Between them, they carried Eddie. He was wrapped in a blanket even though the July sun had raised the temperature to at least eighty degrees. Laura focused on his eyes, which were enormous. They were wide, not with pain so much as with bewilderment. What was happening to him? Laura knew he was worried. She and Eddie were so close in age—only a year apart—and spent so much time together that she often knew what he was going to say before he said it. And she almost always knew how he’d react to things.
Laura stepped out of the office. She stared at him, and he stared at her, and an invisible cord stretched between them.
“You’ll be all right,” she said in an unnaturally loud voice. “I know you will.”
He didn’t nod, which was their usual signal to each other. Maybe he couldn’t nod. Maybe the fever had drained him of his strength.
The little group made their way toward the top of the stairs. Outside, a horn honked. Laura glanced down to the street and made sure it was Maude’s car. She raced down the stairs, held the front door open, and then darted ahead of them to the car and opened the passenger door. Mama slid into the front seat and held Eddie on her lap. He looked odd half-sitting, half-lying on her. He was eleven and almost as tall as Mama. Gary shut the door and hurried around to the driver’s side. Maude scrunched up and pulled the back of her seat forward so Gary could slide into the back. The door slammed, and they were off.
Laura watched until they disappeared out of sight. Then she turned and climbed the stairs to the second-floor lobby. She took her place in the office. There really wasn’t much to do, which was good. Her breath still came in gasps from all that running, and her heart was heavy with worry. “Dear God, don’t let it be poli—” She couldn’t say the dreaded word aloud for fear that it would make it real. “Please let him be all right.”
She should call Dad, or was Mama doing that? They rarely called the Boeing airplane plant, and Laura didn’t want to be the one to tell Dad anyway. What about her sisters?
Corrine was at the clinic, rolling bandages to send to the war. Margie was at work at the Boeing plant. She could call Ginny, who, at seventeen, had gone over to a friend’s house after they’d finished the hotel work. Laura looked for the number, but she couldn’t find it and discarded that idea.
Okay, she was here, and she could handle this. It wasn’t the actual sitting behind the desk that bothered her. Fear for Eddie clutched at her mind and at her heart. She glanced at the clock on the desk and turned on the radio, which was usually kept on for the war news. Mama must have turned it off earlier when she’d answered the telephone. Bing Crosby was singing “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
The downstairs door opened, and footsteps ascended the stairs. They had a full house, and no one was checking out today, so if it was a stranger, all she had to do was tell the person that there was no room available.
“You in charge today, young lady?” the mailman asked.
“For a while,” Laura said.
He handed her a bundle of letters and then turned and made his way down the stairs.
Ten-year-old Laura had never sorted mail before, but she knew she could do it. The boxes were numbers, and most of them had names on them. With the housing shortage in Seattle, the Edwardses had more permanent renters than those who came in for only a few days. Apartment boxes were on the top row, then the hotel rooms. That was one of the improvements that Dad had installed once they had bought and taken over the hotel. Dad liked organizing things. That’s what made him so good as an engineer. He liked details.
Dad enjoyed his job at Boeing and earned a good salary, but after Eddie’s bout with rheumatic fever, the family had struggled to pay off the doctor’s bills. With Eddie’s complete recovery, the Edwardses bought and moved into the Seattle hotel less than a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Although Laura didn’t really like doing all her hotel chores, she did like living in the city. And most of the hotel residents were now like family. Family … What is happening with Eddie? Laura wondered.
The little clock on the desk ticked, but there was no news from the hospital. Laura half-expected her mother to call. Or maybe there was no time. Maybe … No, she wouldn’t think the worst. Think positive. Think positive. She prayed for Eddie’s recovery. She begged God to make him be all right.
Laura poked the thin letters into the boxes and had to force herself to keep working once she discovered a letter from her brother Bruce in the pile. She quickly finished putting up the mail and then pulled scissors from the desk drawer. With the sharp edge, she unsealed the letter. The paper was so thin, she didn’t dare risk tearing it, for Bruce would have written over every inch.
