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Helen

I didn’t write that the mayor of Wichita, Kansas, had refused to shake my hand when I told him I was a Socialist, or that we slept in drafty hed into the

A week later, over a breakfast by the train station on the way to our next town, Annie spelled John’s telegram into my palm:

Helen: Boston, Mass, 1916

Peter Fagan arrives Wisconsin Monday August 25 Work Experience: laid off Boston Herald reporter Special Qualifications: long on time, short on cash

Wants the job

The cost is yours

John

The thought of being alone with a stranger, atrain ride through Wisconsin, I i his cheekbone as he moved his face close to mine The train rocked beneathto my skin: a scent of woods and heat that e my life

The night Peter arrived, Appleton, Wisconsin, smelled of rain Annie and I sat despondent over the failure of that night’s audience to listen to our Chautauqua lecture when Peter slid into the billowing, creaking tent—in the night his scent caarette se e of e where Annie and I sat Annie shifted beside me, saw him, and spelled her impression into my hand: “he flips open a brown reporter’s notebook, waves a cigarette with thin, long fingers” I liftedelectricity in the air

“Is he handso my hair

“All I can say is thank God you’re blind” We both laughed

“Is he that bad?” I spelled back into her hand—familiar as my own I cockedin her chair, “He’s looking left, now right” Annie went on, her fingers flying in my palm: “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, his shirt is unbuttoned And he’s got that shifty look of a person ready to flee”

“Flee?” I leaned closer to Annie

“His family fled Ireland,” Annie went on “The famine He’s a Socialist now,” she told me “Another supporter of lost causes—like you”

We both laughed again, but I felt a slight ht?” Always I’ve liked e seven I’d ask Annie to ed down just a bit, I sat up straighter

“He doesn’t see you,” Annie rapped “But he is looking He’s turning this way Dark hair, he’s shaking his jacket off his shoulders, and oh, brown eyes” Relief washed through h the soles ofup to the table and grasped my hand

“Miss Kel-ler, a pleasure to see you” I touched his throat to hear his words and felt a twinge, very slight, that h as twine, thru my hand away Warm air pressed down inside the tent; the thu out Still, Peter waited forlarynx and h stubble of his cheek, I felt his parted lips with h me Annie always tolda man’s face, awk at you enough without seeing you lingering over some man’s drawl”

But Peter drew me in

“The pleasure is h palm

“The fa the world a better place” With a quick flick of his fingers inthe press on you: a sold-out lecture tour across Canada in 1914, and now this current tour—two lectures a day, twenty-five cities, three different states since you left Wrentha ht, under the hot dorasped Peter’s hand in ers

But Peter didn’t know the whole story The truth was harsher Our tours—including this one—were to raise money for the blind and deaf, yes But how could Peter have known thatAnnie’s salary when I was ten years old, and since e, Annie and I had done our show in too many cities to count to pay the bills We had to keep ourselves afloat

“I’lad,” I blurted out “That you’re here to help us”

He just threw his head back and laughed, his throat a lush drink of crea over for Miss Sullivan and getting you two safely home,” he said And I believed him

Peter turned to Annie “I’ll take her to dinner if you’d like” As alhen I’m with two people, I held Annie’s hand with my left hand and listened as she spelled At the same time I held my other hand to Peter’s lips and lip-read his response His mouth moved qu

ickly, excitedly under hty words per minute poured into my palm—eary

Peter looped his arh the tent robust with the odors of farmers, dirt tracked in on their shoes, and the scent of machinery still in their clothes And when Peter said, “Watch your step,” I kneere about to cross frorass outside

Just as we stood at the tent’s edge the cool night air hit me: it was filled with the vibrations of the dinner bell—pulsing and fading on Lake Bally’s shores

“Let’s eat,” Peter said beside ry?”

“Starving,” I said right back

The steady thruht air As I felt its vibrations in my hands I hesitated, then stopped on the threshold of the tent

Before walking out into the night the bell stopped tolling, leaving a fist of empty air—and I can tell you nohat I did not know then: that bell was just like Peter Boo with joy But soon empty Gone I held his hand more fiercely in mine

I live in a tangible white dark My blind world is not shot through with blue, sultry green, or shouting red But neither is my world black It is not a casket; it does not close over h to the fingers, the color of flesh

That’s what I spelled into Peter’s sether at the threshold of the tent that Wisconsin night He’d just asked me what everyone wanted to know but was usually too polite to ask: “What’s it like to be blind?” he’d said “To live in the dark?” We waited for Annie to catch up; she had gone backstage to get our paycheck froer; beneathsht frorass telling et away; our talk was not what they had wanted to hear