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“What?”
“You heard me. How many women just like you—deaf, blind, unable to get around on her own, dependent on a surly teacher—”
“Peter—”
“Or a handsome man to take her around all day and night—how many of those women have kids?”
“Do I look like a walking encyclopedia of the blind?”
“No. You look like a woman who’s been dropping hints right and left about children. The day Annie ransacked John’s apartment and brought home that baby stroller, I remember you said, ‘Peter, what if someday you and I …’ You didn’t finish the sentence, but I’m a word man, remember? I filled in the blank. ‘Had a baby’ is what you meant. So what’s really going on, missy? Anything I’m missing?” He leaned against the door.
“Peter. The only thing you’re missing is the chance to unlace my dress.”
“Like this?” He slid his fingers inside my dress.
“Yes.”
“And this?” He pulled my dress up over my head, and kneeled down. I arched my back, and he pulled me closer. The warmth of his mouth on the inside of my thighs made me gasp, then I felt his warm breath at the very center of me.
He wrote on my thighs, “This is how fingerspelling was invented.”
“For monks to talk during holy hour,” I spelled on his neck, his curly hair in my hands. “They didn’t want to break their vow of silence.”
He slid his mouth closer, and I arched my whole body back and eased him into me. “How would you feel about having a baby with me?” I spelled impetuously into his hand. But he didn’t listen, he pressed his hips to mine and the world fell away again.
Later he rolled to the farthest edge of the bed. I stiffened as I lay beside him, afraid of what he’d say. “Helen, I heard you.”
“So, what if I were pregnant … someday?” I said.
“That would be an unwanted complication.” He gave off the scent of a metallic fence, part seaweed, pulling him out to sea. “We can’t afford—”
“Can’t afford what? The farmhouse is on the market. And Andrew Carnegie sends my pension every month. I told him to keep sending it.”
“You did that? Even when you knew I was against it? Well then I’ll let you in on some news you won’t like, either. Did you know that the New York Times returned my article about shell shock? They hire prominent journalists, not stringers like me.”
“Peter, you know I publish there; I could have gotten you in.”
“Don’t you get it, Helen? I’m not going to ask you. Not ever. If we have a child we will have nowhere to live, and little money at all.”
I moved closer to him, breathing heavily.
“I thought you wanted a child,” I said.
“Yes, but not now.” Something jittery, wrong in his palm. “I’m still draft age, I could be drafted—President Wilson will be calling up troops to fight this war.”
“You want a baby,” I repeated. “Just not now, or not with me.”
My own voice seeped out. Loose like rolling pebbles. I was talking to him, unsure if my speaking voice was pitching up, or down, raw as I was.
He said nothing. I fished in the air for him, my hands touching pockets of emptiness.
All the air left the room. At that moment I understood Annie’s self-hatred, sharp as a knife. I was an unexpected complication. He did not want a baby, or did not want one with me. Deep inside my body, I felt a tell-tale, familiar cramping.
“I’m not saying never.” Peter took my hand. “Just not now.”
I pulled my hand away and made a fist.
Peter did not reach for me.
The whole long minute we sat in silence.
“We have a lot to do before tomorrow.” He stood up and left the room. I felt the ssssup, ssssup of his bare feet on the pine floor.
I got up, slipped on my dress. Peter was in the kitchen making coffee. I sat on the edge of the bed and put on my shoes. The silence around me was deeper than any silence in my thirty-seven years.
Chapter Thirty-four
As if nothing was wrong, I followed the scent of Peter’s cherry tobacco into the kitchen and sat at the table in the corner. Outside a truck rumbled up the road, and the heat of the overhead lamp warmed me, but the heaviness of Peter’s footsteps as he rapped across the floor by the stove told me he ached to leave.
So I ran my fingernail over the table’s soft wood, and then I rubbed my eyes. Rubbed as if to erase an old, piercing pain, like I was going blind for a second time. But I could not stop what was happening. All I knew was that Peter had teased me into life; I was alive and vulnerable. I could not go back. So I approached Peter, but as I got close enough to feel his warmth the telephone rang. Within seconds Peter hung up. “Just what we need. Your mother is hopping mad. I’m to get you home, now.”
“Is it Annie? She’s worse?” I pulled my coat around me.
“Something tells me Annie’s just fine—ready to head off to Puerto Rico to heal on your dime. No, the contempt in your mother’s voice means only one thing: when I drop you off at the front door Mrs. Kate Keller will stand tall outside my car and order me to drive off, never to see you, my dearest, again.”
Peter backed his car down the driveway, the wheels making the floorboards shake beneath my feet. I knew I had to soothe him, make easy the rough spots between us. I reached across the front seat, put my hand on his, and said, “About the … pregnancy. I’m probably just excited, overstating things, as usual. It’s only been two, three days since …”
“Since what?”
I said nothing.
“Oh. Your …”
I nodded.
“Helen, are you kidding? I’m no doctor, but it’s only been two or three days? That’s nothing. You’re not pregnant. You’re probably just …”
“Don’t say it.”
“Overexcited.”
“You really mean hysterical. That’s what the press calls me when I get all worked up.”
“Well, I am a member of the press.”
“Indeed.”
“And you do get excited.”
“Right.”
“So this is probably nothing at all.” He laid his warm hand on mine. “Come on, Helen. Someday, maybe, we’ll have kids, but let a man know he can support a family first.”
“Why, Mr. Fagan, you’re so old fashioned.” I held the door handle as he rounded a corner.
“I’m a man, Helen.”
“I’ve noticed.” Maybe he was right, I was just tense. Maybe some distant day we’d have a child.
Driving through Wrentham’s streets, I relaxed beside Peter. The tires vibrated on the road as if to say one more day, one more day. Suddenly Peter swerved to a stop. “What’s going on? Are we home?” The scent of willows told me we were close to my house, so I reached for the door.
“Not yet, Helen,” Peter said.
I don’t know how long we sat there together. The scent of chimney smoke inched into the car. Finally Peter said, “Helen, your mother is a frugal woman, right?”
“Frugal? She invented the word. Why?”
“Because I’m staring up the driveway toward your house, and the whole first floor is lit up. The second floor, too. The damned house is shining like a Christmas tree, and she’s standing in the doorway.”
“That can’t be good.”
“Nope. She’s got the door flung wide open on a chilly night like tonight …”
“Does she see us?”
“Not yet.”
“If there’s bad news,” I said, “I don’t want to know it.”
“You and me both.”
Peter idled the car by the curb. “I’m not letting this Keller clan stop our plans. If anything happens tonight, if we get separated—say, your mother boots me out and takes you to Alabama—don’t fret. I’ll follow you down to Montgomery. Remember I told you about my minister friend in Florida? I’ll whisk you to him and marry you before your mother even knows you’ve crossed the Alabama state line.”
> The car shuddered beneath my feet. For the first time I felt real fear slice through me. Peter stroked my hair. “Helen, I’m willing to chase you all the way to Montgomery if I have to, but please tell me that you don’t have a passel of gun-toting relatives down there.”
“Mr. Fagan. I come from an old southern family.”
“My point exactly. Southern families own stacks of rifles.”
“Well, Warren collects Smith and Wessons. He keeps them in a showcase on the living room wall.”
“Warren? Who’s Warren?”
“Mildred’s husband. Peter, if you’re marrying me you really should learn the names of my family members.”
“Okay. Mildred: your loyal younger sister. You adored her—”
“Actually, I was so furious at her birth, so jealous, I tipped over her cradle when Mother was out of the room. Luckily Mother came running back and saved Mildred from falling five feet to the floor.”