Her oldest brother was a pretty good war correspondent. This time the letter was whole. There were no words that had been cut out. He hadn’t written anything the censors would remove with their razor-sharp instruments. Laura had seen censors at work on the newsreel at the movies. Troop movements were too important to have leaked in case letters fell into enemy hands. The letters the family got from Bruce were written weeks, even months, earlier. Sometimes they would receive more than one letter a day. Sometimes they wouldn’t get anything from him for several weeks.
She searched the top of the letter and found what she was looking for—June 16. He had written the letter after the D-Day invasion! The family had been waiting and waiting for news. After Laura had seen newsreel footage of the Normandy assault, she had understood the danger soldiers had faced. But if Bruce had been part of D-Day, he’d made it through alive and well!
She celebrated that news in her heart and listened to the clock on the desk ticktock, ticktock.
“Mail come?”
Mr. Arnold from apartment 15 stood at the office window, and Laura was glad she could hand him a letter. His grandson had been headed for England when he left, but now Mr. Arnold figured he was in Italy or France.
Mr. Arnold lovingly fingered the thin letter. “So Dale wrote his old grandpa.” He gave a pleased smile and shuffled back to his room. The next time she saw him, he’d tell her everything Dale had written. He always did.
Laura read and reread Bruce’s letter. He was doing fine but was looking forward to a home-cooked meal when the war was over. He was tired of the rations the army gave him. And he was tired of walking in mud.
Where is Bruce? Laura wondered. She wanted her brother home again and safe. She glanced at the clock. Not quite an hour had passed since Eddie had been taken away. What was the doctor doing to him now? She wanted Eddie home and safe, too. She wished she hadn’t accused him of trying to get out of cleaning the rooms. Eddie had never liked the hotel chores.
Mr. Clauson wheeled down the hall in his wheelchair and collected his mail, causing a small stampede down the halls. Once the mail came in, word traveled fast through the building. Mama had once commented on how glad she was when she could hand mail over to the residents instead of telling them there was nothing for them.
“You’ll probably get news tomorrow,” Laura told disappointed residents. She imagined Mama had told them that before. And she knew how they felt. She wanted news of Eddie right now.
Why didn’t Mama call? Would the doctors have put Eddie in an iron lung? No, that was the worst. Surely he could breathe on his own. She would think the best. For the hundredth time since Eddie had been carried to the car, she sent a prayer heavenward.
The clock on the desk went ticktock, ticktock.
A man with an old plaid suitcase climbed the stairs and asked for a room, and Laura suggested another hotel down the street. She listened to a special radio program on the V-1 flying bombs that Germany had launched on England. No roar of planes overhead had warned the people that bombs were coming. The first bomb had made a buzzing sound and then exploded, flattening two hundred homes at one time.
Would the Japanese launch the V-1 bomb on Seattle? Fear tightened its grip on Laura’s heart. She took deep breaths and watched the minute hand slowly move on the face of the clock.
An
other hour passed. Finally she heard Ginny’s voice drift up the stairs. Corrine was with her, and it was clear from their footsteps that they were slowly making their way up to the lobby.
Laura wanted to shout at them to hurry, but what for? There was nothing they could do but wait for news. She watched the stairs until their heads appeared. They didn’t resemble each other at all. Corrine was blond like Mama, and Ginny had curly dark hair like Dad and Laura. And Eddie.
Laura had remained calm while time had crawled by all afternoon. But now with her sisters there to give her support, she felt a great sob rise up from her heart to her throat.
“Eddie!” The name was barely recognizable as she said it through tears.
“Laura! Where’s Mama?”
“What’s wrong?”
Both girls spoke at once, and Laura’s tears rolled down her cheeks. When she could talk, she told them Eddie’s symptoms.
