“Helen,” Mother said, “make a list.”
She put a piece of paper on my desk and left the room.
November 25, 1916
Dear Mother,
I’ve married Peter Fagan. Believe me, I’ve never been happier in my life.
I know you’ll come to understand.
Your loving daughter,
Helen
I folded the letter and left it in the middle of the desk.
Warren’s truck rattled up the driveway at dusk, and as the scent of night settled around me, I felt the staircase vibrate as he climbed wearily to bed. When Mildred and Mother finally crept upstairs at nine thirty, I felt their bedroom doors close firmly behind them, so I got my suitcase, tiptoed out of my room, and left the house. I waited on Mildred’s front porch, my luggage packed in one tidy bag. Peter slipped hurriedly out of the woods and I felt his footsteps as he ran up the porch steps.
“Let’s go, Helen.” He took my suitcase and then my arm. “Now.”
A breeze shook the honeysuckle vines.
Just then the front door swung open, a rustle announcing that someone was coming out of the house. Peter held firmly to my hand, but Warren pushed past me and grabbed hold of him. Clutching the railing, I smelled the cold metal of a gun, and Warren’s yell split the air.
Peter pulled me toward him. “Leave us alone,” he said. “Helen’s coming with me.” He tried to lead me past Warren, but the strong scent of metal told me Warren had raised his Smith and Wesson and was pointing it right at Peter.
“No one tells us what to do with Helen.” The vibrations of Warren’s voice moved through the porch floorboards into my legs and I panicked. A cold, icy fear sluiced through me. Peter pushed me back, away from Warren. Alone by the railing I couldn’t breathe. Instead I inhaled fear—iron, bitter, metallic—rising from Peter’s jacket as he struggled with Warren.
The floorboards thudded as the two shoved each other, and I waited, helpless, for the air to split open: for my nostrils to fill with sulfur and gunpowder—and though Warren didn’t fire his gun, I knew. Even as Peter’s footsteps punched the porch floor, even as he was brash, a daredevil, even as his love for me was unwavering, his skin gave off the scent of a frightened animal caught in a trap. Because he faced the impenetrable fortress of my family.
He would never win, he couldn’t. No one could.
Let me go, I wanted to say.
I tried to run off the porch, but Warren blocked me at the railing as Peter’s scent drifted away into the woods.
I still held the railing, suddenly lightheaded, as Mother came out of the house and took my hand. I pushed her away. “I won’t go inside—no.” Mother left me alone on the porch, and complete darkness closed over me.
I remembered the time when I was six and sensed that Mother wished I would die. It’s not that she didn’t love me. She did. It was the overwhelming pull of me. Helen can’t hear. Helen can’t see. Helen can’t make her way from table to door, never mind make her way in the dangerous world.
That was when I began to crave being perfect. Mama, I’ll be good. A saint. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I promise to be good. This, the deaf-blind woman’s promise. I will reflect your desires all the days of my life. In return, you will never leave me.
But now I craved freedom. That night in my room I kept my suitcase packed. I knew Peter would be back, so all night I tossed in my white iron bed in Mildred’s house, gesturing with my fingers as if calling to him.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I wish I could have changed what I wanted, but my desire to leave only intensified. The next morning, scents of biscuits and eggs rose from the kitchen, but when Mildred knocked on my door I refused to come down to breakfast. I was lost in thought: Peter’s hands in my hair, the feeling of him by my side, the excitement of our wedding day—tomorrow, when I would be separated from my family, but united with the man I loved. An hour later, when Mildred tapped on my door for help with chores, I finally dressed and went downstairs.
On my way to the kitchen the aroma of tobacco told me Warren was nearby.
“Helen, you owe me a ‘good morning.’”
I tried to walk past, but he took my hands and held them tight.
“You tried to run off with that Yankee.”
“I’ll do it again.”
“You had no right to …”
“To what? Have a life, a family, like you, Mildred, and Mother do?”
