Read Online What Is Visible: A Novel by Kimberly Elkins - Free Book Online Page A

my return to Boston. I am so happy to see Pearly, our cat, though she still gives me a wide berth; apparently, animals have a memory as good as mine. When I was six, I tossed her into the fireplace because she’d scratched me, and though she was not dreadfully burned, Papa said her silky tail was singed black, and he stamped his feet harder that time than I ever remember. That’s his way of letting me know he’s angry, and it’s very unpleasant to feel the wood floors shake so long and so hard, but it’s still better than being cuffed on the head or slapped on the bottom, which is what he used to do until Mama stopped him. She didn’t think it was fair to punish me like Mary and Addison because most of my sins were accidents. I was happy to let her believe that, anyway. After the fireplace, I wasn’t allowed to play with the cat and had to content myself with the doll I’d made from one of Papa’s old boots. I would untie the laces and pretend they were her long strands of hair, and touch the twelve tiny eyes that meant she could see more than anyone in the whole world. Caroline I called her, my boot baby, and I rocked her to sleep every night.
    I ask Mama for Caroline, but she says she threw the boot out long ago. It has, after all, been three years since I’ve been home. Mama gives me the Laura doll I sent her, but I’d rather have my old boot, the leather rough against my chest. Mama can’t believe how tall I’ve grown, though she swears I am more of a rail than when I left them. “What do they feed you?” she asks, and I tell her the truth: many days I eat only bread and butter and they leave me be. That is my choice. Doctor has given Mama strict instructions on my diet, that I am not to have salt or sugar or anything he considers incendiary ―that’s his word—he believes blinds must be protected from too much excitement. Of course in my case, it doesn’t matter; she could dump in the whole salted pork barrel and I probably wouldn’t know the difference. Still, I like to help with the cooking, and most of all, I like that Mama lets me. She trusts me to handle myself in a way that nobody at the Institution does, because she saw how I could get around and what I could do on my own here for seven years.
    I limit my play so I can be the assistant cook and maid. Mama even allows me to cut up the vegetables for stew. At the Institution, they will never give me a knife, but the truth is I have only nicked myself twice this trip, and hardly at all, only bloodying one potato. I enjoy the precision of cutting one slice after another, stroking my way down the length of a carrot or sliding my finger into the shallow groove of the celery. And the funny little knots on the potatoes, I turn round and round and count them. Addison says they are called eyes, and I wonder that a potato, like a boot, can have a dozen eyes while I have none. I do not like to touch the raw meat, but I don’t let on because I know Mama needs me. I sit on the back screened porch with Mary plucking the feathers from a chicken; it is awful work that almost brings me to gagging, but I continue, running my fingers over the bare, puckered skin until I can find no more feathers. I am glad I don’t know what it looks like; I think if I did, I would never be able to eat it, or the beef or pork either. I have examined the shapes of cows and sheep and even a pig, but when they are cut up and turned inside out, I know they must look very different.
    Since I look different on the outside than other people, I wonder if my insides look different too. I pluck a hair from my head like a feather and feel the tiny, wet bulb at its end. I wish I could feel all the inside of me; I admit I do try to get in any hole I can, and Mama often pulls my fingers away from my nose or ears. “Nasty habit,” I am told again and again, but my self is all I have, since the girls I’ve tried to poke so far do not seem to like it much. Two of the blinds have bitten me this