Comfort

by Joyce Moyer Hostetter

  And just like that, Olivia was back out the door. I had a feeling I’d never be able to keep up with that girl!

  I needed something to pull me out of my blue mood. Maybe going to meet Suzanne would help.

  The school building was close to Kress Hall, so it didn’t take me long to find her. She was sitting at a table looking through a large album, and there was another one next to it. “Want to see my scrapbooks?” She patted the chair beside her, and I sat down.

  The album was filled with Suzanne’s favorite movie stars—June Allyson, Doris Day, Susan Hayward, and lots more. She had pictures she’d clipped from magazines and ticket stubs from the theater over in Manchester. “That’s about five miles from here,” she said.

  I was mostly interested in her pictures of Franklin Roosevelt. She had plenty that were taken in Warm Springs. They all came from the newspaper and it wasn’t like they showed him and her together or anything really special. But still, it seemed special that she was there at the same time he was.

  “Were you really in Life magazine?” I asked. “Sam said you were.”

  “Well then, I guess I was,” she said. Suzanne squinched up her nose like she was Sam adjusting his glasses. “Because, of course, Sam knows everything.”

  We both laughed.

  “My momma has the magazine. She would never let me cut it apart to put in an album. Hey! I’ve got an idea. Maybe you can come to my house one day. If you do, I’ll show it to you.”

  I looked through both of her scrapbooks and even helped her glue photographs in the one that wasn’t full. We wrote little notes about each picture. Then she told me to keep that album in my room. “That way we can work on it some more,” she said.

  I felt like Suzanne really wanted me to be her friend. In that way, she reminded me of Imogene. And she wasn’t even stuck with me in a hospital ward the way Imogene was.

  We walked over to Kress Hall, and I tucked the scrapbook in the drawer on my nightstand. Suzanne asked to see pictures of my family.

  So I pulled out my diary and showed her the photographs tucked in the back. One was of Momma and Daddy taken before he went off to the war. And another one was my whole family before my brother died. Only you couldn’t see Bobby good because he had his hand over his eyes.

  I had school pictures of Ida and Ellie and Peggy Sue. And I had the picture of us with Junior and Miss Dinah at the Hinkle sisters’ house.

  “Who’s that?” asked Suzanne. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “Are you crazy? That’s my neighbor. He’s too old for me. And if he wasn’t, he still wouldn’t be my boyfriend.”

  “Is that his car?”

  “Yes, and I think he’d owned it for about two hours when that picture was taken. That’s my neighbor Miss Dinah holding our dog.”

  I told Suzanne the story about Mr. Shoes and the mouse and Miss Pauline. Actually I told her lots of things. All about my neighbors and Whitener’s Store, and Peggy Sue, and how I got polio and met Imogene at the hospital. And Bobby, of course, and the blue bottle sitting on my nightstand.

  Suzanne told me that once when she was staying in the medical building, she tried to sneak one of her friends out to see a movie at the Playhouse. She was in a wheelchair, but that didn’t stop her from pulling her friend’s stretcher down the hall!

  “But then,” she said, “I got my wheelchair hung up in the elevator door. Before I could get unstuck, along came the head nurse. And believe me, she wasn’t too happy about my shenanigans!”

  Of course, I had to tell Suzanne about the time me and Imogene sneaked out of our hospital wards in the rain to see each other. “We got caught too,” I said. “But it was worth it because Nurse Amanda stuck us in the warm water tubs to get the chill off. So we got to spend more time together.”

  Swapping stories made me see how much the two of us had in common. Nothing against Olivia or anything, but in some ways I wished Suzanne could be my roommate. But of course she had to go home most days before supper.

  That evening Olivia talked me into going to Georgia Hall to play rook.

  “I’m just planning to watch,” I warned her. But when we got there an older girl named Martha invited us to play with her and Gavin. I shook my head. “I’ll watch.”

  “Sure!” said Olivia.

