annie’s hand.
    “He works for us.” I was afraid to breathe. “Maybe he’s waiting for us to tell him to go.” Just like that she threw her blanket off, crossed the room in a
sslap-sslap-sslap
of her bare feet, and swung open the door. Peter’s footsteps moved quickly across the porch floor, until he plonked up the hotel’s stairway to his room, where he would stay until the next day.
    “No funny business tomorrow, Helen. I mean it.”
    “Trust me.” I lied so easily. I took her hand and squeezed it good night.
    WhenI felt my way to the door, then down the hall, the pine paneling rough under my hands, it was all I could do to stand at the bottom of the stairwell and then go on to my room beside Annie’s instead of climbing those stairs to Peter.

Chapter Six

    “D o you dream in color?” people ask me. “In your dreams can you see?” I wrote a book about how the world comes to me through scents, taste, and that divine medium: touch. In that book I wrote of a dream I had about Annie. I was ashamed to admit that dream, but now it’s time to say it once and for all.
    The night Annie told me we were almost out of money and that she was sick, I fumbled my way into my room but avoided the bed. I could not sleep. Instead I sat heavily in the desk chair by the door and read in the dark. My fingers traced the Braille pages so easily. But even that wouldn’t calm me.
    Because Peter would be my private secretary for the rest of the summer.
    As morning’s faint sunlight fell on my arms I pitched into an uneasy sleep.
    And I dreamed that Annie was perched high above Niagara Falls as I pushed her straight to the waters below.
    When I woke up, that image—heavy, murky in its shape—hovered at the dark edge of my memory. The Wisconsin air was heavy with rain, a sodden scent, and I couldn’t wait to see Peter, tell him I needed him by my side that day. If I didn’t go to him then, I might not go. So as the heavy thud of farm trucks labored up the road outside, I felt my way to my closet, picked a fresh dress from the first hanger, then crossed to my door and slowly made my way up the stairway. In my own house I have memorized everything—tables, chairs, rooms—and walk quite fast. But in new places I am lost; I can’t find my way even from one room to another without a hand on my shoulder to guide me.
    In mywell of dark, I held the railing, climbed one stair, two, until my foot reached a pocket of air. I was at the top of the stairs. One door, two, three, I worked my way past the first three rooms and stopped nervously outside the fourth door.
    Two quick raps woke Peter. He opened the door and led me into his room, around the coffee table to sit on the settee by his windows. He leaned back easily against the cushions, the scent of night, whiskey, and tobacco on his skin.
    “Come on. Spill the beans. What is it?” he said, as if it were a normal occurrence for a woman to bang on his bedroom door at seven a.m. I shifted beside him, aware of his palm on my arm.