“Your mother is racked with a migraine; my wife—your sister—refuses to accept that you would do this, but if you ever try …”
“What? You’ll use your gun again?”
“No. I won’t use that gun. Next time I’ll use one I actually fire.”
I stormed into the kitchen and slid closed the lock. When Warren rapped on the door, I refused to open it.
I had reached my limit. Mildred did not mention anything about last night. Instead, she turned from the counter where she was chopping apples for a Thanksgiving pie and said Mother had gone to her room with a headache. “Make her some tea, Helen.” She handed me the teakettle and placed it under the faucet. The cold water rushed over my hands as I awkwardly filled it, so Mildred took the kettle from me. “There’s Bailey,” she said. “Helen, go open the door and let him in.” I opened the back door and turned, expectantly. With a rush of warm air Warren’s hunting dog made his way into the kitchen and thumped his tail against my leg, bits of branches sharp in his fur.
“I’ve never seen such a mess,” Mildred said.
“Me either.”
“I’m talking about …”
“I know what you’re talking about, Mildred. Warren takes Bailey out with him nights, and that’s how he got like this. Give me the brush. I’ll clean Bailey up.”
Mildred put a steel brush in my hand, and with great vigor I moved it through the tangles.
“Mildred, will he …”
“Be out tonight? I didn’t ask. And he didn’t say.”
I had to warn Peter that it might not be safe to come tonight. But if I wrote him a letter, how would I get it to him? Mildred would see me at the mailbox; I couldn’t walk through the woods to downtown Montgomery; I couldn’t even get to the sidewalk without guidance. The air around me darkened.
“Helen, stop. You’re hurting Bailey.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never hurt a living thing.”
There was a long pause.
“Perhaps not on purpose. Remember Martha Washington?”
“Who?”
“The little Negro girl, the daughter of Mother’s cook. She was seven, you were five. You used to play with her. One day something enraged you—God knows what—so you grabbed Mother’s scissors and cut off all of Martha’s curls.”
“So?”
“You were always … determined to get your own way.” Mildred took the brush from my hands.
I had to contact Peter. Was there a chance that Mildred would speak up for me?
“Mildred, I …” I wanted to tell her that I was sorry.
“He’s my husband, Helen.” Through the floor I felt the vibrations of Warren chopping wood in the yard. “He paced our bedroom all night. He feels responsible for you.”
“Could you … talk to him?”
There was a long pause as Mildred moved to the table. “Do you remember what happened after you cut off Martha Washington’s hair?”
“No.”
“She was punished for causing trouble. I was there. Her mother took her and whipped her good for ‘disrupting Miss Helen,’ but worst of all for disturbing the household—Mother was beside herself. I can’t be a go-between for you with Warren or Mother. Can you understand, Helen?” Mildred’s hand stopped spelling in mine.
The stomp of Warren’s boots on the back steps made us pull apart.
Why couldn’t I have what was my right? I wanted to protest. I was unable to leave, unable to reach out to Peter, but I needed him to comfort me. For him I would make any sacrifice.
“He’s a good man, Helen,” Mildred said.
“I know.”
“He just wants what’s right for you, for all of us.”
“Yes.”
“But Risa.”
“Risa?”
“The girl who writes Braille, like you and … Peter do. She’ll be here at two this afternoon. To … do. . . for you.”
The day lightened.
Within minutes I sat in the warmth of my room, typing a letter to Peter on my Braille writer. Please, meet me tonight. Warren may be out, so be careful. I tucked the letter into Risa’s pocket when she arrived, and for the rest of the afternoon Mother, Mildred, and I sat on scratchy living-room chairs to play an agonizingly slow game of whist. When the living room floorboards shook just a bit, I knew Risa had opened the front door.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said when she reached me at the card table. “I have something for you.”
I pushed my chair back
“You’ll stay right here, Helen. I want my eyes on you.” Mother put her hand on mine.
My fingers trembled just slightly in Mother’s palm when I told her I had to work with Risa. I had letters I had to answer.
