Comfort Read online

  I didn’t see much of it either. For one thing, I wasn’t interested, and for another, I was busy worrying about school starting the next week. If my two best friends didn’t talk to me, why would the eighth graders at Mountain View School want to?

  I fretted over it so much that on the first day of school I woke up with a tummy ache. Momma gave me some pink medicine, but I still had to hurry to the johnny house on account of diarrhea.

  On the way back I bumped into Daddy sitting on the steps. He was wearing overalls and I wanted like crazy to put mine on too—the ones he gave me before he went off to war, when he told me to be the man of the house in his place. They were too small by now. But staying home in tight overalls would’ve felt a lot better than going to school in the brand-new dress Momma had made.

  “Come sit for a minute,” said Daddy. He pulled me to his lap and leaned my crutches against the porch floor. Then he put my head against his shoulder and started talking. “You can’t have a tummy ache every day.”

  He waited for me to say something. But I didn’t. So after a minute he spoke up again.

  “It’s got to be hard,” he said. “Going to school on crutches and being a year behind. But you and I both know—if anyone can do hard things, it’s Ann Fay Honeycutt.”

  My daddy has always been like that. So kind and sensitive that if someone else felt pain, he would feel it too. Especially if that someone was me. I wanted to stay there with him all morning, listening to the grasshoppers flicking around in the dry grass.

  He shook me real soft and said, “It’s the first step that’s the hardest. Remember what Franklin Roosevelt said—‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’”

  I knew it was fear making my tummy hurt and sending me to the toilet. But I didn’t admit it. I just asked, “Do you think President Roosevelt was ever afraid?”

  “I think he was. After all, he was a famous politician when polio struck. And I’m sure he wanted to be strong for his family. Then he became president and had to be strong for all of us.” Daddy was quiet for a little while and then he said one more thing. “I think polio was the thing that scared him. But he didn’t let it make him weak. Maybe polio made him stronger than he already was.”

  Of all the things my daddy could have said, he picked the perfect thing. Polio made him stronger than he already was.

  So I hugged him one last time, and when I did, I wiped the tears that were starting to come—right onto the collar of his shirt. I didn’t want him to see me crying.

  But if I know my daddy, he probably felt my tears anyway.

  When I got back inside, Momma handed a paper sack with my lunch to Ellie and said, “Carry this for Ann Fay.” She pointed to my notebook on the kitchen table and handed Ida two yellow pencils with a rubber band around them. “Take these for your sister.”

  Ida and Ellie didn’t complain. I think they were proud to be helping me for a change. When the school bus stopped by our mailbox they let me get on first.

  I hadn’t thought about how I’d climb into the bus. So I had to think fast. I laid my crutches on the bus floor one at a time while I held on to the shiny handrail. Then I unlocked my ugly, miserable brace and pulled myself up.

  The bus driver waited patiently and greeted me just like she’d always done. “Morning, Ann Fay. You can sit on the front seat. And the twins too.”

  When the bus started moving, I heard a boy asking how come they had to fill in from the back and we got to sit up front. Someone else said to him, “Can’t you see that Ann Fay Honeycutt had polio?”

  It made me want to go to the back of the bus. To plop down in my old seat. But I had already called enough attention to myself. So I whispered, Polio made him stronger than he already was.

  And then another voice popped into my head. It was Imogene Wilfong saying, It mostly hurts at first. After a while it starts to feel better.

  I have to say, that made me smile.

  The bus stopped at Whitener’s Store and a bunch of neighborhood children got on. Ruth Whitener, who owned the store, had six children of her own. Her daughter Jean grinned real big when she saw me. “Hey,” she said.

  After that there was only one more stop and then we were at school.

  Even though I had the front seat I waited until last to get off the bus. Jean Whitener and her friend Beckie waited too. They were older than me, but Jean offered to carry my school supplies so Ida and Ellie could go straight to their classroom on the lower hall. “And I’ll carry your books in the afternoon,” said Beckie.

