Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

  When the show was over, the push boys who brought people on stretchers and wheelchairs took them back. And one of them—it was Toby—noticed me sitting there and pushed my chair too. We followed a line of wheelchairs down the ramp that led out of the Playhouse.

  Olivia pranced along beside Gavin and jabbered to him while Suzanne stayed with me. She told me how she had to walk to the foundation if she wanted to swim or go to the movies. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “like today, I sneak and get a ride. But if I get caught, I lose pool time. That’s because walking here is part of my physical therapy.”

  “But Olivia said you never even had polio.”

  “That’s right. But I was born with club feet. In other words my feet twisted inwards. My doctor asked if I could come here for surgery, and Mr. Roosevelt let me. I’ve had more surgeries than you can count. After each one I stay in the medical building. But once I’m walking again, I live at home. It’s not far from here.”

  We went through a back entrance into Georgia Hall. Just riding into that big space made me feel small and shabby again. And to make matters worse, Suzanne pointed to a car sitting in front of the building. “There’s Mama, waiting to take me home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Bye.”

  She left me there, and all of a sudden I felt lost. I looked around for Olivia and saw her going into the dining room. She was still talking to Gavin. Then Toby took me into the dining room. I declare, if I’d been on crutches I would’ve stopped dead in my tracks.

  I couldn’t help but stare. The tables were covered with white cloths and china and silver. It was fancier even than the Hinkle sisters’ dining room. All that finery—it scared me. What if I didn’t have the manners for a place like this?

  Toby pushed my chair up to a table with three people who were about my age. One boy was skinny and had black hair and heavy brown glasses that sat crooked on his nose. “Hi, Ann Fay,” he said. He wiggled his nose to get his glasses back in place and his whole face squinched up. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Sam.”

  I almost forgot to shake his hand on account of I was busy worrying about messing up. Like dropping my fork or saying something stupid. “How do you know my name?” was all I could think of to say.

  The other fellow at our table spoke up then. “We knew you were coming. And it’s a good thing, too. Sam here needs someone to talk to, dontcha, buddy?” He gave Sam a punch on the arm. “My name’s Howie, and this is Loretta.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “They’re too sweet on each other to carry on a conversation with me.”

  Loretta blushed a little at that. “I’m pleased to meet you, Ann Fay,” she said. I could tell right off she was a southerner. And from the way she talked, I thought she was probably used to eating her supper off china plates.

  If it wasn’t for all the wheelchairs with crutches hanging on them and poles with slings to support people’s arms, a body would’ve thought she was in a fancy restaurant. There was flowered draperies from the ceiling to the floor, and arched doorways, and fancy lights above the tables. Straight ahead of me was a portrait of President Roosevelt hanging on the wall.

  I thought about my family sitting down to eat. Their table was covered with a green-and-white-checked oilcloth. Their dishes didn’t all match and they sure didn’t have cloth napkins. What was I doing here?

  A colored waiter in a white coat and black bow tie brought food to our table. A slice of pork, mashed potatoes, cooked cabbage, and black-eyed peas. And a nice soft roll with peach jelly.

  All the colored waiters in white coats got me to looking around for colored patients. Since our hospital in Hickory had coloreds, I thought maybe a place like Warm Springs might take them too. What if me and Imogene could get together here? Would she want to come? And would she still want to be my friend?

  I didn’t know. She hadn’t kept up the letter writing like I thought she would.

  “Where’s the colored people?” I asked Sam.

  “What?”

  “I don’t see any colored people here.”

  “The waiters are colored. Did polio affect your eyes?” Sam laughed like he had made a big joke.

  “I mean colored patients.”

  “Patients?” asked Sam. “We’re not patients, and we’re not cripples either. We’re polios. Like President Roosevelt. And for your information, colored polios go to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. It’s like Warm Springs—only for Negroes.”

  “I should’ve known,” I said.

  Before I got polio, coloreds and whites being separated was as normal to me as walking. But being stuck in the hospital beside Imogene and hearing how things looked from her side of town made me see things in a new light.

