Page 30 (1/2)
Chapter One
I wait under a night sky pocked with stars I cannot see I lean forward on the porch, the chrr-chrr-chrr of crickets thruainstI hold feels cool after the day’s heat The night around hty caverns of water under the earth—hungryto take me in
I cannot account for my behavior
I have lied—to my teacher, my mother, the world I hid froht of 1916 Because I have a secret
I’ve never told this story I don’t know if I can tell it now But it’s a story I have kept out of all the speeches I’ve ever given and every one of the books I’ve written Yet it’s the truest story I’ve lived
Thirty-seven years old Deaf, blind, mute I have taken a lover, and I am in love I can’t publicly marry because my teacher andme close
But I defied the perfect Helen Keller Helen the pure; Helen the tireless worker, the saint, the good girl I wanted to break free And it happened very suddenly Last sus in ht
Since October we’ve been secretly engaged This is the night ill elope I’m ready Beside h this steaht on the porch of o new to me But this silence, this dark, is not a casket; it is an opening Life calls froe of my sister’s house Woods froht, take my hand, and race me off to Florida, where a minister friend waits to marry us
The night gets cooler around me, and the silence deeper One hour, two, then four hours pass Yet I knoill come The people who know me best—Annie, my teacher; Mother, asleep on the second floor—could never have iined I would deceive them, or marry and have someone to care for
The longer I wait here thebreaks I had crept out of my upstairs bedroom, suitcase in hand, at two a for four hours,feet pressed to the porch to feel the thrum, thrum, thrum of Peter’s footsteps
I waited even as ot up She woke her husband, who told her not to be afraid—it was only me on the porch: Sister Helen, he called an; that I packedand came down to wait for him as they slept This is the story you will never read about in ht on this porch to elope with her lover
Here’s the date I’ll never write: November 27, 1916 Did Peter sense trouble, and decide to stay away? Did Mildred’s husband pay him off? Or did the ht back, push Mildred’s husband away, saying, “I s with , ait so to feel his footsteps on the stair? He must come
Burning, the Alabama sun People ask ht and day if you are blind? I tell thehter; day feels heavier, more sodden with life And as I stand up, pick up my suitcase, admit to ht weighs more heavily on my skin than any blindness ever did
My throat is a red knot, unraveling I can’t go back in the house to Mother and Mildred The sun rises like a plu until daybreak comes and the silence deepens more than any I have ever known
I am alone Still, he still may come … Because we had an extraordinary, passionate affair When I think about it now, it makes my breath move fast, fast, like a train …
Chapter Two
Peter Fagan was a ht, h my lecture tour across the Midwest, the warm scent of corn, pond water, and dirt filled t
he tent where a crowd of farmers waited for Annie to lead me up the steps and call out the story of my life As I stood at the base of the three wooden steps leading to the stage, I gripped the stair railing—its cool metal vibrated with the shuffle, then story tint to the air The crowd had been waiting for a half hour
“I can’t do it,” Annie spelled into h rattled her chest, and she doubled over beside me
The steady vibration of i the railing
I felt desperate, hollowed out inside This cough kept Annie awake nights, made her skin damp as constant rain, and exhausted her so badly that for the first time since I was a child, she couldn’t clie; she couldn’t translate for ht as she always had for thirty years
“Write to John,” I spelled into her hand as she struggled to lead e “After the show Please He’ll help I know”
“John wouldn’t help me if I were the last woman on earth,” she spelled into my palm
“He’s still married to you”
“Married? He’s a husband in name only He lives in his own apartment in Boston with that deaf hussy At least she won’t have to listen to him blabber on, like I did for fourteen years”
“Annie,” I spelled into her dae curtain and ledcrowd “He ot”
On the stage Annie cut short her introduction of me Her hand shook inyou Helen Keller, the miracle”
One thing no one tells you about being blind and deaf is this: You say what people need to hear You leave out the rest After our lecture, Annie walked me across the dusty road froton typewriter “Maybe a flunky from John’s newsroom can help But God knows he won’t respond to ” Froers onto the typewriter keys I didn’t write the whole truth I wrote what John needed to hear:
Appleton, Wisconsin
August 1916
John Macy
Boston Herald
Boston, Mass
Tour a great success Several towns in Kansas, Nebraska, and now Wisconsin I had my picture taken with the h profits for Annie and et back in September
Please, John I know you don’t care for us as you once did; perhaps you still care enough to help us Annie has developed a hacking cough But the tour must continue You above all others kno I depend on her We still have dates to finish in Wisconsin Can you send me a private secretary?