  I hated using crutches on steps. There were only three steps at the side entrance to the school, but they slowed me down. Jean and Beckie waited real patient for me and walked with me down the shiny wooden hallway. I was glad it was them and not my little sisters taking me to my classroom. As it was, people turned and stared when they heard my brace clicking down the hall.

  Everyone in the eighth grade stared too. I knew most of them, at least a little bit. But none of them was my friends in the way the ninth graders were. I made the mistake of choosing a desk in front of Rob Walker. It wasn’t two seconds later I heard him muttering under his breath, “I’m not sitting next to no cripple.” And just like that, he went to a seat across the room.

  I felt my ears get hot. “It mostly hurts at first,” I told myself.

  But Rob didn’t let up. Before the morning was out he went by my desk on the way to the pencil sharpener. He made a point of leaving plenty of room between me and him, but he made sure I knew he was there. “How ya doing, Click?” he said in a loud whisper.

  Click? It took me a minute to realize he was making fun of my noisy brace. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been in school even two hours before polio had earned me a nickname.

  Later, when we left the classroom and all the other girls had friends to walk with, I said Imogene’s line again. I said it at recess while I was sitting on the wooden bench by the dusty red ball diamond, watching the other students play softball.

  After Mrs. Barkley helped the class choose teams she sat on the bench beside me. “How’s it going so far?” she asked.

  I shrugged. What did she expect me to say—I’m so excited to be in your class instead of Mrs. Hamrick’s? I liked Mrs. Barkley already, and not just because Peggy Sue had liked her. I could tell she was a good teacher. But I wished I’d had her when I was supposed to be in eighth grade.

  I didn’t know what to say about how things were going. What should it be like? After you have polio, I mean. Were other people supposed to carry your books for you the rest of your life? Did you have to sit at the front of the bus with your little sisters while everyone else sat in the back and talked about you? And warm the bench at recess?

  “I used to play softball real good,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe I thought Mrs. Barkley would try to understand. I used one of my crutches to write a big A in the soft red dust at my feet.

  “I know,” she said. “I saw you out here playing when you were in seventh grade. You had a knack for hitting the ball where other players couldn’t catch it.”

  “Really?” I looked at her. “You noticed that?”

  Mrs. Barkley laughed. Her gray eyes twinkled. “I’ve been watching you, Ann Fay. I’m glad you’re finally in my class. It won’t be the way either of us expected it to be. But you and I are about to have a good year together.”

  I didn’t know what she meant by that. But all of a sudden I thought maybe sitting on the bench wouldn’t be so bad. Not if she was there beside me.

  When it was almost time for the class to go in, Mrs. Barkley told me to get a head start. “I’m sending everyone to the restroom,” she said. “You can go there after you stop by the drinking fountain.”

  I stood up, locked my brace, and headed by myself toward the big brick school building. The ground was sloped uphill and a little bit stony, so I had to watch where I set the tips of my crutches. I’d fallen plenty of times at the hospital when I was learning to walk. And more after I g
ot home. If I was to fall down at school, I didn’t think I would survive the humiliation.

  I walked right by Peggy Sue’s class on the way to the bathroom. The door was open but I kept my eyes on the floor. I hoped all my old friends were busy working and not looking out the door.

  But Peggy Sue must’ve heard my braces clicking. By the time I made it to the girls’ bathroom she was right behind me. “Hey,” she said. “Isn’t Mrs. Barkley the best teacher ever?”

  “Yes,” I said. “So far, anyway.” I went into a stall and leaned my crutch against the door. I heard Peggy Sue in the stall beside me.

  “Mrs. Hamrick is trying to act strict,” she complained. “Junior says she grades really hard. If what he says is true, I’m in trouble for sure.”

  “Well,” I said, “if it came from Junior Bledsoe it’s probably exaggerated. He loves to tell a good story.”

  “I love to listen to him,” said Peggy Sue. “Isn’t he the cutest thing?”

