Read Online You Are My Only by Beth Kephart - Free Book Online Page A

bigger than my palm. I could eat custard all day. I could take a bath in it. Miss Cloris blows a soft whistle up through the puffy parts of her hair and asks me to tell her about Kepler. I pause and think, recite the essay’s first sentence. She whistles again, closes her eyes.
    â€œâ€˜Johannes Kepler was born with the skies in his eyes,’ ” she repeats. “You wrote that yourself?”
    I nod.
    â€œDidn’t find it in a book somewhere?”
    I shake my head no.
    â€œYou know what we call that, don’t you?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe call that talent. Here,” she says. “Have another custard.”
    I feel my face go red and dig my spoon in deep and let the sweet smooth taste cover my tongue. “Miss Helen’s recipe,” Miss Cloris says.
    â€œWhere is Miss Helen?”
    â€œComing to us when she’s ready, as she does.”
    â€œShe isn’t ready?”
    â€œMiss Helen needs her rest, God be blessing Miss Helen.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.”
    On the floor, at my feet, Harvey yips. He knocks his tail against the linoleum tile and lets his tongue fall free. Miss Cloris says Harvey is not a fan of custard. She’s got him busy with a bone. “So what’s next?” she asks. “After your first sentence?”
    â€œ ‘He was born looking up so he could see.’ ”
    â€œIs that a fact?”
    â€œIt could have been.”
    â€œMy word,” Miss Cloris says, licking her own custard spoon. “Your mother has some Kepler coming. When does she get home?”
    â€œAround five o’clock.”
    â€œHow much more essay writing are you planning on?”
    â€œSome.”
    â€œWe’re not here to interfere with your learning, Sophie.”
    â€œYou’re not, Miss Cloris—I promise.”
    I look away from her and around the room, take notice of the pictures on the high parts of the walls—painted cardboard cutouts inside boxes. It’s Alice big and small. The Queen of Hearts. The White Rabbit. The Walrus and the falling Humpty Dumpty. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
    â€œMy Wonderland dioramas,” Miss Cloris explains without me asking. “It’s a bit of a fetish.”
    â€œDid you make them?”
    â€œI did not. That would be Miss Helen’s talent.”
    â€œShe makes Wonderland pictures?”
    â€œIt’s been a long time, dear. But yes, she once did. That’s the story of us, as a matter of fact. I met Miss Helen at her Wonderland booth at a country crafts fair. I couldn’t take my eyes off her dioramas.”
    â€œI thought you were sisters,” I say, confused. “Aunt and aunt?”
    â€œwe’re Joey’s aunts,” Miss Cloris says. “But that doesn’t mean we’re sisters. Here. Let me show you something.” She pushes back from the table and walks across the room. She pulls a picture from the wall, a pencil drawing, brings it to me, sits down again.
    â€œThat you?” I ask.
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œWith eyes like that? That hair?”
    â€œTime washes over, changes the look of things. But that’s not the point I was making. My point was, Miss Helen drew this. Miss Helen is an artist. Was when I met her and always had been. I fell for her Wonderland dioramas.”
    I nod, confused, and Miss Cloris’s face gets far away—the look in her eyes, the smile not for me. “You ever been to Wonderland?” she asks me now.
    â€œNo, ma’am,” I say.
    â€œDon’t deny yourself, you hear me?”
    She is looking past me now, over my shoulder, and I turn, too, to the creak of Miss Helen’s bamboo wheelchair, which Miss Helen with her own strength is rolling forward, her hands on the thin rubber wheels. She comes from the sky room down the hall. When she gets close enough to the kitchen table, she lifts her arms, like one of those flopping puppets my mother used to parade across the ledge of