In the Clear (10 page)
Finally, Henry laughs. I laugh with him. Henry has this wide smile that goes a little lopsided sometimes. Like right now.
All afternoon, I don't mind playing goal for Henry. And as we laugh and yell, I play with a new thought. It's starting to feel okay.
I'm going to be a big sister.
Six months in the House of Horrors.
Physio with Nurse Fredericks twice a day. My muscles gradually came back, except the ones in my left leg. That leg stayed thin and small no matter how much Nurse Fredericks pushed and moved it. I wore a big, clumsy brace around it that I hated. But at the same time, the brace supported me as I learned to walk again.
The first time I walked, leaving my wheelchair, I could only manage a few steps on crutches. But I felt as if I'd run around the world. I thought I'd burst with happiness. I could move, almost like once-upon-a-time, without a wheelchair.
Late in June I got a letter from Tante Marie. Her studies in Paris were almost over. She'd be coming home soon, but she wasn't going to fly to Montréal. She was coming to Toronto to see me first. Immediately. Me. I was important.
I kept Tante Marie's letter in the pocket of my shirt. I was so scared Witch Wilson would take it if she found it.
I worked very hard, walking every minute I could on my crutches. I was determined to be normal again. “You have to build up the muscle in your right leg to compensate for your left leg,” Nurse Fredericks said, pushing, always pushing till I wanted to scream.
“You have to keep working hard for the next few years. Your right leg's coming along fine. I've ordered a new brace for your left leg, and shoes. They're special. They'll fit you much better. You'll be walking every day in them.”
I was determined to walk, all right. Walk out of here and never come back.
My parents visited every Sunday but I still didn't speak. My mother held me in her arms, circling my arms, then my left leg, with her thumb and forefinger. “So thin. So thin, Pauline. You have to eat more.”
She read to me too â all her favorites. Dad brought his little metal hockey players and we played a thousand games: Leafs against the Canadiens.
They brought me Orange Crush every visit and I gulped it greedily, without stopping. Witch Wilson would never take one from me again.
At night I had to sleep with metal braces strapped to both legs. My feet were locked into the braces to keep them from dropping. I hated the braces because I couldn't turn over in them, but I didn't drop-foot, whatever that was. My muscles were coming back to life, as if from a long sleep, but the braces knocked against the bars of my crib as I tossed and turned at night.
Nurse Fredericks had a final torture in store for me. One day she looked terribly pleased and clapped her hands as I entered. “Your new shoes and walking brace are here.”
There on the floor were the ugliest shoes I'd ever seen. They were heavy, dark brown oxfords. It was silly, but I'd been dreaming that, just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I'd get dazzling, ruby red slippers to take me home.
Something in me rebelled. No! I wasn't going to wear those ugly oxfords. I wanted pretty shoes.
I glared at her and thrust out my jaw.
“You don't like them? We'll see about that.”
She took my crutches. I teetered precariously. She forced me to sit down. I crossed my arms over my chest defiantly and she scolded me.
“You're lucky to get these shoes. Lucky to walk. Lucky to be alive. Now stop this nonsense.” She grabbed my feet and pushed them into the stiff shoes, lacing them up so tight I couldn't bear it. Then she buckled the strap around the brace, again pulling too hard. It hurt.
I pushed her away and she toppled over, caught off guard.
Her face twisted with anger. She stood up and held up her hand as if to slap me. But she didn't.
“You naughty child!” she said. At that moment I hated Nurse Fredericks almost as much as Witch Wilson. Who was she to make me topple from “lucky” to “naughty” at her whim? She was a naughty nurse!
It wasn't over.
Roughly she handed me my crutches. A big metal knob pressed against the inside of my leg where the metal bar of the brace fit into the shoe. It rubbed against my ankle.
“Now walk,” she ordered, handing me my crutches.
It was misery. They hurt. They were so tight and heavy that I could barely drag my left foot.
“Lift it up,” she ordered sternly.
But every time I swung my left foot forward, the big metal knob bashed against my right ankle.
She made me walk back and forth, back and forth. Twenty times. The sock on my right ankle was red with blood.
I hated my new shoes and brace. But I hated her more.
All right, I vowed silently, knowing I only had one hope. I wouldn't give up. I'd wear the ugly shoes and heavy brace and I'd swing my left leg so the metal knob didn't bash against my ankle.
Soon, soon, I'd walk out of here and go home.
The issue of school stays in the closet, undecided, over the winter. I want to go. I think about it. B writes and tells me to try it. School's like spaghetti, he says. Everybody makes it and eats it a different way. Yet every time I imagine that stairway, that hallway, bursting with kids avoiding me, I can't bring myself to do it.
