Eventually he says, over his shoulder, “This doctor is an expert. I got his name from Dr. Heald. He says he will do only a few tests.”
“How long will we be there?”
“I don’t know.”
“More than one day?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he cut me open?”
He glances back at me. “I don’t know. No point worrying about that.”
The blankets are scratchy against my skin. My stomach feels hollow. “Will you stay with me?”
Papa takes the pipe out of his mouth, tamps it with a finger. Puts it back in and takes a puff. Blackie clip-clops through the mud and we lurch forward.
“Will you?” I insist.
He doesn’t answer and doesn’t look back again.
It takes six hours to reach Rockland. We eat hard-boiled eggs and currant bread and stop once to rest the horse and relieve ourselves in the woods. The closer we get, the more panicked I become. By the time we arrive, Blackie’s back is foamy with sweat. Though it’s cold, I’m sweating too. Papa lifts me out of the buggy and sets me down, ties up the horse and attaches its feed bag. He leads me down the street by one hand, holding the address of the doctor in the other.
I am woozy, trembling with fear. “Please don’t make me, Papa.”
“This doctor could make you well.”
“I’m all right the way I am. I don’t mind it.”
“Do you not want to run and play, like other children?”
“I do run and play.”
“It’s getting worse.”
“I don’t care.”
“Stop it, Christina. Your mother and I know what’s best for you.”
“No, you don’t!”
“How dare you speak to me with this disrespect?” he hisses, then quickly glances around to see if anyone noticed. I know how much he dreads making a scene.
But I can’t help it; I’m crying now. “I’m sorry, Papa. I’m sorry. Don’t make me go. Please.”
“We are trying to make you better!” he says in a violent whisper. “What are you so afraid of?”
Like a slight tidal pull that presages the onset of a huge wave, my childish protests and rebellions have been only a hint of the feelings that well inside me now. What am I so afraid of? That I’ll be treated like a specimen, poked and prodded again, to no end. That the doctor will torture me with racks and braces and splints. That his medical experiments will leave me worse, not better. That Papa will leave and the doctor will keep me here forever, and I’ll never be allowed to go home.
That if it doesn’t work, Papa will be even more disappointed in me.
“I won’t go! You can’t make me!” I wail, wrenching away from him and running down the street.
“You are a mulish, pigheaded girl!” he yells bitterly after me.
I hide in an alley behind a barrel that smells of fish, crouching in the dirty slush. Before long my hands are red and numb, and my cheeks are stinging. Every now and then I see Papa stride by, looking for me. One time he stops on the sidewalk and cranes his neck, peering into the dimness, but then he grunts and moves on. After an hour or so, I can’t take the bitter cold any longer. Dragging my feet, I make my way back to the buggy. Papa is sitting in the driver’s seat, smoking his pipe, the blue wool blanket around his shoulders.
He looks down at me, a grim expression on his face. “Are you ready to go to the doctor?”
I stare back at him. “No.”
My father is stern, but he has little tolerance for public displays. I know this about him, in the way you learn to identify the weak parts of the people you live with. He shakes his head, sucking on his pipe. After a few minutes, he turns abruptly, without a word, and jumps down from the buggy. He lifts me into the back, tightens Blackie’s harness, and climbs back into the driver’s seat. For the entire six-hour ride home he is silent. I gaze at the stark line of the horizon, as severe as a charcoal slash on white paper, the steely sky, a dark spray of crows rising into the air. Bare blue trees just beginning to bud. Everything is ghostly, scrubbed of color, even my hands, marbled like a statue.
When we arrive home, after dark, Mother meets us in the foyer, baby Sam on her hip. “What did they say?” she asks eagerly. “Can they help?”
Papa removes his hat and unwraps his scarf. Mother looks from him to me. I stare at the floor.
“The girl refused.”
“What?”
“She refused. There was nothing I could do.”
Mother’s back stiffens. “I don’t understand. You didn’t take her to the doctor?”
“She wouldn’t go.”
“She wouldn’t go?” Her voice rises. “She wouldn’t go? She is a child.”
Papa pushes past her, removing his coat as he walks. Sam starts to whimper. “It’s her life, Katie.”
“Her life,” my mother spits. “You are her parent!”
“She threw a terrible scene. I could not make her.”
Suddenly she turns to me. “You foolish girl. You have wasted your father’s day and risked your entire future. You are going to be a cripple for the rest of your life. Are you happy about that?”
Sam is starting to cry. Miserably I shake my head.
Mother hands the squalling baby to Papa, who bounces him awkwardly in his arms. Crouching down in front of me, she shakes her finger. “You are your own worst enemy, young lady. And you are a coward. It is senseless to mistake fear for bravery.” Her warm breath is yeasty on my face. “I feel sorry for you. But that’s it. We are done trying to help you. It’s your life, as your poor father said.”
AFTER THIS, WHEN I wake in the morning, I spread my fingers, working out the stiffness that creeps in overnight. I point my toes, feeling the crimp in my ankles, my calves, the dull sore ache behind my knees. The pain in my joints is like a needy pet that won’t leave me alone. But I can’t complain. I’ve forfeited that right.
It’s not long before Andy is at the door again. Awkwardly lugging a tripod, sketchbook under one arm, paintbrush like a bit between his teeth. “Would you mind if I set up my easel somewhere out of the way?” he asks, dumping his supplies in the doorway.
“You mean … in the house?”
He nods his chin toward the stairs. “I was thinking upstairs. If you’re okay with it.”
I’m a little shocked at his nerve. Who shows up unannounced at a virtual stranger’s house and practically asks to move in? “Well, I …”
“I promise to be quiet. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”
Nobody’s been upstairs in years. There are a lot of empty bedrooms. And the truth is, I wouldn’t mind the company.
I