Free Singing Hands by Delia Ray Page B

and out of the city. And now the light would stay red for the next twenty-four hours.
    I felt a fist of worry clenching deep in my chest.
Daddy was on those roads out there.
Just today I had peered over Mother's shoulder at a letter she was writing to Aunt Glo, telling her all about the exciting news. Daddy had been in Macon for a few days, not only organizing his latest deaf congregation but also shopping for the brand-new car that kind Mr. Snider had promised him. "He won't be at the mercy of the L&N Railroad anymore," Mother wrote to her sister. I had tapped Mother's arm and signed, "What if somebody beeps their horn? Daddy won't hear it. And does he even know how to drive?"
    "Of course he knows," she had said with a dismissive click of her tongue, as if I had asked the silliest question in the world.
    I wheeled back to the desk and snapped on the little lamp, then rolled a sheet of paper in the Smith Corona. I'd write my own letter to Aunt Glo. Somehow it might make up a little for my lie to Mrs. Fernley. "Dear Aunt G," I tapped out with two fingers,
I'm counting the days until we come to Texas to see you. 58 more to go! Boy, that seems like a long time. Birmingham and I just don't mix in the summer. Plus I miss your fried hush puppies and pineapple upside-down cake and Mother won't let us go to the public swimming pool because she thinks we'll get polio and—
    I jumped. Someone was standing in the doorway.
    "Miss Grace!" I yelped.
    I wasn't sure how long she had been there. In the shadows, she looked like a ghost with her luminous blond hair and porcelain skin. She smiled and made the sign for sorry—a quick circle of her fist in front of her heart. "I saw the light and thought maybe Reverend Davis was home," she went on, stepping into the room and talking as she signed to make sure I would understand. I understood just fine. Her voice was high and soft like Mother's, but with the words much less slurred together.
    "He's still in Georgia," I signed back. "I'm not sure when he's coming home." I gave a feeble shrug and let my signs drift off.
    My palms felt clammy. Miss Grace was watching me so intently. Did she know? Had she figured out that it was me who had searched through her things? Maybe I had left something out of place.
    "What are you working on?" She was pointing at the typewriter.
    I flushed and rolled my note to Aunt Glo out of the carriage, then crumpled it into a ball. "Oh, nothing ... just trying to brush up on my typing," I said, forgetting to sign as I spoke. My mind was racing in circles. I wanted to talk with Miss Grace, to act natural—but my hands felt clumsy and wooden, like bowling pins plunked in my lap. I also knew that if I said much more, I might blurt out everything.
I did it! I broke into your room and stole your love letter! I'm sorry!
    Before I could think of what to do next, Miss Grace smiled again. "I'll let you get back to your work," she said with a sad little wave. Then she was off down the hall.
    For a while, I sat perfectly still at Daddy's desk, staring at the spot where Miss Grace had been standing. She looked so lonely. No wonder. Her husband was dead and there was no sign of the mysterious Vincent. Maybe he was dead, too. "My sincerest hope is that you will write again," he had said, but that letter was the final one in the stack. His words tumbled round and round in my head, and suddenly I felt just like that crazy maniac in "The Tell-tale Heart," the Edgar Allan Poe story we had read in English class last year.
    The narrator of the story had murdered an old man, hidden the body in his house, then lost his mind completely when he imagined he could hear his victim's heart still beating underneath the floorboards. And now I could almost feel the letter burning in my pocket, searing through the lining of my shorts into my skin. Frantically I dug out the crumpled note and thrust it deep into Mrs. Fernley's dictionary, somewhere past page one thousand. Then I heaved up the