We remain onstage while Aunt Fan directs the audience out of the tent. Being onstage means we get pitying looks from people shuffling past. We also get money. People place pennies, nickels, dimes, even quarters—and once a silver dollar—on the stage in front of us. Maybe they’re making donations as Aunt Fan suggests, or maybe the stage is like a wishing well. Give the unfit money, and your wish will come true. I don’t care why they do it; I concentrate on moving my right foot fast enough to cover the coins before any of the others do.
Today Dorchy, the assistant, waves at me from the back of the tent. I scowl at her. We don’t trust her because she works for the Ogilvies and could be spying on us, though we have no proof of that. She’s about my age, ramrod straight. Dark hair, green eyes, always dressed in a blue gingham dress and white apron with “New England Betterment Council” embroidered on it in red. Minnie and I have uniforms exactly like it to wear when we’re not onstage. Dorchy’s face isn’t exactly pretty except for those emerald eyes. The eyes of the witch in my book of fairy tales back home.
It’s Dorchy’s job to pick up anything the audience drops during our shows. Today when she finishes going up and down the rows, she comes over to the stage, a book in one hand.
She holds it up to me. “If you can read, you can have this. Say, how old are you? You don’t look thirteen like he says in the show.”
“I’m sixteen.” I study her face and make a guess. “The same as you?”
She nods.
“Dorchy! Back to work.” Aunt Fan trots across the stage, clapping her hands in front of her as if she’s shooing a chicken.
“Sorry, ma’am.” Dorchy gazes up at Aunt Fan and rests the book on the edge of the stage. “I just wanted to tell Ruthie how much her acting has improved.”
I drop my ragged costume apron over the book.
“It’s not your place to tell her that,” Aunt Fan snaps. “Run along. Mr. Ogilvie needs you in the cottage.”
Dorchy winks at me over her shoulder as she walks away. She moves like someone who knows where she’s going and could get there blindfolded.
“Now off the stage, all of you,” Aunt Fan says. “Be quick about it.” She rubs her mouth. Her false teeth must be hurting.
As Jimmy, Minnie, and Gar leave the stage, I bend over and scoop up my apron and the book.
Backstage I suck in a breath when I see the title Little Women in gold letters on the faded red cover. This is the twin of my own copy of Little Women, left behind in New York, and as familiar as the palm of my hand.
Later, in the room I share with Minnie, I open the book. The first sentence greets me like an old friend. “‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo.” The wall I’ve built between my life before and my life now splits open. I was reading this book on the day I got polio, the first and last day I rode a wave.
Chapter 4
Paradise-by-the-Sea,
New York, 1917
Julia gave me Little Women for my eleventh birthday, the day before we left to spend the summer on Long Island. Polio was stalking the city that summer of 1917 as it had done the summer before when thousands of New York children got sick. Three of those children were our neighbors at the beach.
Still Father believed our spit of sand, Paradise-by-the-Sea, a ferry ride from Freeport, would keep me safe this summer. He also believed in the protection of the horrible flaxseed porridge we all ate for breakfast. And, of course, my Collier heritage. At my birthday dinner that night, I blew out my candles in one breath and made a wish that Marjorie Powell would be friends with me at school. I should have wished for good health.
“Remember, the trick is picking the right moment,” Julia yelled from shore as I waded into the surf. “Start off just before the wave starts to fall. If you start too soon, it will fall on you; too late, and you’ll be watching it roll in without you.” She never went in the ocean, had never ridden a wave in her life, but she had decided to teach me.
I stood in the sparkling Atlantic Ocean in a one-piece red wool bathing suit. The wind was light; the waves were chest high. Julia’s dark hair, usually raked back in a bun, had come loose. This first wave-riding lesson had already lasted too long. I was sick of being knocked over, pushed under, and tumbled around by waves. I wanted to give up, but a Collier never does.