  “What else would you like to know?” asked Sam. “Because I can probably tell you.” He squinched his nose again to straighten his glasses. “Some people call me Mr. Encyclopedia.”

  He seemed proud of this. Him knowing so much about every little thing made me think of Junior Bledsoe. “Well, I just left one Mr. Encyclopedia back home,” I said. “Does there have to be one everywhere I go?”

  Sam just grinned like I had paid him a big compliment. “Evidently someone thinks you need us.” He rolled his eyes up so I would know he was talking about God. And then he went on to tell me the whole history of Warm Springs.

  “Franklin Delano Roosevelt came here in 1924 to learn to walk,” he said. “This place was a run-down resort with a three-story inn that was a firetrap. So in 1933 they built Georgia Hall.”

  While he was talking, I changed my mind about Junior Bledsoe being another Mr. Encyclopedia. I thought how Junior seemed more like a farmers’ almanac—full of downhome news about crops and weather. And what was the best brand of mayonnaise. And who had the lowest prices on motor oil.

  And right about that time, with Mr. Encyclopedia filling my ears with facts and figures, a friendly almanac was starting to feel like a good thing to have around.

  17

  Examinations

  January 1946

  The next morning Ma Harding stopped by our room before we were out of bed. “Good morning, my dearies,” she said. “Ann Fay, Mrs. Trotter will bring your breakfast to your room today. There’s no time to go to the dining room, since you have an appointment with Dr. Pat first thing.”

  Mrs. Trotter did bring my breakfast. And she helped me get dressed, too. Then she took me to my appointment.

  Dr. Pat checked me all over and asked all kinds of questions about what I eat, how often I go to the bathroom, if I sleep without pain, and whether I get headaches. “Polio shocks the body,” he said. “We need to know how it’s affecting your bodily functions.”

  It seemed like he checked every muscle I ever owned. I had to get x-rays while I was sitting and then more laying down. Dr. Pat seemed concerned about scoliosis. “Curvature of the spine,” he explained. “Since some of your muscles are stronger than others, they can pull your spine out of its proper position.”

  And I saw Dr. Bennett too. He’s the doctor who had come to Hickory during our epidemic. I was looking forward to seeing him on account of he was the one who suggested I come to Warm Springs in the first place. But I don’t think he remembered me. It seemed like his mind was somewhere else when he was going over my charts.

  Then it was time for the physiotherapist. Well, not just one but a whole row of them, because Warm Springs is where some physios get their training. The head physio showed about five of them how to check my range of motion—that’s how far I can move my legs and arms and every other little part of me.

  Thank goodness Dr. Bennett decided I did not have to go around in a wheelchair all the time. Instead they fitted me with new crutches that were made of aluminum and had bands that fit around my upper arms for support. That was more comfortable than having crutches shoved against my armpit.

  They took some getting used to, though, so I used my wooden ones to go to dinner. And wouldn’t you know? I had to sit with Mr. Sam Encyclopedia aga
in! He explained that we had assigned tables. “So I’m stuck with you,” he said. “Just like Howie and Loretta are stuck with me. If they let us choose our own tables, some people wouldn’t have anyone to sit with them.”

  Of course, I thought. Who would choose to eat with a whole set of encyclopedias?

  I wanted to talk to Loretta for a change. The first chance I got, I started a conversation with her. “Are you from Georgia?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Louisiana.”

  Loretta’s right arm was in a sling attached to a pole on her wheelchair. And there was a hinged device that helped her move it. An attendant stopped by the table and cut her meat.

  “Are you right-handed?” I asked.

  She nodded. “And my left hand wasn’t even affected by polio. I was learning to use it, but the doctor thought I should strengthen my right hand too. After my first day here, when I sent my meat flying into another girl’s face, I decided he was right.” Loretta laughed, and the sound of it put me in mind of water running over the rocks in our creek.

  “Are you serious?” Suddenly I felt less worried about dropping a fork in this classy dining room.