“You may certainly attend to your duties,” Mother said.
When Risa and I left the room, I felt confident that Mother was satisfied that if I stayed busy, my future with Peter would also be kept at bay. Then Risa leaned toward me with a note from Peter.
Dear Renegade,
Well, they’re hankering for a fight, aren’t they? All right, then. Fight we will.
Be outside at two a.m. No one will be awake then, Mrs. Fagan. And if Warren does go out searching the woods, he and that mangy old dog will limp up the front steps into the house by two a.m., tired of tramping through the woods.
I’m betting on it.
My life flashed before my eyes last night, and once was definitely enough.
Yours,
Peter
At two a.m. Mother was asleep in her room, and while I couldn’t be sure, I hoped that Warren was asleep beside Mildred in their room across the hall from mine. I relaxed my whole body and paused before walking downstairs. I was sorry to leave Mother and Mildred, but my way ahead was clear-cut.
Suitcase in hand, I closed the front door behind me. Stars must have shone down, lighting up my face as I stepped out onto the porch. My hands shook as I set down my suitcase and stood poised for the vibrations of Peter crossing the yard.
That long first hour of waiting, the warm Alabama wind sweeps past, and I clench my teeth, telling myself his car must have stalled. By the second hour I shift in the rocking chair, turning left, then right. Where is he? As five o’clock comes, I ache for his mouth on mine. Now the early-morning sun warms my arms. My heart pounds; blood, rushing to my throat, thrums in my ears.
I strain over the porch railing, my whole body a vibroscope. I imagine Peter writing his note, scoffing, like he always does, at the threat of my family. But then I remember the last line: “I saw my life flash before my eyes, and once was enough.” Has he finally felt the weight of the dark I live in? My eyes blink. Who would have the strength to come into my world forever?
All through the dawn I push away the truth of what is happening. But when I feel daylight’s heat on my arms I know. The crack of a twig, of trucks rumbling up Seventh Avenue, the faint flutter of birds move over my skin like dark rain.
I have lost Peter. I cannot stay still for fear of breaking apart, but I cannot move either. I have nowhere to go. And I can’t return to my room, not yet. The sun has fully risen. My breath comes in short clips.
How I ache to get away. Peter is not going to walk up the steps, and the Montgomery daybreak seems a selfish thing, bristly, in its chill.
Now there is a slight sssnaap at the front door behind me. When I turn, a hand falls on mine.
“Helen, Warren sent me to bring you back into the house.” Mildred tries to help me up.
I sit in the chair like a pillar.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Say God is blind and deaf, his hands rubbing the bark of earth’s trees, searching for someone to hold him close, rock him in his sightless, mute world, warm him in a mother’s arms.
Say God feels fear. A cold, moving thing.
The morning Mildred led me back into the house I paced my room in devastation, refusing to speak to Mother, Mildred, or Warren. My mind raced. Had Peter been run off? Or had he simply gotten frightened? Had he stood at the edge of the woods, suddenly aware of the weight he would shoulder by marrying me—the unrelenting care he would have to provide for the rest of his life? Did he start to cross the lawn and then, seeing the house in its towering darkness, feel the hostility of my family toward him, and realize for certain that they would never truly let me go? I knew he loved me. If he had come, his face would have been contorted in sorrow as he withdrew and stepped back across the yard, watching me and knowing even he could not take me out of my isolation.
Maybe he was afraid of the same things I was: loneliness and oblivion. And he simply couldn’t enter into them with me.
But if Peter could not really come near me, who then?
I am a floating bit of ash.
In my small room I move to the desk by the window and back, restless, trapped in my craven desire, my need to see him. When I fall into a sudden, uneasy sleep the dream comes. The one where I have the deathlike feeling I first felt a few weeks ago when Annie said she had tuberculosis and was going far away.
In my dream I soothe Annie with my hands, trying to erase the White Death. Not true, I say in the dream. Do not leave me.
