There was a brace shop at Warm Springs. Mr. Maddox, the brace maker, made all sorts of things there. Contraptions, as my daddy would say—devices to help people pick things up, hold a spoon, or use a typewriter. And of course they made braces for our legs and arms and also corsets and shoe buildups for people who needed them. I couldn’t even begin to list all the things they’d make for you.
I had already been there for my Canadian crutches and to get the clicking sound in my braces fixed. And now I was supposed to get fitted with Canadian canes. I was excited because that meant I was really improving.
Since the brace shop was down below the medical building, I was tired when I got there. So I didn’t mind waiting for the man in a wheelchair just ahead of me. It was Hubert, the Navy man who scared me with that palmetto bug the day I came to Warm Springs. Mrs. Trotter was with him.
When I come in the door he was telling Mr. Maddox about a stunt he’d pulled the night before. Evidently his practical jokes always had something to do with palmetto bugs. “Compared to the critters we saw in the South Pacific, these bugs are tiny,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone, but I keep a few as pets.”
The way he said “these bugs” made me think he had one with him. I thought maybe I should turn around and leave.
But then he said how, just that morning, he’d sneaked one into an older girl’s handbag. “She reached in for lipstick and guess what she got?” Hubert mimicked the girl’s scream. “When that bug skittered across her hand, she threw her pocketbook so hard she nearly broke a lamp in Georgia Hall.”
Hubert was having such a good time with that story I thought he was going to bust open laughing. And Mr. Maddox too. But Mrs. Trotter had a look of pure horror on her face.
There was a wall just inside the door with a display of braces, special shoes, and other gadgets on it. When Hubert told that story, I jerked back a little and bumped the display. I knocked a heavy metal brace off its hook. It went clattering to the floor.
And I tell you what’s the truth—a body would’ve thought we went straight from a comedy play to a war zone!
Every one of us about jumped out of our britches when it fell. But Hubert? It must’ve scared him half to death. “Enemy fire!” he hollered. “They’re blowing us to smithereens!” He yelled a bunch of other things too, but I didn’t understand most of it. He ducked his head, trying to throw himself on the ground.
Only he couldn’t. He was paralyzed from polio.
Mr. Maddox just stared at him and then at me. Mrs. Trotter reached out and put her hand on Hubert’s shoulder. “It’s okay. There’s no enemy fire,” she said. “You’re safe here. You’re in Warm Springs, Georgia. You’re safe. You’re in Georgia now. In Georgia.”
Hubert kept on hollering. Mrs. Trotter rubbed his shoulders and said it again, real gentle. “You’re in Warm Springs. Everything’s going to be all right.” She pulled his head up against her and cradled it there. Hubert was shaking like it was a cold day in January. His teeth were chattering, too.
He did quiet down, though. His hollering turned to moaning and then to crying. Mrs. Trotter held him while he bawled like a baby boy.
I don’t know what happened after that because Mr. Maddox suggested I come another time instead. And when he did, I remembered back to second grade when I was talking to Peggy Sue during arithmetic class. The teacher was so annoyed she sent me out to stand in the hall. All these years later I could still feel the mortification of it.
I didn’t have what it took to get back up to Kress Hall. I just wanted to crawl under the bushes next to the nearest building. So I let myself to the ground and leaned against the end wall.
The earth felt cool and solid beneath me. My tummy felt wobbly. Why had I knocked that stupid brace to the floor?
I could still hear Hubert sobbing through the open doorway of the brace shop. And I heard Mrs. Trotter’s low voice. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I could guess. “You’re in Warm Springs,” she was telling him. “You’re safe here.”
But I knew Hubert didn’t feel safe. And now, all of a sudden, I didn’t either.
Did the war have to come all the way to Warm Springs? Why couldn’t there be one peaceful place in the world?
While I was sitting there with my legs sticking out beyond the bushes where just anyone could see, I heard Suzanne’s voice.
“Ann Fay? Is that you?” It took her a minute to get there and I tried to wipe the tears away before she did. But she seen right off that I was crying. “What?” she asked. “What’s wrong? Did someone hurt you?” Suzanne let herself down to the ground in front of me. Her hair was damp so I knew she’d just come from the pool. Her large eyes looked real worried. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
I thought about Imogene then and what a comfort she was to me in the polio hospital. And how she made me talk when I didn’t want to. And how Suzanne had befriended me too. So I started talking.
“I mean, I don’t know. I scared that Navy man—Hubert—in the brace shop. I knocked something down and made a bunch of noise, and next thing I knew, it was like he was back in the war. And now he’s in there crying like a baby and it’s all my fault!” I didn’t want to cry in front of Suzanne. But I did. I couldn’t stop.
“Maybe he’s just having a bad day,” she said. “It could’ve been anybody that upset him.” She patted my arm.
“But it’s not just Hubert,” I said. “It’s my daddy too. You never know when he’s going to go off the deep end.” My nose was dripping and I didn’t have a handkerchief. I wiped at the snot with the back of my hand.
Suzanne pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. It was used, but I didn’t care.
“When is that stupid war going to go away? Why can’t it leave me in peace?”
I leaned my head against the medical building. It felt solid and warm. I looked up at the Georgia sky. It was loaded with puffy clouds stacked one on top of the other, like Momma’s clean sheets piled in the laundry basket.
All of a sudden I wanted in the worst way to be at home, breathing in the smell of clothes coming off the line. Eating Momma’s fluffy biscuits. Laughing with her and Daddy over something the twins was doing. If I could just be there, surely we would be laughing.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We got ourselves off the ground and started toward Kress Hall. “My mother will be coming for me any minute,” said Suzanne. “Are you going to be all right?
I gave her back the handkerchief. “I’ll just go to my room and write to my family.”
That’s what I did, too.
Dear Momma and Daddy,
Is everything okay at home? I really need to know. Sometimes things seem almost perfect around here and then something happens that lets you know everyone else has problems too.
I’ll soon be fitted with Canadian canes. They have a band that fits around the forearm but the bottom is like crutches. They’re lightweight because they’re made of aluminum like the Canadian crutches I’ve been using.
So, you see, I’m making progress. Soon I will have the stairs mastered and then I’ll be coming home. Maybe I should surprise you and just show up one day! Wouldn’t that be fun? But of course, the doctor will be sending you a letter first, filling you in on my progress.
Daddy, I bet you’ve planted the peas by now. I know how you like to get an early start. I wish I was there to help.
All my love,
Ann Fay
I put the letter in an envelope and stuck a stamp on it. I felt closer to my family already. Even though nothing had changed and I sure didn’t come out and tell them what happened with Hubert, somehow just writing to them put my mind more at ease.