Dad and I make a rink again. Henry suggests we put up sideboards with an opening for my wheelchair. Stu and Billy bring plywood and scraps of lumber from their garages and before long we've built the Don Mills Gardens. Dad builds a little bench beside the opening where we can put our skates on, and we play hockey every Saturday and Sunday with Henry, Stu and Billy. It's the highlight of my week. Thankfully the weather stays cold enough to keep the rink frozen right until March, right until the day of Tante Marie's arrival.
With the approach of the train from Québec, the mercury fires up the thermometer outside our back window, and my mother goes into instant labor. By the time my father brings Tante Marie home from Union Station, gloomy pools of water threaten our rink, and my mother's contractions come regularly.
I wait on my window seat, listening to the lilt of Tante Marie's voice. I ignore the commotion in the front hall as my father fetches forgotten items for my mother's hospital bag. They kiss me hurriedly and are gone.
At long last I am alone with Tante Marie. We laugh and hug and can't get caught up quickly enough.
“I didn't see you for Grand-mère's death. Now I see you for a birth!” She shakes her head, her hair swinging freely. “It's got to mean something, don't you agree?”
“It means she has to have more babies!” I laugh, not really wanting it to be true. I pull out B's letter and hand it to Tante Marie. “He's still nuts about you. He wants you to know he's playing the drums in the school band.”
Tante Marie takes the letter and puts it in her pocket. “That boy will be the conductor one day. I'll read it later. First, I have a special gift for you.”
Tante Marie drags an enormous bag to my window seat. With a magician's flourish, she pulls out smocked dresses and knitted sets of matching baby booties and sweaters. I laugh with delight when, from the very bottom, she pulls out a red beret and twirls it on one finger.
“You're a teenager. I thought you might want to ⦔ she gives it to me and waves her hand in the air, searching for the right expression, “⦠go wild.” Her eyes tease. “Your maman's going to wonder at me, not bringing you a book or a pretty dress.”
“I hate dresses. You know that. They only show my legs.”
I try on the beret.
“Ooh-la-la,” she says, standing beside me and tilting it way down over my forehead. “You want to look dangerous, remember? With that beautiful hair of yours, you are going to make some boy's heart beat a little faster.”
Me? Could my thick brown hair be beautiful? What does Henry think about my hair? I feel a little flip-flop in my stomach ⦠does he even notice?
“Hey,” she says, looking in the big cabinet. “Where's that table hockey game you used to play with?”
“Top shelf. Unless my mother's thrown it out. She never liked it.”
She finds the game and pulls it down. “C'est fantastique. What do you say we have our own Stanley Cup finals this week? Leafs against the Canadiens.”
She winks at me. “Guess who I'm gonna be?”
I laugh. My very own blessing is right here. The Good Witch of the East come to save me.
Kneeling at the other end of my window seat, Tante Marie smokes and curses all week as we abandon ourselves to our hockey match. It's Toronto against Montréal, English against the French.
In a hospital downtown, my mother gives birth to a baby girl. When Dad calls to give us the news, Tante Marie is thrilled for me. I have a sister. Briefly I wonder if a sister is better or worse than a brother. We're having so much fun that I put that baby sister out of my thoughts.
The evening my dad is expected to bring Mom and the baby home, Henry knocks at the door with a gift. I hear Tante Marie invite him in and I quickly find my new red beret and tilt it to one side, dangerously, just like Tante Marie showed me.
Henry comes into the back room, shuffling from one foot to the other. I feel him staring at my beret.
“It's going below freezing tonight,” he says. “Should be good for the rink. I ⦠that is, Stu and Billy ⦠I wondered if you wanted to play a game tomorrow.”
Tante Marie is standing behind him. She raises her eyebrows and smiles a silent question at me.
“That would be great, Henry. I'd like that.” I'll kill her later, if she doesn't stop.
“I'll phone Stu and Billy then. We can play in the morning. Maybe we could help with the baby,” he finishes lamely.
He turns to leave and bumps into Tante Marie. “Sorry. See ya, Paulie.”
Tante Marie lets him out and comes back, stands in the doorway. “Help with the baby?”
I take off my beret and throw it at her. “His mother probably made him say that. He's our next-door neighbor.”
She catches the beret and comes to sit at her end of the window seat. “And a very handsome one,” she says.
I roll my eyes.
“Okay, okay. No more teasing. It's time for the playoffs.”
16.
F
ACE-OFF
: T
HE
H
OUSE OF
H
ORRORS,
1955
In a way, it was thanks to Cindy that I went home.
On the same day that I got my new walking brace and the ugliest shoes in the world, Cindy arrived at the House of Horrors. Janet had gone home the week before and there was space in our ward for another girl. Cindy was five but appeared no bigger than a baby, lying motionless in her crib.