In the Clear (9 page)

For once, my mother doesn't try to talk me out of my feelings. “He did hide some of his struggle. But …” she struggles to find the right words, “it was a time when attitudes were less accepting. People were so terrified of polio. And remember, being the president of the United States was a grave responsibility. It was the depression, then the war. More than ever, people needed to believe in their leader.”

“If they can't let the president have polio, who will ever believe in me?”

“Your dad does, and …” she smoothes the map one more time, “I do.”

I feel as if someone's jumped off the other end of the teeter-totter and I've crashed to the ground. Whomp.

“You do not! You don't really want me to go to school. You worry about every little thing I do. You'd be happy if I never went outside this house.”

She winces. She stops smoothing the paper and squeezes both hands tightly together. “Maybe you're right. Your father says the same thing. So did Grand-mère. But,” she says, lifting her chin, “it's not because I don't believe in you.”

“Oh yeah. What is it?”

“I don't believe in the world out there. I won't trust an institution again.”

I remember the House of Horrors. “I'm growing up. I can handle things. I want to try.”

“I know. I know. But you don't have to throw yourself out there recklessly. That's Marie's way, and it's not a good one. Better to take small, careful steps. You're outside more, playing hockey. Isn't that enough for now?”

I'm back on the teeter-totter, mad at her again. Why does she have to criticize Tante Marie?

“I just want to go to school!”

She throws up her hands, exasperated. “I'm trying, Pauline! We'll go for a visit on Tuesday. You'll see for yourself. It's not going to be so easy.”

She's right, too. We visit the school the following week. It is not what I'd hoped for. There are obvious problems and it's confusing.

Half the classes are upstairs. Mr. Dunlop, the principal, smiles at me nervously and assures me that he understands how courageous I must be to want to come to school. He wishes he could help, but, he hums and haws, he can't arrange all my classes to be on the main floor. He stares at my brace. The science and language labs are all upstairs. Those classes are compulsory.

“Let's look at the stairs,” my mother suggests. I can tell she's annoyed at him.

We go out in the hallway to look at the stairs. There's a lot of them. Stairs are hard for me. Exhausting! The metal brace supporting my left leg comes up to my thigh and I can't bend my knee. Can I do it? Can I?

There's only one way to know.

“I'll try the stairs. Can you time me?”

“Oh, I don't know if you should do this,” the principal starts.

But my mother cuts him off. Her face is drained of color and she looks upset, but she stares down the principal. “She asked us to time her. Ready?”

I don't do stairs the way Nurse Fredericks taught me, using the support of both crutches. I made up my own way. I put both crutches under my left arm, lean heavily on the banister on my right side, swing my left leg out and up as I balance on my good leg. My mother is strangely quiet beside me, never saying a word.

I gaze up the stairs. It's a long way. The school is quiet. Behind me, behind the closed doors, in the classrooms are the other kids. Working. I want to be here too.

I do one stair at a time. There are twelve to the landing and then another set of twelve. When I'm almost at the top, a teacher comes down the hallway, carrying papers. He reminds me of the principal. He wears a dark jacket over a white shirt and tie, and he doesn't look happy to see me.

“Ahh … do you need help?”

“No,” I tell him. “Thank you,” remembering to be polite. I guess he's never seen anyone in crutches on these stairs.

I swing my left leg up the last stair, turn around and prepare to go down. The teacher's behind me. I can feel his fear following me.

I go back down the stairs. This time the crutches go down first.

I'm breathing hard when I reach the bottom.

“Ten minutes,” the principal says, dismayed.

“You did it!” my mother says. I hear pride in her voice.

I lean against the wall. I can imagine what the principal and the teacher are thinking. Five minutes up. Five minutes down. I'll be late for every class. And what if someone jostles me down the stairs?

Then a bell rings, loud in my ears, and I jump. All of a sudden, doors along the hallway bang open and kids pour out from all directions. Everybody is carrying books. How will I manage these crowds with my crutches? Kids see me and walk past as if I'm invisible. But I see them peek back, staring at me resting heavily on my crutches. No one smiles. No one comes close.