  “Oh, yes!” said Loretta. “When I first came here I was trying to look as normal as possible. So I didn’t want to ask for help.”

  “No one is normal at Warm Springs,” said Howie. “That’s the whole point of it. You were just showing off for me, weren’t you?”

  Loretta blushed. Listening to the two of them made me feel safer in this big place. At least here I wouldn’t have to worry about bullies like Rob Walker pushing me down, or people calling me a cripple. And so far I’d hardly had a minute to fret about my daddy.

  “Are you listening?” asked Sam.

  While my mind was wandering, he’d changed the subject from Loretta’s meat story to President Roosevelt’s death. “It happened here at Warm Springs on April twelfth,” he said. Like he thought I’d been born just that morning.

  “I remember,” I said. “That day is as clear to me now as that water you’re drinking. I was laying in my hospital bed in North Carolina when the announcement come on the radio.”

  “Came,” said Sam.

  “What?”

  “It’s came—when the announcement came on the radio.” By the time I figured out Sam was correcting my grammar, he was back on the subject of Roosevelt dying. “He was down at his Little White House getting his portrait painted. And all of a sudden he said, ‘I have a terrific headache.’ Then he slumped down in his chair. That was at one fifteen in the afternoon and by three thirty-five he was gone.”

  From the details Sam was giving, you would’ve thought he was the clock itself, watching from the Little White House wall.

  “Were you here?” I asked.

  Sam shook his head. “I was back home in Tennessee. I didn’t even have polio yet.”

  “I was here,” said Howie. “In the medical building, because I’d just had surgery. But I wanted to say goodbye like everyone else. So they brought me on a stretcher to Georgia Hall and lined me up with everyone else.”

  “You should’ve seen how they crowded everyone around the portico,” said Sam.

  “I thought you were in Tennessee,” I said.

  “Oh, I saw the pictures in Life magazine. With everyone crying and that colored man playing ‘Going Home’ on his accordion while the tears ran down his cheeks. Even Suzanne was in the picture, but she was mostly behind one of the columns.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Really,” said Sam. “Is there anything else you want to know? I’ve read practically everything that’s ever been written about FDR.”

  Well, there was lots I wanted to know about Franklin Roosevelt, but I would ask Suzanne, not Sam the Encyclopedia Man, that was for sure. It just amazed me how that boy could take a perfectly good conversation and turn it into a speech!

  After lunch Mrs. Trotter took me to my room. “Time for rest,” she said. She explained that resting was an important daily ritual. “Try to sleep if you can.”

  And Ma Harding came down the hall too. Before she got to our room, I heard her calling out advice. “Rest! Rest! And more rest!” she said. When she got to our door she blew us kisses and said it again. “Rest! Rest! And more rest! And that means you too, Olivia.”

  But Olivia was full of talk. As soon as Ma’s footsteps disappeared down the hallway, she started. “Gavin wants to know, are you going to play bridge with us tonight? Or rook, if you prefer.”

  “Maybe I’ll watch,” I said. Now I wished I’d played rook with those farmers and Mrs. Whitener at the store.

  “Ah, come on. Watching is no fun. If you need a teacher, Gavin would love to do the honors.” She lowered her voice. “If you ask me, I think he’s sweet on you.”

  I didn’t for thirty seconds think that was true. “Does everybody around here have to have a sweetheart or something?”

  “Why not?” asked Olivia. “This is Warm Springs. Romance is in the air.” She laughed. “Or maybe it’s in the water. Do you have a boyfriend at home?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “The boys in my class are younger than me. And anyway, as far as they’re concerned, I’m nothing but a pair of crutches and an ugly old brace.”

  “See there?” said Olivia. “At Warm Springs, we don’t have that problem. We’re all in braces and crutches and wheelchairs. And guess what—we can have dates and our parents will never know!”

  While Olivia chattered, I wrote in my diary—about the bathroom we had for just the two of us, the Playhouse and free movies, and Sam the annoying encyclopedia. And all the other people I’d met so far. After I filled the page, I slid my diary under my pillow and drifted off to sleep.