  “We need one more person,” said Gavin. He winked at me. “I think that means you.” And right off he started dealing cards into four piles.

  Thankfully, Mr. Encyclopedia came then and wheeled his chair up to the fourth pile. But Gavin shooed him off.

  “Ann Fay is playing,” he said. “You can’t just butt in here.”

  So Sam backed his chair away and I seen how some of the shine went out of his brown eyes. It put me in mind of Otis and how those veterans at the store didn’t want him around if he was going to talk about certain ugly parts of the war.

  Thinking about Otis made me feel sorry for Sam. “You can teach me how to play,” I said. That was all Sam needed to get sparked up. He pulled his wheelchair as close to my seat as he could get. And right away he started giving me instructions.

  It wasn’t that hard. I just had to learn which cards had the most points and play them at the right time. And Sam wasn’t shy about telling me.

  Olivia was sitting across from me and winking every time Gavin opened his mouth. Like she thought every word was intended just for me. I was sure it was all in her head. For one thing, Gavin didn’t know the first thing about me. And besides, I wasn’t half as pretty as Loretta or Olivia. Or Martha either, even if she was older than us.

  I kept watching the other people in the room, sitting at tables playing games or putting jigsaw puzzles together. It seemed so natural to be here with all these people enjoying each other. If you closed your eyes and listened, you would hear two people playing checkers and arguing over whose move it was. Or a table full of people laughing so hard you’d want to find out what you were missing.

  For a second there I felt sorry for everybody who wasn’t at Warm Springs, Georgia. I wanted my family to be here. Especially my daddy. There was just something about this place—a softness in the air and a welcome at every door that made you feel like a body could overcome anything.

  Then I heard Olivia’s voice. “Ann Fay, are you sleeping? Sam is stealing this game away from you. Don’t you even care?”

  Well, I didn’t care. I was happy to let Sam play my trump cards and get the credit for winning. Watching the rest of them play was all I’d come to do in the first place.

  For all the fun Sam was having, at exactly twenty minutes after nine he pointed to the clock on the wall and said, “You watch, Ann Fay! The manager of Georgia Hall will come run us out in ten minutes.”

  And sure enough, at nine thirty someone come and started shooing us off. “Thirty minutes until lights out,” the man called.

  I wasn’t ready to go back to my room. And everyone else seemed to feel the same way. Except for Sam. He seemed to think that clock on the wall was God talking. The second that long hand hit the six he started rolling away from the card table. Squinching his glasses into place as he went.

  “You’re on your own, Ann Fay,” he called back to me.

  After that, a girl at another table picked up her crutches and struggled to her feet. People put their games into boxes. And big wooden wheelchairs backed away from the tables. The next thing I knew, there was a whole train of them rolling out the doors.

  The people at my table were determined to finish our game. I played my last card, hoping my partner would back me up with the rook, but wouldn’t you know—Gavin played it instead. “Gotcha!” he said.

  I felt a little kick under the table and Olivia made eyes at me. As if Gavin saying “Gotcha” in a game of rook actually meant something else. Then she faked a yawn and elbowed Martha. “How’s about you and me get out of the way?” she said.

  And just like that, she stood and motioned for Martha to follow. Then it was just me and Gavin sitting at that table. If I didn’t hurry
, I’d end up being alone with him.

  I started gathering the cards. I don’t know if Gavin was watching every move I made, but it sure felt like it. And it flustered me so bad that I dropped a whole bunch of cards. They scattered on the floor. “Oh, brother!”

  Gavin just laughed and said, “Now you did it!”

  He was stuck in that chair and couldn’t help me pick those cards up. So I hung on to the table and lowered myself to the floor. I knew I looked ridiculous with my legs sprawled out and my skirt hiked up to my knees. If Gavin had thought about liking me, he was about to get over it.

  I started picking up the cards and Gavin reached out to take them from me. I heard a man ask, “Hey, Gavin, need any help over there?”

