by Ruth Behar
Mami nods and pretends to understand. I listen carefully. I’ll have to explain it all to her later in Spanish.
“How long she will be a mummy?” Papi asks.
“We don’t know,” Dr. Friendlich replies. “Probably about six months . . .”
Papi’s forehead is creased with worry lines. “My daughter . . . she will walk? Or she will not walk?”
Dr. Friendlich pats me on the head. “You want to walk, Ruthie, don’t you?”
“Yes, Doctor,” I whisper.
“Then you will walk,” Dr. Friendlich says. He pats my head again.
To Papi he says, “Give it time.”
Dr. Friendlich spreads the sheet over me. I look through his large glasses and into his eyes. He’s gazing at me with kindness and also with sadness.
“Young lady, pray to God and all the saints and your guardian angels.”
That night I lie in my hospital bed, all alone, without my mother, without my father, without my brother, without my family, without a friend. I do as the doctor says and I make up a prayer.
Dear God,
I came from Cuba to start a new life in the United States of America.
I begged for go-go boots and got them.
I shouldn’t have asked for them. I was showing off too much.
I shouldn’t have been so proud to be Miss Hopscotch Queen of Queens.
I must have done a lot of bad things to end up like this, in a body cast.
My leg is fractured, but all of me broke. Who’ll put me together again?
And I know I’m lucky. I’m not as broken as some other people.
I promise to be good for the rest of my life if you listen to my prayer and make me well again.
I promise I will commiserate with broken people all over the whole wide world from now on and forever.
Thank you,
Ruthie
Part II
MY BED IS MY ISLAND
a baby in diapers again
After a week in the hospital, Dr. Friendlich says I’m ready to go home. Early in the morning, Mami and Papi come to pick me up. Two men named Bobbie and Clay strap me to a stretcher and take me outside.
I am so happy to see the sun again, and the clouds in the sky like shag wool rugs, and people who aren’t sick.
“Is that a bird singing?” I say.
“Yes, child, it took a while, but spring has finally decided to grace us with its presence,” Clay replies. He has a kind and lilting voice.
“You don’t talk like they do in New York. Where are you from?”
“I’m from down south, from Mississippi, where they say the livin’ is easy, but not so much for a man with black skin. I came to New York and I’m never goin’ back.”
Clay smiles and pats my head. Now everyone pats my head. Then he slides me into the back of the ambulance as if shutting a drawer.
Bobbie says, “What do you think, Ruthie? We’ll turn on the siren real loud and watch everyone scoot out of our way. Won’t that be lots of fun?” Bobbie has red hair that glows in the sun like a lightbulb.
“Yeah, lots of fun,” I reply, to be polite, even though I am frightened by the siren’s mournful wail.
Papi sits in front with the men. Mami is crouched on the rickety bench next to me. Off we go, the ambulance racing past yellow and red lights.
Mami clutches the window handle. “Ay, Dios mío, what if we get into another car accident?”
I try to be funny. “Nothing to worry about, Mami! We’re already in an ambulance.”
“Poo, poo,” Mami says. “Don’t joke.”
The ambulance stops, and the wailing siren clicks off. Clay pulls open the door and gives Mami a hand getting down. Then Bobbie comes around, and between him and Clay they slide me out of the ambulance and carry me on the stretcher.
Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Bill are waiting outside. Izzie and Dennis and Lily come running with all the kids from the neighborhood. Bobbie and Clay were right—returning home in an ambulance, with the siren on, is fun.
Except that Danielle is standing on the hopscotch board in her go-go boots. Why doesn’t she come over and say something?
Ava and June and the other kids all crowd around. “Ruthie, Ruthie.”
They demand, “Show us your cast. Come on, let’s see your cast.” And they draw closer to me until I can smell their sweat from playing hard in the sun. I feel nervous. I don’t want to be here. But I’m unable to move or run away.
“Later, okay?” I tell them. “I’ll let you all sign it then.”
“We want to see it now! Now! Now! Now!”
Lily comes and tugs on the blanket, like it’s a game.
“Stop it!” I scream. “No!”
I only have on an undershirt and a blouse. Below the blouse I’m covered by a sheet and a blanket. I can’t wear underwear. It doesn’t fit over the cast. I will die of embarrassment if they see me naked.
Fortunately Bobbie waves his hands, shooing the kids away. “We have to get Ruthie home. Get her settled. Kids, how about you run and play? Another day you’ll visit Ruthie.”
The kids wait, watching. They are all curious.
In his booming voice, Uncle Bill shouts, “You heard what he said. Get going. Come on. Scram.”
Finally the kids scurry off, except for Izzie.
“You can stay. You’re her brother,” Uncle Bill says. “But don’t act wild.”
“Okay,” Izzie says. He steps next to the stretcher, looking at me as if I were not his sister but some kind of strange bug.
Papi leads the way to the entrance of the building. Aunt Sylvia puts an arm around Mami. Uncle Bill takes Izzie’s hand.
We don’t all fit in the elevator. Clay, Bobbie, me, Mami, and Sylvia squeeze in tight.