Corrine gasped. “Poli—”
“Don’t say it!” Laura interrupted. “It can’t be. We were only at the wharf the day the troops went out, and he didn’t play in the water.” That was what Mama constantly warned them about: “Stay out of the afternoon sun, and don’t get in the water.” Laura knew that warning by heart. But Eddie couldn’t have the dreaded disease because even though the day had been warm, the sky had been overcast that afternoon. It had rained before they got back to the hotel.
The girls took turns standing at the window, sitting on the desk, and sitting in the lone chair behind the desk. They stared at the phone while the clock continued to ticktock.
When Laura didn’t think she could stand it anymore, the downstairs door opened, and she heard familiar voices.
The girls rushed out of the office to the stairs. Below were Maude, Mama, and Gary. No Eddie.
They didn’t say a word until they reached the lobby.
Her voice full of weariness edged with fear, Mama said, “It’s polio.”
CHAPTER 2
Laura’s New Job
No!” Laura cried and flung herself into Mama’s arms.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” Mama said. She patted Laura’s back and rested her cheek on Laura’s head. “The tremors are just in his legs now.”
“Is he in an iron lung?” Laura looked up at her mother, hoping against hope that Eddie wasn’t having a machine breathe for him.
“No, honey. His lungs are still okay, but he’s in a special ward.”
“Can we see him?” Ginny asked.
“Only through a glass divider. Girls, we have work to do. We must burn his bedding and scrub anything he’s touched in the last two days. Laura, can you take care of the desk for a while longer? Did you get the mail sorted?”
Laura drew away from Mama’s arms. “It’s all put up.” She went back into the office as Mama and the girls, followed by Gary and Maude, walked down the hall, dividing up the chores of disinfecting the apartment.
What about the rest of the hotel? Was everyone exposed to polio? Maybe everyone would move out. Then what? Would her family have to sell the hotel? And what about the Wakamutsus—the Japanese family who used to live in the hotel? They were in a relocation center in Wyoming now, upon orders from President Roosevelt. What if the family made their way back to Seattle and found the entire hotel empty?
Laura really didn’t know them that well, but she knew Mama and Dad valued their friendship. Her parents had first met Mr. and Mrs. Wakamutsu when the Edwardses bought the hotel in January 1942. Back then, Mr. Wakamutsu was working at the lumber mill. He and his family had been living at the hotel for several years.
Unlike many other people who feared the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Laura’s parents didn’t feel threatened by the Wakamutsus. In fact, Mama said Mrs. Wakamutsu was a big help to her when she was learning the ropes of running the hotel.
A few months later, all Japanese-Americans were required to evacuate Seattle and go to relocation centers and internment camps across the country. Mama and Dad were very sad to see the Wakamutsus leave. Although they had been gone for over two years now, some of their belongings were still here, packed away and waiting for them to return.
Well, the Wakamutsus and an empty hotel were the least of Laura’s worries. And there was nothing she could do about either, so she dismissed those thoughts and concentrated on Eddie. She had asked God to not let him have polio. But God hadn’t answered that prayer. Eddie had the dreaded disease. Would it do any good to pray that Eddie wouldn’t be paralyzed? She didn’t know, but she’d been taught to pray, so she did. She prayed as hard as she could that Eddie would be home soon, running and jumping, playing baseball, and trying to outdo her, just as he’d always done.
In an effort to take her mind off her troubles, she concentrated on the words and sang along with songs on the radio, and she handed out more mail as some of the residents returned from their jobs.
When nineteen-year-old Margie, dressed in coveralls, came in from her shift at the Boeing plant, Laura didn’t tell her about Eddie. She’d let Mama do that. When Dad came home, she again maintained her silence about her brother. When he’d asked what she was doing in the office, she’d told him to go see Mama. She couldn’t talk about it yet. She was too stunned by the terrifying news to do anything but block it out of her mind as best she could.
She gave out a couple more letters. Maude didn’t have any mail from her son. And there sure wasn’t any news for Corrine from her boyfriend. Neil Palmer had been missing in action for more than two years. Corrine hadn’t given up hope that he’d return safely, but secretly Laura had.