  “No thanks,” said Gavin. “I’m just putting these cards away. I’ll be right there.”

  I could tell that the man thought Gavin was alone in the room. He couldn’t see me on the floor because of the tables and chairs in the way.

  “Okay. I’ll be going then. Better hurry. The night watch will be around soon to shut things down.” And just like that, the man was gone.

  Gavin could’ve told him I was there. But he didn’t. I looked at him and he was laughing at me. “Thanks a lot!” I said. “Now who’s going to help me off this floor?”

  “Think of it this way,” said Gavin. “In about nine hours, breakfast will be served in the next room. You can sleep right here. It’ll save crutching to your room and back.” He wheeled his chair away from the table like he was going to leave me there. “See you in the morning, Ann Fay.”

  But he was watching me—maybe to see if I’d get mad. And to be honest, I almost did. But then I noticed something. Gavin had real cute dimples. How come I hadn’t seen them before?

  I was in the middle of trying to think up some clever answer when he came back and reached his hand out to me. It was solid and cool. Mine felt sweaty! But between hanging on to him and his chair, I managed to pick myself off the floor. I reached for my crutches and started across the room.

  “You can sleep here if you want to,” I said. “I’m crutching back to Kress Hall.”

  “You are so welcome for my help,” Gavin called after me. “Anything else I can do? Give you a tour of the foundation, maybe?”

  And just like that, the Little White House popped into my head. I turned. “Really? What about the president’s house? Can you take me there?”

  Gavin was close behind me, but he stopped his wheelchair in its tracks. “Um, uh, I’m afraid you got me on that one. Even if we talked a push boy into taking us, we’d get caught for trespassing. They’ve got guards over there.”

  “Why? It’s not like we want to hurt anything.”

  “I suppose someone might, though. They can’t take the chance.” Then Gavin placed his hand on his chest and said, real dramatic-like, “But take heart, dear friend! I read in the Warm Springs Mirror that the state is preserving it as a memorial. It’s just a matter of time until they open it to the public.”

  “For real?”

  Gavin laughed at me. “You should see your face,” he said. “Do you really care that much about going there?”

  I could feel myself blushing. I must have looked like a silly child at a candy counter. Like a ragged young’un from the foot of Bakers Mountain, a place so small Gavin didn’t know it existed. I wanted to escape Georgia Hall—quick, before the night watchman showed up. And before I gave Gavin something else to laugh at.

  I looked for the nearest door. “Well,” I said—and I know I sounded mad—“wasn’t history made right there? Isn’t that enough reason to want to go?” I turned my crutches around and stepped in front of the door. I snapped my fingers.

  Thank goodness it opened. And just like that, I was outside and Gavin was in.

  19

  Changing

  January–February 1946

  On my second full day in Georgia I went to the famous Warm Springs pool for the first time.

  There was an attendant named Betty in the dressing room who helped me get my suit on. It felt strange having people wait on me hand and foot. Especially dressing me. I was used to pulling clothes out of the drawer for my sisters and helping them get dressed. But it seemed like there was lots of being waited on at Warm Springs. In one way it made me feel like a child again, to be helped with every little thing, but in another way I felt like Cinderella.

  “Just relax and let us take care of you,” said Betty. When I had my swimsuit on, she helped me into a wheelchair and a push boy took me to the pool. It was in a tall building with high windows all around. There was tiles the color of North Carolina clay on the floor and halfway up the walls. The morning sun coming in through the windows made long slants of light on the red tiles. And it rippled on the water.

  In all my fifteen years I had never been in a real pool. The only swimming I’d ever done was in the rivers of Catawba County, North Carolina. I always thought swimming in pools was for rich people.

  The physiotherapists were busy, so I had to wait my turn. But that was fine with me because I just wanted to sit there and take it all in. I watched how the physios talked so quiet to the polios and how gentle they worked at massaging their muscles.

