Read What Is Visible: A Novel for Free Online

consumption, yes? No more trying to publish, flying them out there in the world?”
    “Yes, Chev,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him. “Of course.”
    “I don’t want a marriage of two minds, my darling, but only a marriage of two hearts.”
    “You have mine,” she said, coming into his arms. Laura stood by her chair, her face turned toward them in rapt attention as if she were truly listening to every word. Doctor was not comfortable holding Julia with Laura this close, so he left the room and went to check on Combe’s progress with Oliver.
    Combe had just started on Oliver’s crown when Doctor heard Julia shouting. He rushed down the hall and from the door saw the two of them locked in a strange embrace, Julia’s hands on Laura’s shoulders as Laura thrust her finger in and out of Julia’s ear. He grabbed Laura’s arms and pulled her away, her index finger still poking the air, and pushed her roughly back into her chair. Julia collapsed against him, her breath ragged. They were both breathing hard, and then Doctor realized so was he.
    “Did she hurt you?”
    “Scared me. I don’t know what set her off.”
    Laura’s hands pawed frantically at the air, signaling him. He helped Julia onto the settee and went to her.
    “Wanted to feel bumps on her head,” she wrote. “But ear―”
    “You scared Julia. Like animal.”
    “She can hear you,” she spelled with effort, and then Doctor understood. Through that sweet little maze Laura knew that Julia was able to hear, to let in the whole world, and most of all, his laughs and sighs. Nevertheless, he could not let her go unpunished. Julia was shaking, and this set-to would make the new arrangement of his world more onerous. Laura had slapped Miss Swift or one of the students many times, but never a guest, much less his beloved. She had grown accustomed, no doubt too accustomed, to asking for forgiveness from both the persons she had harmed and from God. Her friends always forgave her, and so too did God, but He absolved her only on the occasions when she was truly sorry. Doctor could tell from the set of her jaw that this was not yet one of those occasions.
    He explained to Julia that Laura had only wanted to feel her bumps, and Julia seemed relieved, but when he asked if Laura could write her an apology, his fiancée quickly demurred and left the room. Laura sat in her chair, rocking back and forth, one finger bending the soft, pliable rim of her ear up and down, up and down.
      
    Doctor was more comfortable in his dear Sumner’s apartments than he was with the run of all five floors of Perkins. There he was the Doctor, the Director, while here he was just a man, a friend, a listener, a talker, maker of no decisions, bearer of no consequences. Sumner’s landlady had installed precisely the right number of fat cushions for lounging, eight slung along the back of the divan. They didn’t fall asleep in his rooms; they never fell asleep, even after six courses and too much sherry at Martin’s with Felton and the gang. They always talked all night. Doctor had surrounded himself with women and children, of his own free will, but most days it was a hard bargain. He’d had the war, the wind, even the jail cell in Prussia, and now his most heroic act was guiding blind girls on horses down the beach.
    Sumner poured them snifters from his finest decanter of brandy and lifted his glass in a mock toast. “Did you hear, Chev? Dickens’s American Notes sold out the first print run in England in two days. You and Laura are all of chapter 4—got it in a letter from Robesey.”
    “And we come off well? Boz assured me the portrait would be favorable.”
    “Boz, is it? Didn’t realize you were that close to the great scribbler.” Sumner scattered the papers on his secretary, and a pile of law books tumbled to the rug. “It’s here somewhere.”
    “You need a good wife or a better maid.”
    “We’ll see if you end up with either,” he said. “Here it