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.
When I finally stopped, Daddy said, “How about we go down to the creek? I’ll wash your wound and we can clean it up proper when we get back.”
He knew I wasn’t ready to face my family just yet. So we crawled out under the vines and Daddy knelt and helped me get on his back. When we got to the creek he set me on my favorite rock and took off my clumsy shoe and the steel brace that was weighing me down.
I sat there for a while, enjoying the feel of my feet in the creek. Daddy dipped his handkerchief into the water and blotted at the scrape on my arm. It stung, but I didn’t complain because just the fact of him dabbing at it so gentle made even the hurting feel good.
I thought how me and Peggy Sue used to come here and catch crawdads in tin cans. And how Junior helped us build rock dams to make deep pools of water. How I could jump from one rock to another.
When Daddy finished cleaning my scrape he sat on the rock beside me. Then he reached behind him and picked up a stick. I seen from the way he studied it that he was fixing to whittle. Seemed like whittling was the only thing he ever done anymore without being asked.
Since he was home from the war Daddy had made a whole collection of little animals. Cats, dogs, and just about any critter you can imagine. When he finished one he’d give it to Ida or Ellie and they’d run off and play with it while he picked up another piece of wood and started on it.
I sat there with my feet in the water and watched how he turned the stick around, figuring out what was in there. “Daddy,” I asked, “how do you decide what to carve?”
He held the stick out so I could get a good look at the shape of it. “What does that look like?” he asked.
“A stick,” I said.
Daddy smiled. I loved it when he smiled. “Look again,” he said. “Look harder. Deeper.”
Well, I didn’t know how to look deep into a stick, but I took it in my hand and run my fingers over it and for some reason it felt friendly. It was short and stubby and all I could think of was how the green moss on the end reminded me of curly hair. I thought about Imogene who I hadn’t seen for months and months. And who I still hadn’t got another letter from.
“I see a friend,” I said.
“Well then,” said Daddy, “I’ll make you a friend.” And the first thing he did was start peeling the bark and curly moss away.
The friend Daddy whittled for me didn’t look like Imogene. She was kind of flat and only three inches high, but she was all there—a whole person from head to toe. Daddy carved little curlicues into her head because I told him how I thought the moss was going to be her hair.
And he even made little eyes, a nose, and a smile. But the best part of all was the crutches he carved into the sides of her. And if you looked real close you could see that she had a brace on one leg. And clumsy shoes.
When he was done Daddy put it in my hand and folded my fingers around it and said, “There now. You got yourself a friend.” Then he pulled my feet out of the creek and dried them off with his big red handkerchief and put my brace and shoes back on and carried me back to the house.
It done wonders for me, having that friend curled into my fist like that. I asked Daddy could he put it on a strip of leather to wear around my neck.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. He had to make a hole in the top of her head first. And scrounge around for some leather. When he couldn’t find any, he took a lace out of his work boot and hung her on that. Then he put her over my head.
It felt almost like there was someone close by who had been through polio too.
I named her Comfort.