Suddenly I see Stuart O'Connor, his freckled face and curly hair. He sees me and waves, runs toward me with a big, friendly smile. I feel like crying as he approaches.

“Hey, Pauline! Whatcha doing?”

“Hi, Stu. Checking out the school.”

The boy beside him shuffles from one foot to the other, gawking at me, then looking away down the hall. I bet he's never seen a leg like mine before.

“Maybe I can give you a tour.”

“Come on, Stu,” the other boy says uneasily. “We're going to be late for math.”

“I'd rather take Pauline on a tour,” Stu says, laughing at his obvious ploy to miss class. Another bell rings and the other boy pulls his sleeve, heading down the hallway.

“Guess I better go. You should check out the gym, Pauline. Show Miss McCarthy your shot. See ya Saturday.”

We don't do a tour. I'm anxious to go home. There are too many problems to sort out and my head is spinning. My mother asks me what I think and I tell her I don't know. I put school in the back closet of my mind with a sign on it: Undecided. It's not just the stairs. It's those kids staring at me, keeping their distance. Could I stand it?

Here on my window seat it's lonely, but no one's afraid of me.

• • •

Saturday morning, as usual, Henry, Stuart and Billy call on me for a game of road hockey. My mother's okay about it, as long as Dad plays too. She can't help worrying about the road. The boys like my dad with us. So do I. With Dad pushing me, I can play forward. We're getting fast – and good.

But the last Saturday in October, just before we get ready to go out, my mother stops me.

“Before you go out, there's something we've been meaning to tell you.”

Dad buttons up his coat, looking uncomfortable. “Do you think this is the moment?”

The way they're looking at each other, I know it's something big. “What's the matter? Did someone die?”

“No,” my father laughs at me. “The opposite. Your mother is going to …”

I gasp, feeling stupid, noticing for the first time the slight bulge of her usually flat belly. Suddenly I realize she has been wearing loose-fitting dresses for a while instead of skirts. My mother's pregnant! How awful!

“How could you?” I blurt out, feeling betrayed. Aren't I good enough? “You're too old.”

“I am not!” she cries, indignant.

“We don't need a baby.”

“We're having one.”

“Maybe it will get polio.”

I hear her sharp intake of breath. “Pauline … how can you say that? That's so cruel.”

I shove my toque down over my ears. It's simple: I don't want a sister or brother who can run or skate. Especially not now, not when things are starting to turn around for me.

My father puts an arm around each of us, but I shrug him off and glare at the black-and-white linoleum floor.

“There's the vaccine now,” he says. “Thank God, it won't happen again. This baby will be a blessing for all of us.”

“When's the blessing coming?” I ask sarcastically.

My mother is leaning against my father, his arms wrapped protectively around her. “If you mean the baby,” she says, “it's due in March. Your father will be allowed in the hospital and will spend a lot of time there. But you won't be allowed in. Someone will have to stay at home with you.” She hesitates. “I've asked my sisters.”

My throat aches with hope. After being so mean, do I dare ask? “Tante Marie?”

“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” Her hand skates uneasy circles around her belly.

Why should I have to have a sibling? I can hear in my mother's voice how much she hates her own sister. I feel like I'm about to explode. I have to get outside. I'm not going to beg anything from my mother, not even a visit from Tante Marie.

I open the door and shuffle outside. Dad makes a move behind me, but I yell over my shoulder, “I can do this myself. I'll play goal today. I don't need you. Leave me alone.”

I don't bother to turn around to see their reaction. They have each other.

I storm – carefully – out onto the street. Henry and Stuart and Billy have stopped in the middle of a play and are watching me approach. I get the uneasy feeling they heard me yelling.

“Where's your dad?” Billy asks.

I don't trust myself to talk. I jerk my thumb back in the direction of my house.