And God rocks high above the blind universe, sorrow on his tongue.
When I wake up I feel vibrations in the hallway. Warren, Mildred, and Mother all pace in the hall, but I don’t allow anyone in my room.
I lie awake all afternoon, the sheet over me like a shroud.
That night a sudden freeze descended on Montgomery’s avenues and fields, covering everything with frost. When I woke up not in my honeymoon cottage but in Mildred’s guest room, I was freezing cold. Mildred came in and tried to warm me by putting quilts on the bed.
“Get some coal for the fire,” I said.
“We have no coal.”
“Please, Mildred.”
“You have to go back to Wrentham. Mother wants to take you tomorrow.” Her hands shook.
“No. I want to stay here. He may still come.”
“No,” Mildred said.
“Was Warren … out last night?”
“He hunted the woods until dawn, Helen. But he found nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Nothing?”
“No.” Mildred waited a long time. “Not a living thing. And Warren can track prey as well as anyone can.”
A chalky darkness filled me. Heavy, that dark, as if I could take it into my mouth.
It occurred to me then. Perhaps Peter had not made it to the edge of the yard last night. Had Warren run him off with a gun? Had that stopped Peter, finally, from coming for me? Perhaps at daybreak he sat on the edge of his bed, listing the reasons to be with me. A woman like Helen needs to be loved. And at the top of this list, finally, he put the reason to stay away: to save his own life. A life not entwined with mine. A life where he could rise, or fall, on his own. He knew I would be devastated, there would be no deeper hurt. Nevertheless, he had to let go. I imagined him standing up, pulling at his frayed shirt cuffs, locking his suitcase, and closing the door behind him.
“Helen, a letter came for you today.” Mildred hesitantly took her hand from mine.
“Is it from—”
“I can’t tell you, Helen. I’m under strict orders not to show you anything.”
“What?” I sat up. A rage moved through me. Peter had not come, but he had loved me, treated me like an equal, and I had become louder, more combative by knowing him. And I liked that. I pulled the covers off and stood by Mildred, my anger mounting.
“Mother said—”
“Re
ad it, now,” I demanded. I might still win. Mildred read:
Washington, D.C.
My Dear Helen,
Congratulations, darling girl, on your upcoming marriage. I am delighted to read that you finally heeded the advice I gave you so many years ago. May you and Mr. Fagan, if my New York Times is right in the spelling of your fiancé’s name, have all the pleasures of this blessed institution.
As Mark Twain once said, you truly are the eighth wonder of the world. May your beloved always treat you so.
Sincerely yours,
Alexander Graham Bell
I am a human being, with a human being’s frailties and inconsistencies, I once wrote in a book. As I held the letter in my hands, Mark Twain’s words reverberated within me. When I was younger, unaware that a man would ever love me, Annie and I had visited Mark Twain in his white Connecticut mansion. We walked into his cigar-scented living room that cold December night and sat by the fireplace as he read aloud to Annie and me.
Later, he led us up the thick-carpeted stairs to our bedrooms. I turned to go into the first one, on the left, but he quickly shut the door. “No, not that one.” Annie spelled into my hand that it was the former bedroom of his beloved daughter, who had died young. At nineteen, she had fallen deathly ill in that very room while Twain was away in Europe; he was rushing back to her, his ship halfway across the Atlantic, but she died before he arrived.
The next day we stood with Mark Twain outside in the snow, waiting for our car to return home. I knew that his fame was worldwide, his humor unending, but as Annie and I said good-bye, his voice under my fingertips felt rough as stones. When we drove off, Annie turned and saw Twain alone, white hair blazing. She said he looked back at his empty mansion as if yearning for a sound he no longer heard.
Now I know what Mark Twain wanted.
For the one you lost to call your name.
I traced over the note with my fingers. Mildred took it from me and packed it in my suitcase. All night I lay awake. We had no coal. The stars were dead, the universe stalled. I had no burning thing at my center.
Helen Keller in Love Page 20