“Laura.” Dad stood in the doorway of the office. The fear in his eyes mirrored hers, and in two steps he had enveloped her in a huge hug. Once again Laura’s fears overcame her, and she sobbed in her dad’s arms. When her tears had subsided, he handed her his handkerchief. “How much mail is left?” he asked.
She glanced at the neat boxes. Only a few still held letters. “Four,” she said.
“Let’s deliver them, and then we’ll close the office. We’re going to the hospital to see Eddie.”
“Me, too?”
“Especially you,” he said.
Together they walked the halls and slipped the letters under the residents’ doors. A few minutes later, the family loaded into Dad’s car, and he drove them to the hospital.
“You can just see him through a window,” Mama explained. “He’s going to be all right. We have to believe that.”
Laura wanted desperately to believe Mama. But could she? Maude had said she must think positively about things. Think that Bruce would return safely from the war. Think that the United States would win the war. Think that life would return to normal. Now she could add to her list to think that her brother Eddie—her constant playmate and companion—would be okay.
At the hospital, the family huddled in the hallway to look through the large window, which was about six feet long and three feet high. Laura stood on tiptoes and peered through the glass. She spotted Eddie on the third bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling.
“What are they putting on him?” she asked. Two nurses scurried from bed to bed and were now at Eddie’s side.
“Hot, wet towels,” Mama answered. “They’re to help with the tremors, and we hope they will prevent paralysis.”
Eddie must have felt their stares, for he turned his head slightly and looked right at them. His face clouded up, and Laura could see his tears even through her own tears.
“He needs us!” Laura cried.
“Yes, he does,” Mama said. “Wave at him and smile. We must be strong for him.” Another nurse walked into the polio ward, and Mama knocked on the window to get her attention. “Clifford, there’s the one we need to talk to.” She turned to the others. “Would you all wait outside? Dad and I will be out in a few minutes.”
Gary held the exterior door for the girls, and they stood outside near the entry, waiting for their parents.
They talked about burning Eddie
’s sheets and clothes in the alley. One of the girls mentioned it was fortunate that he hadn’t been anywhere in the hotel during the last two days other than their apartment and room 24—the room where Eddie had been painting walls and repairing screens with their brother Gary and Lee Bentley, the hired boy. Eddie hadn’t contaminated the rest of the rooms. At the time, Laura had thought she was unfortunate, since she’d had to make up extra beds.
Mama and Dad joined them outside.
“What did you find out?” Corrine asked.
“What did the nurse say?” Margie asked.
“Let’s get in the car,” Dad said.
The group silently piled into the car and looked expectantly at Dad, who turned in the driver’s seat to face them.
“His leg tremors are continuing. The head nurse thinks they will lessen soon, but we have to wait and see. The hospital is short-staffed right now, and your mom is going to stay at the hospital with Eddie. That means everyone must take on extra chores to fill in for her.”
“When we get home,” Mama said, “we’ll make a list of chores and assign them. Since I won’t be there to remind you, check off the chores as they are completed.”
“Are you coming back here tonight?” Laura asked.
“Yes. Eddie’s scared.”
Laura nodded. She had seen that in his eyes. If she were in Eddie’s place, she’d be scared, too, and she’d want Mama right beside her. But would that be dangerous for Mama?
Dad started the car. Laura remained silent for the ride home but listened to the others talk about dividing up the chores and making sure the hotel ran smoothly.
Back inside their apartment, Mama made a list of all the things she did. Laura had no idea there were so many things. Everyone was on room detail, which meant sweeping floors and changing sheets as usual. Corrine volunteered to take over the cooking, and Ginny said she’d be in charge of laundry. Laura was assigned to clean the hallways, lobby, and stairs every morning.
“I can put up the mail in the afternoon,” Laura said.
American Triumph: 1939-1945: 4 STORIES IN 1 Page 34