I chose a wave, flung myself in front of it—hands outstretched, head down—and kicked hard. For the first time, I felt a leap of joy as the wave thrust me forward. I rode it all the way up on the shore.
Julia clapped her hands and shouted, “Bravo!”
I said, “I’m going to do it again, but first I have to tell Father.”
I ran down the beach to where he was putting the final touches on his annual sand sculpture. That year it was the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
It was already three feet high, and Father was shaping the dome. An incoming wave surged up the beach and stopped short. The breeze carried the hot, salty smell of seaweed.
“Father.” I twirled around, arms outstretched. “I rode a wave today. Would you like to watch me replicate the experiment?”
He laughed as I knew he would if I quoted something he would say. We walked together down to the water’s edge. I handed him Mother’s camera, so he could record my achievement, and headed out into the surf.
Another perfect ride unfolded, and I felt like a sleek animal—an otter or a dolphin—part of the salt water, sun, and fresh sea air.
“Well done.” Father smiled and bent over Mother’s camera. He took my picture standing up as the receding wave rushed past my feet so fast it carved channels in the sand. I wanted to run back in and ride another wave.
But Julia said it was time for lunch.
After lunch on the screened porch, my stomach hurt and Julia ordered me inside for a nap. I lay on the sofa reading Little Women until I fell asleep.
When I woke up, rain pattered on the porch roof. Reasoning that I could ride waves in the rain, I started to get up.
And couldn’t move my legs.
I screamed for Julia, who ran to get Father. Lying back I told myself, Everything will be fine once Father’s here.
After a long time the door clattered open. Father wiped his feet on the mat and rubbed his hands together, saying, “A storm is coming in. I had to build a dike around the lighthouse.”
“It might not be polio,” Julia said as Father stared down at my immoveable legs.
He nodded. I wished he would hold my hand and tell me everything was fine. Instead he examined the bowl and stem of his pipe thoughtfully before taking out his matchbox. His face showed me nothing.
“After all, the epidemic was last summer.” Julia didn’t look at me either. “The newspaper says the cases aren’t as bad this year,” she went on. “Statistically speaking—”
“Who cares about statistics?” I wailed.
“Rowan is right.” Father sucked energetically on his pipe. “We will deal with the crisis before us. First, we must keep her warm.” Smoke curled from the pipe clenched in his teeth as he clumsily wrapped an afghan around my legs.
I couldn’t feel his hands or the scratchy warmth of the afghan. Terror coiled around me, making it hard to breathe. I was inside a cold bubble looking out. Cut in half. Below my waist I did not exist.
We took the ferry to Freeport. Father wrapped me in a sticky yellow sou’wester jacket and pulled me in a big wagon to the ferry dock on the bay. Julia pulled another wagon with our luggage. I left Little Women behind. It belonged to the world outside my bubble.
The bay was rough with whitecaps, and the rain came in gusts. I lay on a wet bench on deck while Julia held a mackintosh over our heads. Father stood next to the ferry captain smoking his pipe. The trip took longer than usual because the wind and tide were against us.
“A terrible tragedy,” the f
erryman said as he helped Father carry me onto the dock. I assumed he meant me.
“Yes,” Father said. “I worked on it for the better part of a week, and it was a fine replica. Very fine.”
At the doctor’s office, a nurse dressed me in a short gown and laid me on a metal examining table. I shivered under a thin white blanket. Inside my bubble I felt fine except for a sore throat and my unworkable legs. They will come back to life. They have to. I’m a Collier.
The doctor loomed over me. “Unwrap her,” he told Julia.
May I have a cup of hot cocoa? I formed the words in my mind, but I knew no one would hear me if I spoke out loud. Julia pulled the blanket off, and I watched the doctor squeeze and prod my legs.
Before he spoke I hung in the air like a seagull in an updraft. Then he said “Polio,” and I dropped like a stone.
“I rode a wave today,” I said into the silence. Nothing—not the bubble, not the doctor, not even polio—could take that away.