  After a while Mr. Fred Botts went past the window. Later in the day there would be plenty of people in the quad. But it was quiet there this early in the morning.

  From the pool I could see the walking court, a platform with steps going up on three sides. It was empty now, but the day before, I’d watched one of the Navy men practicing the stairs. A push boy and a physio helped him go up with no crutches or canes. The physio was in front, going up backwards so she was facing him. She talked him through each step and the push boy stayed right behind him hanging on to his belt. Sweat was dripping off that man’s chin. And it was still January!

  Thinking about it now made goose bumps come up on my arms. Sam had already told me I’d have to walk those steps before I could go home. I turned back to the pool and got the biggest urge to be inside the warm water. I wanted to be covered over by it—to let it fix me.

  Sitting there with the sunlight streaming over my legs, it was easy for me to believe that this place could fix whatever was wrong. Someone called my name then. It was a physiotherapist. I started to get out of the wheelchair, but the push boy stopped me. “That’s my job,” he said, reaching down to take me from the chair. You could tell he had done this a million times because he knew just how to lift me.

  He carried me like a baby down into the water, and I felt the wetness hit my backside and then my feet. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t cold either. He laid me on a table that was in the pool. It was sloped up at the top so my head could be out of the water.

  The physio took my hand then. “Hello, Ann Fay.” When she smiled, the shine in her eyes was just as warm and magic as the water itself. “My name is Janice. I’ll be your physiotherapist.”

  Janice talked to me for a few minutes about where I was from and how I liked it at Warm Springs, and then she got right down to business.

  The first thing she did was start moving my legs to loosen them up. She was so gentle it reminded me of what the attendant had said: “Just relax and let us take care of you.” And I have to tell you it felt so good after all the bearing up I’d done with my family, and going back to school, and even working for Ruth Whitener. I couldn’t hold on anymore. The tears started slipping out of the corners of my eyes.

  Janice was turning my leg in a circular motion, but she stopped. “Did that hurt?”

  I shook my head. I kept my eyes shut, but they still leaked and the tears ran off my face and into the Warm Springs pool. It seemed to me like that clean sparkly pool was a good place to let go of my sorrows.

  Janice explained everything she was doing to me. She bent my legs in different positions. She rotated them. She rested my feet on her shoulders and massaged my leg muscles with her fingers. I don’t think she missed a single muscle from my belly to my toes. And
she worked on my left arm because it had been affected by polio too. “You still have some weakness in your shoulder,” she said.

  I think I must have cried the whole time. Not out loud or anything, just to myself. It was like Janice was working loose all the sadness and worry in me. I hoped it would go down the drain without clogging the pool filters. And I hoped the polios around the pool weren’t watching me.

  Finally, Janice said we were done for the day. “If you’d like, you can splash around in the pool for a few minutes,” she said. She helped me off the table. And right away I could feel how much easier it was to move in the mineral waters of Warm Springs. Almost like magic! “Stay close to the edge,” Janice told me.

  So I did. I hung on to a bar with one hand and held my nose shut with the other one, and I went down into the water. The way it felt covering over me—oh, I just can’t describe it. I felt free. Like I was going down a cripple but I’d come back up and start walking around again.

  It wasn’t going to be that easy, of course. I knew it wasn’t. But it helped me to think about it like that. To dream about change and getting better and turning sad things in my life into happy ones. I thought about my daddy, and how if I could get better, surely he could too.

  I reckon that was the moment when I really, truly settled in to Warm Springs. That first time in the pool was when I quit thinking I should be at home and started realizing that this was where I belonged.

  I still thought about my family. But I quit trying to be in two places at one time. I figured that only God in heaven could fix my daddy. So I should let Him do it.

  On Sunday I went to the Warm Springs chapel right across from Georgia Hall. Like all the other buildings at the foundation, it was filled with light. At first I just stared at the pew where Franklin Roosevelt used to sit. And wished that he was there. But then the service started and I was so interested that I forgot all about the president.