In the Clear (6 page)

Nurse Nightingale wheeled my crib over to the window so I could look outside. Our ward was on the main floor and the window looked out onto the side yard. It was winter-white and cold, but Nurse Nightingale opened the window slightly so my visitor and I could talk.

It wasn't Tante Marie. It was Henry, my best friend, standing right in front of me, waiting beside my parents.

I was surprised.

“I'm sorry about this arrangement,” said Nurse Nightingale. “Children under twelve aren't allowed inside.”

I could see by the look on Henry's face that he was shocked by my appearance.

“Hi, Pauline.”

I lay there like a baby, staring at my once-upon-a-time best friend. Losing my teddy bear had felt like a knife in the back. But here was the real, living Henry. It was too good to believe. Maybe, just maybe, I hadn't lost Henry.

By this time I had full use of my neck and I could wiggle both feet. But that was all. I couldn't sit up, though I desperately wanted to. Behind me in the ward, I suddenly thought about my new best friend, Bernardo, who lay in a crib like I did. On this side of the window lay my hospital world; on the other side was my once-upon-a-time world, separated by a pane of glass.

“Won't you say hello to Henry?” my mother pleaded.

Oh no. It was so obvious: she'd brought Henry to trick me into talking.

“Henry's been wanting to see you,” my dad said gently. “That nice nurse suggested he could come to the window to say hello.”

“Henry's come all this way. He's missed a hockey game just to …”

My dad raised his eyebrows at my mother, poking her in the side. “We're going for a little walk, Agatha,” he said, putting his arm around my mother and pulling her away. “The kids don't need us adults around.” He winked at me.

And then it was just us, alone.

I thought Henry was staring down at the ground for a long time until I raised my head off my pillow enough to see that he was pulling something out of his pocket.

“I brought you my sheriff's badge.”

He held up the shiny silver star I knew he treasured. I could see the word SHERIFF on it. We'd played countless games on our red and blue horses, chasing the bad guys. He was always the sheriff, wearing that badge.

I wanted it badly. I could really use it. Maybe if I wore it, I could order Witch Wilson around. Put her in jail, or better yet, chase her away.

I couldn't move my hands to take it. And I still didn't feel safe enough to speak.

But this was Henry. We were all alone, no adults with us. It was tempting, so tempting to say the words to thank him. I could hear them in my mind: “You are my best friend in the whole, wide world.”

Henry spoke. “It's okay, Pauline. Your dad told me you're not talking in here. You don't have to say anything.”

Henry smiled at me, a smile even shinier than his sheriff's badge.

Maybe I smiled back.

“All the kids on the street are asking about you, waiting for you to come home. After Christmas, we heard you were out of the iron lung. It must have been great to come here.”

Here? Great? I stopped smiling. How could I tell him about this place? It was exactly like what B had called it: the House of Horrors.

I must have started crying. I missed Henry. I missed home. I couldn't tell him about this awful place.

Henry didn't know what to do. He reached up and put the sheriff's badge on the window ledge between us.

Automatically, I tried to reach for it. Of course I couldn't; I was paralyzed. But something happened.

My right thumb – just my right thumb – moved. A little jerk.

It looked exactly like Henry's Go Away gesture, the one we used to use with Billy Talon and Stuart O'Connor.

A terrible, hurt look spread over Henry's face. He backed away a few steps, shoving his hands in his pockets. He swallowed hard and turned away quickly, almost running in search of my parents.

Nurse Nightingale saw the movement, too. She didn't seem to notice Henry running away. “You moved your thumb, Pauline!” she crowed. “You moved your thumb!”

She walked over and picked up the sheriff's badge from the window ledge. She pinned it happily to my shirt, talking excitedly about what this meant, how she had to call the doctor with the good news.

I didn't feel excited. There was a new, sharp pain – this time in my chest – as if a knife had cut into my heart.

I couldn't run after Henry, and it was too late to call after him.

I had just chased away the best friend in the whole, wide world.

9.
F
UNERALS ARE FOR FAMILIES,
1960

Grand-mère gets pneumonia and has to go into hospital. Early one morning in February, Tante Marie phones to tell us the bad news: Grand-mère has died in the night.

From my perch on the window seat, I hear my parents argue all day and into the evening. “Pauline has a cold. She shouldn't travel when she's sick. I'll go to the funeral alone. They'll understand.”

“Funerals are for families,” Dad argues back. “It's a perfect opportunity for Pauline to see everybody, and you know how fond she is of Marie.”

“And look what trouble Marie stirred up at Christmas. She pokes her nose where she shouldn't. Marie's the last person Pauline needs to see.”

They go on and on until I can't stand any more and go to bed. I fall asleep, dreaming that Grand-mère lies in a coffin. It looks just like the iron lung that once kept me alive. Her head, adorned with a crown of red velvet ribbons, sticks out from the spongy collar at one end. Above her head is the little mirror angled to let her see people behind her. She sees me – or is it my mother? – and scowls, “Tisk, tisk.”

I wake up, finding it hard to breathe. The memory of the iron lung presses heavily upon me. I dress quickly. I feel an urgent need to make my mother take me to Montréal. Grand-mère wants us all together. We are a family.

But she's gone.