  I just about fell in the toilet when she said that. And it wasn’t on account of having polio either—I was in shock.

  “Peggy Sue!” I said. “I hope you’re not telling me you have a crush on Junior Bledsoe. If you are, I will just throw up in this commode.”

  6

  Disaster

  September 1945

  After that first day, whenever my class went somewhere, such as the lunchroom or the library, Mrs. Barkley always sent me ahead of the others.

  At first it seemed like a good idea because I was so slow. But after a while I began to wonder—how was I supposed to make friends when I had to go everywhere by myself? I didn’t exactly like the idea of walking the halls alone for the rest of my life.

  Finally, after a few weeks, I worked up my nerve to tell Mrs. Barkley how I felt. “May I go with the rest of the class?” I asked. “It’s not much fun being separated from everybody.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Maybe I could send another student with you.”

  I thought about that. What if I didn’t like the person she picked? Would we get stuck with each other? Or would people have to take turns whether they wanted to or not? Would I get stuck with Rob Walker one day?

  Any way I looked at it, her plan just didn’t feel right. So I said that if she didn’t mind, I would just like to go with the rest of the class.

  Mrs. Barkley looked doubtful. “Well, I suppose we can give it a try,” she said.

  So we did.

  Everything went fine all that first day—at least until it was time to go home. Then I made the mistake of not waiting till last. After all, the whole point of it was so I could blend in. Jean and Beckie had just come by for my books, and Charlie Barnes offered to let me go in front of him. So I did. But I should’ve known that if Rob Walker was behind us, there was going to be problems.

  You would think that if a body was in a hurry to get someplace and he got slowed down, he wouldn’t run over people like an army tank going into enemy territory.

  But some people don’t think at all.

  I could make excuses for Rob, since he wasn’t smack-dab behind me. I could say he didn’t see the crippled girl who was about four people ahead. But then again, you would’ve had to be just plain blind to miss me.

  When I got to the steps going out of the school, I slowed down. Naturally, that held up the people behind me. I heard Rob yell something about some people being slow as ketchup, and evidently he shoved the person in front of him. And just like that, the rest of us went down like a row of books falling off the shelf.

  There wasn’t nothing I could do to stop myself. There was only three steps, but it still hurt plenty going from the top one to the ground, especially with Charlie Barnes landing half on top of me. Looking back on it, I don’t see how I got by without breaking some bones.

  I did get my arm skinned up. And I took a hard blow to my hip too. But worst of all is how it hurt my pride. While I was laying there on the ground trying to figure out what hit me, I saw Peggy Sue coming out the school door. And next thing I knew, she was yanking my dress down around my knees. Everything had happened so fast I didn’t even realize that my underpants was showing!

  Rob Walker thought it was plenty funny. It didn’t cross his mind to pick anyone up. He just laughed and ran past us toward his bus. But he wasn’t taking into consideration the wrath of Peggy Sue Rhinehart.

  Peggy Sue took off yelling Rob’s name like it was the nastiest cuss word you ever heard. I was still laying on the ground when she tore into him. First she smacked him across the shoulder with her history book. Then, before he could turn around to see what hit him, she grabbed him by the arm, and she and her friend Melinda dragged him back to me.

  She couldn’t have kept Rob there on her own, but Peggy Sue had Melinda and Jean Whitener and a few others to back her up. Charlie jumped up and grabbed him by one arm. He twisted it behind Rob’s back while Peggy Sue done the talking.

  “You will apologize to Ann Fay. And you will pick her up.”

  Of course she was trying to help. But it made me feel even worse to have Rob sneering overtop of me. “And risk my life? She’s got polio.”

  “That is just ignorant,” said Peggy Sue. “Ann Fay does not have polio anymore.”

  Charlie twisted Rob’s arm a little harder.

  Maybe if I wasn’t still on the ground I would’ve smacked Rob Walker upside the head. Maybe. But truthfully, all of a sudden I didn’t seem to have any fight in me. I just wanted everyone to go away and leave me alone. I didn’t need Rob or anyone else to help me up. And I sure didn’t need a crowd watching my humiliation.

