Miss Spitfire by Sarah Miller

“and we’ll see who the real daredevil is.”
    When we reach the upper forties, my lungs feel too large for my chest. At fifty-five my hands tremble, and I wonder if the air straining inside me will crack my ribs apart. At sixty my chest seems light enough to float away, my bulging eyes hot as boiled eggs. By sixty-five I’m pounding Helen’s hand against her napkin, begging her to pick it up. At sixty-eight she surrenders, folding the napkin quicker than a skivvy on washing day.
    I sink to my knees, sucking air into my dried-out throat, too shaken to appreciate my success. Before she can throw another fit, I take Helen by the hand and lead her to the door. She resists until she feels meturning the key. We go to the back door, and I let her out into the warm sunshine. She darts away over the lawn.
    At the sound of the door Mrs. Keller approaches from one of the outbuildings. “Miss Annie, is everything all right?”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œI was waiting in the little house so … so I wouldn’t hear.” She looks aside, a halo of pink creeping from her hairline. “Did Helen eat from her own plate?”
    â€œShe did. With a spoon. And she folded her napkin.”
    A broad smile lights up her face, the first smile I’ve seen untinged by shame or melancholy. “Oh, Miss Annie,” she breathes, taking my hands in hers, “Miss Annie.” She presses the back of one of her hands to her mouth to hold in her tears as she looks at me. Her eyes glow blue as the sea.
    Pride swells like another heartbeat within me, so large it threatens to leak from my eyes. I could stand like this forever, in the light of those shining blue eyes.
    â€œHow did you ever manage it?” she wonders, shaking her head.
    I think of Helen’s small feet kicking at nothing as I held the napkin over her face, and my pride shrivels into a black lump. My hand finds its way to my forehead. Dizzy, I shake my head. “I can’t. I …”
    â€œYou poor thing,” Mrs. Keller laughs, hugging meto her side, “you’re exhausted.” She leads me like a child into the house and up the stairs. At my door she says, “You rest now. I’ll look after Helen so she doesn’t bother you.” Closing the door, she pauses, turning those glowing eyes upon me once more.
    I hold myself in place until the door clicks shut behind her. Relief melts me from the inside out. I throw myself onto the bed and let the tears come.

Chapter 15
    I very soon made up my mind that I could do nothing with Helen in the midst of the family.
    â€”ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887
    All my work is for nothing. Within a single day what little Helen’s learned unravels more quickly than a frayed stocking. What with all the starts and stops and doubling back, trying to teach Helen anything is as infuriating as reading with Tilly Delaney in the almshouse.
    Crazy little Tilly may have been prone to fits and wild with thoughts of escape, but she knew her letters, and if I promised to help her run away from time to time, she’d read to me. Trouble was she’d turn half a dozen pages at a time and never remembered from one day to the next where we’d left off—unless a jailbreak figured into the story. Sometimes Tilly’s voice would halt, her body would stiffen, and she’d squeak and gasp. The first time I put my ear down close to hear what she was trying to say, I felt foam at her lips and was terrified. But I soon learned to sit and wait until the fit passed, and by and by she’d sit up, wipe her mouth, and go on with the reading—but like Helen, she never began where we’d stopped.
    When we sit down to the next meal, Helen eats from her own plate only long enough to make a fool of me. As soon as the family applauds my accomplishment, she resumes her wandering. She’s wily enough to take refuge from my fury in the captain’s lap. Even my temper