My father sits alone in the kitchen, stirring a cup of coffee, and I collapse into a chair beside him.

He senses my question before I even ask. “She took the early train to Montréal.” He taps his spoon against the cup. “She thought it best to go alone.”

“I … she …” I push my breakfast dishes away and fold my elbows across the table, comforting my head in the cradle of my arms. “I wanted to say goodbye to Grand-mère. I wanted to see Tante Marie.”

I feel my father's hand stroking my back. “Your mother's grieving.”

“So am I!”

“I know. I wish she'd let you go, but she asked for some time alone. Losing her mother – I guess it's like the last door to her past, to Québec, closing. She can never go back home. She's had to say goodbye to so much.”

But I'm not listening anymore. Say goodbye? What does she know about saying goodbye? What did she ever lose? Did she ever lose her best friend? Everything that counted in her world? She's mean, that's all, keeping me from Grand-mère's funeral, keeping me from Tante Marie. She's selfish. Well, I can be too.

I lift up my head and stare so intently at my father that he stops talking.

“What?”

“She's not here. She can't stop us if she's not here. She can't worry.”

He stares back. Understanding lights his eyes.

“I've waited all winter. It was my gift. She didn't mind when we went to the Leafs game, remember?”

“What do you mean, she didn't mind? She was waiting up for us, pacing at the door!”

“Dad. Going to that game was the best thing that's happened to me in four years.”

For the last week, since going to Maple Leaf Gardens, I've replayed the game over and over on my window seat rink. I feel again the cold air of the Gardens making me shiver, and I hear the thunder of the roaring crowds as the Leafs score the winning goal against the Canadiens. I stand to cheer wildly for my idols, just like everybody else.

Dad does this funny up-and-down Groucho Marx thing with his bushy eyebrows when his mind switches gears or when he's thinking something he's not going to say. “Hmm. It's tempting, very tempting.”

“Please, Dad. My one dream in life is to play hockey.”

“Ah well. I guess we didn't promise your mother, did we.”

I have to press my advantage. I stand up and move as fast as I can to the door. “I'll bundle up. Meet you at the side door.”

In less than five minutes we're out on the rink. Dad tucks the blanket around my legs in the wheelchair and passes me a shovel.

“Zamboni!” I whoop.

Dad laughs and starts to push me in the chair. We clear circles around the rink, pausing every few feet so I can throw loads of snow along the sides.

“Ready!” I puff when the rink is clear.

He hands me my stick, then starts to skate behind me slowly.

“I'll throw out the puck. See if you can pick it up and keep it on your stick.”

A black puck comes skittering to a stop about twenty feet in front of me. I lean forward and capture it against the blade of my stick as we go by.

“Ha! Got ya!”

We approach the goal and I flick the puck as hard as I can. It flies past the left post and bounces off the fence behind the net.

“Good try! Hold on!” Dad roars as we go behind the net, turning hard. Automatically, I lean the other way to keep from falling out of the chair.

We round the curve and I just manage to pick up the puck.

“Well done, Paulie.”

Back and forth and around we go, twenty or thirty times. Each time I get better with the stick, and soon I rarely lose the puck when we turn a corner. Dad stops in front of the net to give me a long lesson on how to shoot, how to raise the puck.

“Okay, Dad. Enough. I got it. Let's skate again.” How I love the ice flowing beneath my chair – speed. The air is cold, but I play a little game in my head, pretending I'm in Maple Leaf Gardens. I'm in the clear and the crowd is going wild.

“Faster!” I yell, and the chair soars down the ice as Dad digs in his edges.

Oh, we're moving now.

“Faster!”

We're starting to fly. My job is to raise the puck as we approach the net at full speed, seeking the sweet target of a corner pocket.

“She shoots, she scores!” Dad yells, and I smack Tante Marie's gift triumphantly against the ice.

On our last flight around the ice, he dumps me.

We hit a bump and I fly right out of the chair, sliding across the ice until I tangle to a stop in the bottom of the net. I roll over and sit up slowly. My bum is a bit sore, but that's all. I'm okay.

Dad rushes beside me, throwing up a spray of fine ice, falling to his knees.

“I'm not hurt, Dad.” I smile at him. He collapses, half-hugging me, starting to laugh himself.

“She shoots, she scores!” he shouts again.

Suddenly, out of habit, we both look at the house, half-expecting to see my mother's anxious, disapproving face. But of course, she's not there. The windows are empty.

Wait – my dad's waving at someone, clapping his hands and cheering.

I follow his look. He's looking at Henry's house. At one of the windows I see Henry watching us. He's clapping and waving and has a happy grin on his face.

Dad and Henry are cheering for me.

Henry stops when he sees me staring at him.

Henry.

Now's my cue. He expects me to jerk my thumb at him and tell him where to go like I have for the last few years.

It all started when he gave me his sheriff's badge. He didn't understand what happened, how my thumb jerked as it came back to life. I didn't mean for him to go away. And then – it seemed too hard to change direction. Like sliding across the ice, it was impossible to stop.

I'm not mad at Henry anymore. I don't want to be mad at anyone. I want it to stop now.

I pick up my stick, lift it over my head and wave it at him.

He waves back.

It feels nice, real nice.

10.
T
WO SESSIONS A DAY,
1955