CHAPTER 7

When Daddy returned, he started the car for the long trip home. But before putting it in gear, he looked at me in the back seat and handed me an envelope with my name written on it. In Charlotte’s handwriting!

She wrote me a letter!

I didn’t want to open my letter yet. I wanted to be by myself when I did, and Daddy and Granddaddy must’ve understood, since they didn’t question me.

Holding it close, I noticed something odd about it. “Why does it feel a little wet?”

“As a precaution,” Daddy told me, “they steam everything that comes from a patient’s room, gettin’ rid of any possible germs.”

Even though the damp letter felt strange to my touch, I held it gentle on my lap the whole way home, as if I was holding a newborn baby.

As soon as we got home, I jumped out of the car. Tearing through the porch door, I let it slam behind me. All I cared about was getting to my room to read my letter.

I heard Grandma calling—probably to lecture me—but her calling stopped after the sound of Granddaddy’s voice. I sat on my bottom bunk, but something didn’t feel right, so I climbed up to Charlotte’s bunk.

Even without a mattress, it felt right to be on her bed.

Sitting cross-legged, I looked down at our room, imagining what Charlotte used to see each morning. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at, just an old brown dresser in the corner, which now only held my clothes. And next to the dresser was a desk that used to be Mama’s. Actually, everything here used to be Mama’s, which used to make me and Charlotte feel happy, imagining Mama using it all.

I held the letter in my left hand, and with my right hand I traced the outline of my name. I couldn’t help but smile at the honest-to-goodness proof that my sissy was still in my world. I took a deep breath and opened the letter, making sure not to rip the still-damp paper.

Dear Pixie,

Hi! How are you? How’s school? And how are things with Miss Beany? I hope you are giving her a chance and have found out how nice she is. Tell her I said hi.

Guess you know by now I have polio. When they first told me, they called it “infantile paralysis,” and that sure sounded bad! But I was so sick back then that I didn’t even care. Then later I heard one of the nurses talking about my bad case of polio, so I understood.

I really don’t remember much about how or when I got here. They tell me my fever was so high, I was acting crazy . . . They call it “delirious.” I swore I saw Mama then. She looked so pretty. I wanted to run to her, but my legs wouldn’t work. She smiled at me and disappeared.

Maybe it was just the fever—but it gave me such comfort.

For weeks and weeks (it’s hard to remember what day it is), I was in a room all by myself, called “isolation.” I remember my legs hurt so much, especially my left one. I couldn’t even have a sheet on it. If someone even touched it, it felt like they were digging a fork into it. Can you believe that? I tried not to cry. But I did.

Some of the nurses here are afraid of catching polio. There’s one that made the student nurses from Indiana University check on me whenever my fever was high. And there’s one who is my favorite. She’s Nurse Margie, and she stays with me when I’m having a bad night.

I was so happy when I finally got to get out of isolation. I’m now bed number two in a twelve-bed ward with eight other polios.

My legs don’t hurt as much anymore, but they don’t work too well. Nurse Margie promises me I will walk again. She helps me in the pool they have here. It’s a pool that is inside! Can you believe that? It’s warm and really feels good. When I’m in it, I forget I can’t walk. But then I get out again.

But I know I’m lucky. In the ward next to me are boys and girls who can’t breathe on their own, so they have to lie in these machines the size of Daddy’s old coffin boxes, with just their heads sticking out. They call it an iron lung.

I’m lucky my lungs are still working. I’m also really tired. I hope so much that I can see you this weekend and hand this right to you. But if I can’t, know I miss you something fierce.

Sorry I won’t be there for Halloween. What are you going to be? I remember last year you liked my princess costume better than your clown one, so you can have it if you want.

Maybe I’ll be home by Christmas—or even sooner—the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

Love,

Charlotte

Yep. My sissy is in a faraway hospital, full of pain, but she still called herself lucky. That’s my sissy.

I’d plumb forgot Halloween was so close. We always loved dressing up for it. Last year, we couldn’t go trick-or-treating, since our old town decided, what with the wartime sugar shortage, it didn’t make sense. We still dressed up and did some fun tricks, though—throwing corn kernels at houses, Ivory-soaping the windows. But never the screens—that wasn’t allowed.

It didn’t even matter that we didn’t get treats because of the sugar rationing. With Charlotte, everything was fun.

I had no idea what this town did for Halloween. But no matter what they did, I wouldn’t be wearing Charlotte’s princess costume. She didn’t know all her clothes got burned. Grandma’d probably tell me to be a dang clown again.

Looking at her letter once more, I remembered Charlotte sitting in that wheelchair with her hand on the window—and felt guilty that I’m the reason she got polio in the first place. That’s when the letter started to get all blurry, as I realized I would dress as a clown for the rest of my life if only I could get my princess back.