  A couple of students helped me to my feet. They sat me on the low wall that runs alongside the school steps. Jean Whitener pressed her clean white handkerchief to my skinned-up elbow. Beckie handed me my crutches. I didn’t look at anyone’s face, so everything was a blur of hands and elbows.

  By this time Mrs. Barkley was there. She insisted that Rob apologize to every one of us he’d knocked down. So he rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like “Sorry” but sure didn’t feel like it.

  I didn’t answer him. I just looked at Mrs. Barkley—hoping she could see in my eyes how much I needed to get out of there. And I guess she did, because she sent Rob to the principal’s office and told the rest of the students to get on their buses.

  I could swear I heard Rob muttering “Click, Click, Click” under his breath when he went up those steps.

  When Mrs. Barkley was sure I hadn’t broken any bones, she let Jean and Beckie lead me to my bus. Peggy Sue was fretting. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked. “Want me to ride home with you? Daddy can pick me up later.”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  But I wasn’t fine. I was tired of being a cripple. I wanted my old life back. The one where I could hit a ball and run the bases. And go down steps without stopping to think it through. I wanted to be in ninth grade with people who acted their age. I wanted Peggy Sue to be my friend just because we were as comfortable as biscuits and gravy on the same plate. And not because she felt sorry for me.

  Right that minute I was wishing like crazy for Imogene. But I didn’t even bother telling myself it mostly hurts at first.

  When I got on the bus the twins were already there. They’d seen the whole thing through the bus window. “I’m telling Daddy,” said Ida.

  “No!”

  “Yes,” said Ellie. “Daddy will go over to that boy’s house and knock some sense in his head.”

  “Would you sit down and be quiet?” I hissed. In the back of the bus I heard someone talking about Click Honeycutt showing everyone her step-ins. You would think that seeing my underpants was the most exciting thing since the atomic bomb.

  7

  Comfort

  September 1945

  When we got off the bus I told the girls to keep their mouths shut. But of course they run into the house to tell Momma and Daddy what happened. I didn’t think I could abide one more person feeling sorry for me
right then, so I started across the garden.

  Just past the garden was the ditch Daddy had dug a long time ago to keep the wisteria vines from growing into our vegetables. And just past the ditch was a path leading to the entrance of Wisteria Mansion. That’s mine and Peggy Sue’s old playhouse in the pine trees that has wisteria hanging all over it.

  I used to love how that vine with its purple flowers grew on everything. But that was before I was in charge of Daddy’s garden. Before I had to cut it back all by myself because Momma was in a bad way about my brother dying and didn’t care two cents about the garden just then. At the time I was so mad at war and polio that I took all my anger out on that vine. And I hadn’t been back to Wisteria Mansion since.

  But now I didn’t know where else to go and cry myself a river. So I crawled in under the vines, which had grown thicker than ever. I pulled my crutches in behind me. Then I collapsed in the pine needles and let it all out. All the sadness about losing the good life my family had before the war. My frustration at not being able to cross the room without crutches. And misery about not having anyone who knew what it felt like to be me!

  I thought about Imogene Wilfong. When we were in the hospital she told me that God keeps our tears in a bottle. She said my bottle had to be blue—like them overalls my daddy give me. Like the sky above. The color of truth and faithfulness.

  Momma had some blue bottles in her medicine cabinet in the kitchen. I even asked her one day could I have the Bromo-Seltzer bottle when it was empty. Which wasn’t going to be long, because lately my daddy was having lots of headaches.

  I didn’t even hear Daddy crawl in under those wisteria vines. But I felt him pick me up and pull me against his chest. He pulled my hair away from my eyes and patted my cheek with his rough hand. “Let it out, baby,” he said. “Let it out.”

  Who would’ve thought I had more tears in me? But I started up again—so hard and so long I’m pretty sure God had to go hunting for another bottle. I cried harder than I had in a long time.