Henry looks like an owl, staring at me. “Get her chair, will ya, Stu? How about we put the nets at the curbs and play two on two? Pauline can play goal and she won't have to worry about cars.”

I glare at him. Overprotective Henry. Of all the nerve. If I didn't have to hold onto my crutches, I'd jerk my thumb at him too.

Henry's wearing his Don Mills hockey jacket, blue with white piping around the shoulder seams. It's cold and his breath shows — white piping against the sky. Billy shoves his hands in his jeans pockets and now Stu's back, huffing and puffing with my chair.

What am I so mad at? Out of nowhere the tears start dribbling down my cheeks and I wipe my face on my sleeve.

The three boys move in a little closer and stand in a semi-circle around me.

“What's wrong, Pauline?” asks Henry.

“You don't have to play goal if you don't want,” says Billy.

“We could go watch boxing on TV at my house,” says Stu.

Henry hits Stu with his hat. “Idiot. She doesn't want to watch fighting.”

I half-laugh, half-cry. These guys are funny. Are these guys my friends?

“My parents are going to have a baby,” I confide.

It sounds so silly when I say it, but they all make a big Ooohhh as if I've revealed something terrible. I remember that they each have younger kids in their families. Billy has two little brothers and a sister, and some Saturday mornings he can't play because he has to babysit.

“That's too bad,” Stu says. “My little brother's a real nuisance. He's always switching the channel or talking or …”

Henry hits him again. “She doesn't need to hear that part. She needs to hear the good part.”

“What's the good part?”

Henry runs his fingers through his hair. I know he fights with his sister. I hear them sometimes over the fence or through the windows in the summer.

“Family,” Billy pipes up decisively. “Imagine Christmas dinner. It's best when it's noisy and everybody's trying to talk at the same time. Or when you come home to brag about something and you get a big, loud cheer from the whole family. The more, the merrier, I say.”

“Someone to take your side against your parents when they're being unfair.”

“By the time this kid is old enough to take my side, I won't be living at home anymore,” I argue.

“Aw, they're cute when they're little,” Stu says. “They've got itsy-bitsy fingers and itsy-bitsy toes.”

Henry hits him again.

“Now what'd you hit me for?”

“I don't know. Your itsy-bitsy brain, I guess.”

I'm laughing now, slapping one crutch against the road.

“Billy!” We hear Billy's mother calling him from their front door down the street.

Billy grabs his stick. “I gotta babysit. See? There's the bad part. That's tough news, Pauline. Real tough. You coming, Stu? Your brother's playing at our house today. I hate your brother more than you do. What a pest. Come on.”

“I guess we'll watch cartoons.” They're walking away, but we can hear them.

“No way. My mom hates cartoons. She says we can watch that garbage over her dead body. Can you imagine? You come home one Saturday and there's your mom, dead on the living room floor, and you jump right over her because the first thing you think is, oh great! Now I can watch cartoons. Does your mom say dumb stuff …”

They laugh, hitting each other until I can't hear them clearly anymore. I look at Henry, but he's not smiling. He takes off his toque and twirls it around his index finger.

“So, do you like Lisa?” I ask him.

“She's a little sister. Little sisters can be very annoying.”

“So … you don't.”

“Look. You don't always like your brother or sister or even your best friend every minute of every day. But they're good for all kinds of stuff. They're family.” He pauses meaningfully. “Why'd you get so mad at your dad?” He kicks his foot against the curb. “You've got a temper. I worry some day that you'll stop talking to me again, just like that.” He snaps his fingers.

I take a big breath and let it out. “Sometimes I get mad at the world. Don't you?”

How'd we get back to this? It must have something to do with what I said about not wanting the baby. Even though I don't quite get the connection, I blurt out, “You guys helped. I'm feeling better about having a brother or sister. Even if they can walk and run and skate …”

I stop and shake my head really hard, because I can't lie – I do not want a brother or sister who can skate. “Anyway, I'll try and be happy about it. Who knows, it might be good for all of us. My mother can worry and fuss over Itsy-Bitsy instead of me, right?”