“You’ll need to quarantine her at home,” the doctor said to Father. “I will arrange for…”
“No,” Father broke in. “Take her to Bellevue.” Without looking at me, he said, “You’re going to the hospital. The doctors there will know what to do. You must be as brave as I am.”
He came to see me the next day at Bellevue. Even though I was quarantined, they let him come into my room. He stood over me and said in a hushed voice, “I won’t be able to see you for a while. The navy wants me, so I’m off to the war in France.”
I struggled to speak but couldn’t get the words out. He looked down at me and quickly looked away.
“Julia will come to see you when she can,” he said. And then he was gone.
I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. I remember sometimes, as if it’s a dream, how he smelled of cherry tobacco and bourbon and called my red-gold curls Botticelli hair. How, before he went out for the evening, he paused at the long mirror in the parlor. He called it a pier glass. He called me his pride and joy.
But that was before.
Chapter 5
At four thirty, after our last show, one of the ladies from the Council comes to stay with us in the tent. This Exposition is like a state fair but we never get to see it. Occasionally we hear sounds of hurdy-gurdy music or cheers from the racetrack. People carry food into the tent to eat during our show. The smells of popcorn and fried meat make our mouths water, but we never get to taste any. Today I fold brochures and stuff them in envelopes. At six o’clock other ladies bring us dinner. Tonight is a good one, ham sandwiches and lemonade.
At seven, the Ogilvies escort us to the one-story cottage next to the tent. Under the American flag on the roof, a sign proclaims, “Fitter Families Protect America’s Future.” The cottage contains several small rooms that open off a wide, straw-carpeted center hall. Tables are set up in the hall under posters reminding people what a burden the unfit are.
During the day, families come into the cottage to fill out questionnaires and have their mental and physical traits measured. Points are subtracted for any family history of crime, insanity, feeblemindedness, alcoholism, shiftlessness, poverty, disease, or deformity. At the end, family members discover if they qualify as a “Fitter Family.”
Before we enter the cottage, everything valuable is locked away and our cots are set up in two small rooms. Jimmy and Gar sleep in a room next to the front door, while Minnie and I are by the back door. In each room is a bucket we use at night and empty in the outhouse every morning.
For the first time all summer, we sleep under a roof in actual beds. At the county fairs, we all slept on folding cots in the tent where we put on the show. Here the Ogilvies lock us in our rooms and, for good measure, lock the front and back doors from the outside. They say the Council added the locks to protect us, the unfit, from prying eyes and bullies. Gar says it’s because the Council doesn’t trust us in their cottage or out on the fairgrounds. Both he and Minnie were hired for the Unfit Family show by Mr. Ogilvie when he met them at a church soup kitchen in Springfield. “They send the money to our kinfolk,” Gar says. “It’s pretty good pay, but not good enough for me to put up with being treated like an imbecile.”
Locks can’t hold Gar. On the first night, he picked the lock on the front bedroom door and showed me how to pick ours. He also fixed the back door so it doesn’t lock completely. At night he disappears for a few hours. When I asked where he goes, he said, “The bright lights are calling me, kid. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
At the county fairs, Mr. Ogilvie never spoke to me except about the show, and his camera was out of sight. But here at the Expo, I’ve caught him taking my picture in the cottage and backstage. Father told me that some people won’t allow themselves to be photographed because they believe a camera can steal their souls. I feel the same way about being photographed by Mr. Ogilvie. It’s as if he’s keeping something of mine inside his camera. I want it back.
Last night he left a red rose under my pillow. I threw it in our bucket.
Tonight after he locks us in our rooms, I pick the lock, prop the door open, and sit on my cot reading Little Women. We aren’t allowed to use candles or the electric lamp, so the only light comes from a small window near the ceiling and the glow from Minnie’s cigarettes. Sometimes at night I stand on my cot and watch the spinning lights of the Ferris wheel. I imagine Gar taking me with him one night so I can take a ride on it. But that won’t happen. Our unspoken agreement is that one of us has to stay in the cottage with Jimmy and Minnie.
