Helen Keller in Love by Kristin Cashore

…”
    “Hallelujah,” he said. “Not about Annie being sick, but about having a full day alone with you. Looks like we’ve been given a reprieve.”
    “A reprieve? Annie may have TB.” I steadied myself.
    “TB? Big article about it in today’s
Globe
. Apparently it runs in families,” Peter spelled into my palm. “Ralph Waldo Emerson had it, his wife died of it. Henry David Thoreau died of it at forty-four. Did you know it’s an epidemic in twenty-two states?”
    “Peter, if Annie has it, she’ll …”
    “What? Leave you? Helen, you and Annie exaggerate. Make things worse, or bigger, than they really are.” His hand in mine felt heavy, and we sat without saying a word.
    Had Iexaggerated? Suddenly a strange thought seemed to float in the air. Was I exaggerating who Peter was? His shirt cuffs were frayed in my fingers. He was a bohemian. Did he want a steady job? How long would he be my private secretary? He traveled from place to place not really landing anywhere. I got the sense that he loved ideas more than people. Was he attracted to the idea of me? I had the strange sensation the answer was yes. But I pushed the thought away. If Annie was sick, I’d need Peter to take care of me.
    “You two get carried away by things,” Peter repeated. “Annie’s gone to get a test, she’ll be back tonight. I guarantee she’ll be bossing you around again by tomorrow morning. And when the results show up in the mail in what, two weeks? I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. But I can tell you what should happen.”
    “What?” I breathed clean air.
    “You should let me take care of you. Well, as much as any mere human can.” He lightly pinched my waist.
    “You’re right. Maybe it’s nothing.”
    “I didn’t say it’s nothing. TB is serious—I’m not denying that. But you and Annie do jump to conclusions. Then you work yourselves into a frenzy based on what? Speculation, not facts.”
    “Are you chastising me?”
    “I’m saying you need a good journalist. We follow facts, keep things straight.”
    Suddenly I felt very tired.
    “I’ll take care of you.”
    “Are you proposing?” I said.
    “I’m proposing that I’ll take care of you.”
    “Then I accept.”

    To PeterI always said what he needed to hear. I didn’t tell him that fear sliced me like a knife, thinking he’d leave, and with Annie sick I’d have no one near. To myself I told the truth. I didn’t set out to attract his desire. But once it was within my reach I knew I would not let go.
    Peter pulled out my desk chair and led me to it. “Have a seat, lady. Let’s get to work. Isn’t that why you pay me the big bucks?”
    “You’re a tyrant.” I sat at my oak desk, my fingers tracing the familiar white mantel just above it.
    “Yes, but I’m your tyrant,” Peter laughed. “And don’t you forget it.”
    “How could I, with you reminding me every minute of the day?”
    “Quiet, missy.” He put a silver tray with a stack of letters beside me.
Ca-riiiip
. He opened the first envelope, and a limpid scent of onion, musty tenement rooms rose from the page.
    “London, England,” Peter read: “September 1916.”
    Dear Miss Helen Keller,
    I don’t know where to turn, except to you. They say you’re a saint, pretty as a statue, and kind.
    I blame myself for it. My boy was four. I was afraid. The German blockade of England. No food, we had no food. I held my boy in my arms in the bathroom, dousing his face with water, the acrid smell of garbage filling the alley outside our building. No heat. The air so cold—we couldn’t get warm all winter. But that night he was on fire with it, the fever. It’s my fault. I didn’t call the doctor. By morning it was too late. No money, just my cracked hands, this war, and my boy’s cries. My husband bleak. By morning the fever was gone. But he was blind. I still rocked him. Rubbed the white film from his bright blue eyes. He let out a cry—no, a howl like a lost dog—when he tried