  My daddy was waiting in my dreams, standing at the Warm Springs train station with tears spilling out of his blue eyes. “We need you at home, Ann Fay,” he said. He grabbed my hand and kissed it, and when he did, his tears froze on my arm.

  The train whistle blew a mournful wailing sound and the train started out of the station. The wheels began clacking and the sound of that song chimed in again. Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina…

  I wanted to go with Daddy. But what about the Warm Springs Foundation? It had a glow around it like an enchanted forest. The sunlight came in long, straight beams through the trees. A soft breeze rippled the pine needles so the whole forest shimmered. I wasn’t ready to leave that place.

  But I felt Daddy tugging on my hand. “I’ve come to get you, Ann Fay,” he said.

  He started running to catch the train, and next thing I knew, I was riding on his back and he was running away with me.

  The train was clacking real loud. If it hadn’t woke me up just then, I reckon I would’ve gone back to North Carolina.

  18

  Fun and Games

  January 1946

  I felt all groggy and grumpy when I woke up from my nap. Olivia wasn’t in the room, and the bathroom door was open so I could see she wasn’t in there either. All of a sudden I got a sick feeling in my tummy. What was I doing in this strange place with no family around? What was I thinking when I told my doctor I wanted to come here?

  I knew the answer to that. I was thinking about walking again. About getting back to normal. And being with people who wouldn’t care if I wasn’t normal. That’s why I was here. But my dream about Daddy made me feel like I was in the wrong place.

  I went to the window and looked out. A car drove by slow on the road behind the building. Otherwise I didn’t see a soul moving about. I looked at the clock on Olivia’s nightstand and saw that our rest time wasn’t over. But where was Olivia?

  I decided to write to my family. By now, Momma was probably wondering what I was up to.

  Dear Momma, Daddy, Ida, and Ellie,

  I want you to know I got here just fine. The train trip was good except for wishing I wasn’t leaving you all.

  Everybody has been real good to me here. I’m making friends fast! My roommate is Olivia and she int
roduces me to just everyone. I eat at a fancy table with Howie, Loretta, and Sam. They’re all about my age or a little older.

  I met a girl named Suzanne who never even had polio. But she came here for surgery when she was little and keeps having more and more surgeries to fix her club feet. She knew President Roosevelt and Sam says her picture was in Life magazine when they took his body away from here last year. I don’t know if it’s true. But Sam seems to know everything, so it probably is.

  I saw the doctors this morning, and they sent me to the brace shop for new crutches. Now I am learning to use Canadian crutches, which are lightweight. Once I get used to them they will be lots more comfortable. This afternoon I took a nap. We have two hours of rest time every day!

  How are you doing? Please write and tell me every little thing.

  Ida and Ellie, give hugs to Mr. Shoes for me. And when you see Peggy Sue, tell her to write me.

  Daddy, if you stop in at the store, please tell Mrs. Whitener and Otis that I am doing just great down here!

  Love,

  Ann Fay

  Of course I wasn’t feeling as wonderful as my letter made it sound, but I didn’t want anyone worrying about me. And besides, I hoped my homesickness would go away real soon.

  After a while Olivia came back in the room. “Rest time is over,” she said.

  “Where’d you go?” I asked. “Didn’t you sleep?”

  “Are you kidding?” Olivia sat on her bed and pulled her hairbrush through her hair. “I can’t lay still in the middle of the day.” She lowered her voice. “I was just visiting with some friends down the hall. But don’t tell Ma Harding. If I get caught again, she’s liable to send me home!”

  That didn’t sound funny to me, but Olivia laughed.

  Then she got up from the bed. “I’m off to OT,” she told me. “That’s occupational therapy. They have me crocheting another handbag. I’ll give this one to you.” She headed toward the door but then stopped. “And oh, by the way, Suzanne is here. She wants you to meet her in the library. It’s that way—in the school building.”