Minnie throws her cigarette in the bucket and leans over to stroke the book’s cover with nail-bitten fingers. “Can I hold it?”
I hand her the book, and she opens it to the title page where I’ve written my name. It is my book now. She traces a finger over the letters. “What does it say? I don’t read so good, but I like a good story.”
“That’s my name, Rowan Collier.”
Minnie shakes her head. “Your name is Ruthie.”
Chapter 6
The Boston Home for Crippled Children, 1922
It’s been five weeks since Rowan Collier became Ruthie the cripple. Five weeks ago, but it seems much longer, Dr. Pynchon, black boots tapping and starched white coat rustling, called me out of the dining room at the Boston Home for Crippled Children with no explanation. I braced myself for another punishment as I followed her down the hall.
I came to the Home when I was twelve, exactly one year after I was admitted to the Bellevue Hospital polio ward. At Bellevue, the paralysis in my right leg went away on its own and Dr. Friedlander brought back some feeling and movement in my left leg. When Julia came to take me to Boston, he’d told her that with six more months of treatment I would walk without braces or crutches.
“If you put her in a home now,” he told Julia, “she could be a cripple for life.”
“My father believes Dr. Pynchon offers the best chance for Rowan.” Julia paced back and forth in Dr. Friedlander’s office. I sat in a chair, waiting for Julia to leave so I could get on with my treatment.
“My success speaks for itself,” Dr. Friedlander said. “If your father came by for a demonstration, I think he would change his mind.”
“He’s still in France.” She twisted the strap on her purse until it broke. “He instructed me to take her to Dr. Pynchon. A recent article featuring her ideas about crippled children impressed him.”
Once Father’s instructions were invoked, I knew I’d be leaving Bellevue. I choked back tears.
“I know Dr. Pynchon’s work.” Dr. Friedlander’s voice was toneless. “I don’t deny she cares adequately for some patients, but I am interested only in whether or not she can help my patient. The answer is absolutely not.”
“Well, my father wishes it.” Julia’s voice shook. “Believe me, I wish he were standing here instead of me.” She tucked the broken purse under her arm, still not looking at me.
“I’ll ask the nurse to pack her things. We leave today.”
Father had won. Before we left, Dr. Friedlander handed Julia my records to give Dr. Pynchon. At the Boston Home no one ever mentioned my miraculous recovery in Dr. Friedlander’s care.
“Here is Rowan,” Dr. Pynchon said to the man seated on a chair in her parlor, legs stretched out in front of him. He had thinning blond hair, a long nose, and a clean-shaven chin. His blue eyes widened and his lips twitched into a smile when he saw me. A leather camera case hung on a strap around his neck. “You said ‘intelligent and crippled,’” Dr. Pynchon went on. “She is both.”
Intelligent. The only positive word I ever heard her use about me. My mouth dropped open.
Maybe he’s Father’s lawyer, come to take me home. Julia promised me that when I turned sixteen, I could come back to live with her and Father in New York. My birthday was two weeks ago, but no word from Julia. Besides, what would “intelligent and crippled” have to do with that? If he was from the Massachusetts Department of Health, I could tell him things about the Home that would curl what’s left of his hair.
Dr. Pynchon opened the drapes, and the bright morning sun made me blink. “Pull up your skirt so Mr. Ogilvie can see your leg,” she said.
I pressed my crutches closer to my body. “Is he a doctor?”
She fingered the braided strap that hung from her belt. “Now.”
Face burning, I inched up the skirt of my uniform and showed him my black-stockinged left leg.
Mr. Ogilvie shook his head. “No, no, no, Dr. Pynchon,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “No boots, no stockings, no crutches.” He stood up, and I wondered if he planned to remove my shoes and stockings himself. “I want the bare leg visible, and her movements as restricted as possible.” He sounded like a customer lecturing a shopkeeper.
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