“We’ll race you!” Izzie says.
Izzie, Papi, and Uncle Bill take the stairs up to the sixth floor. When the elevator opens on our floor, Izzie is already there, panting.
Clay and Bobbie cross through the dining room into the living room and take me down the hall to the bedroom. They whisk me off the stretcher and lift me down slowly into my bed. After white sheets at the hospital, I am glad to see my colorful sheets decorated with yellow and orange marigolds.
“Darlin,’ you take it easy now, you hear?” Clay says.
Bobbie adds, “Bye, kid.”
“But wait! Who will move me from place to place once you two are gone?”
Bobbie looks back at me and shakes his head. “The doctor says you’re not to be moved for a while. Your parents can turn you on your stomach with the pole, but that’s it. You need to lie still. We’ll be back when it’s time to change your cast. See you then. Bye now!”
As Clay and Bobbie go out the door, Izzie comes running in with a package of Chips Ahoy!
“Hey, Roofie, you want a chocolate chip cookie?”
Mami snatches the package from him. “Only one cookie a week for your sister! She can’t gain weight or she won’t fit into the cast.”
“It’s okay, I don’t want any. I’m not hungry,” I say. “But I gotta pee.”
“How are you gonna pee?” Izzie asks.
“Just get out of the room!” I yell. “Don’t you dare come back till I say the coast is clear!”
“Why are you screaming at your brother?” Mami says. “He’s a little boy. He doesn’t know.”
She leaves and comes back with the shiny new bedpan and a roll of toilet paper. She lifts me with the pole, the way the nurse showed her, and slides the bedpan under my backside. The bedpan is ice-cold. It’s made of steel.
I pee a lot.
“Okay, I’m done!” I yell and Mami comes running back.
I dry myself with toilet paper, roll the wet toilet paper in some unused toilet paper, and hand it to Mami. She lifts me and grabs the bedpan, try
ing not to spill the pee all over the bed.
From now on, every time I need to pee, Mami will have to help me.
When I poop too.
Just the other day I felt so grown-up in my go-go boots. And now I’m like a baby in diapers again.
get well
In the morning Mrs. Sarota pays me a visit. It’s the first time a teacher has ever come to our house. She brings a “get well” card signed by the kids in my old class. Their messages have lots of spelling mistakes, but they are so sweet.
Sory you brock your leg, Roothie. Must hert reely bad.
I feel terible you canot go out to the park and play like a regula kid.
Hope u get well reeeeel fassssst.
Mami lifts the sheets on either side of me so Mrs. Sarota can see the cast. I don’t worry anymore about people seeing me naked. Now I keep a towel over my private parts, that way I am always covered.
Mrs. Sarota looks like she’s going to have a heart attack when she sees my body in the cast, the plaster reaching all the way to my chest so I can’t even sit up.
“I’m going to inform the school right away,” she says in a serious voice. “This is terrible. Just terrible.”
I don’t think Mrs. Sarota realizes that she’s making me feel like I’m a rotten person for making her feel so bad.
She asks Mami, “How long will Ruth need to be in the cast?”
Mami glances at me to be sure she understands the question. After I translate it into Spanish, she says, “A long time. The doctor’s muy sorry, muy sad.”
“This is such a pity,” Mrs. Sarota replies. “And I just promoted Ruth.”
Why is Mrs. Sarota talking like I’m not there?
“I’m not going to have to go back to the dumb class, am I?” I ask.
Mrs. Sarota pats my head. Why does everyone pat my head?
“You poor dear,” Mrs. Sarota replies. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help you.”
That afternoon, Ramu slips a letter under the door.
After Mami brings it to me, I just hold it for a while and enjoy its aroma. It smells warm and spicy, and also sweet from the sandalwood incense that Ramu’s mother burns in their apartment to keep the spirits happy.
Ramu writes:
Dear Ruthie,
I hope you get well soon. I am sad you got hurt and didn’t get to join the smart class with me. It is lonely there by myself, not knowing anyone.
I am sorry I can’t visit you. My mother still doesn’t want Avik and me to play with kids who aren’t Indian like us.
I miss you. I promise one day I will sneak out and come see you.
Your friend,
Ramu
P.S. Avik says he also misses you.
I ask Mami for a pen and paper and I write a letter back to Ramu, even though it takes a long time. I have to hold the pad up in the air with one arm and try to carefully write the words down so they don’t come out too sloppy. It’s hard to write when you’re flat on your back and squeezed into a body cast!
Dear Ramu,
Everyone says get well and that is nice, but it will be months and months before I get well. I have to lie in bed and wait. And hope. Even the doctor says there are no guarantees. He told me to pray to God and all the saints. I never used to pray but now I do say little prayers.
I wish you didn’t feel lonely in the smart class. Pretend I’m sitting next to you and we are reading “The Princess Who Could Not Cry” like we used to.
I miss you too. And I miss Avik.
Tell your mother I know about guavas and mangos. That makes me a little bit Indian, don’t you think?
Your friend,
Ruthie
P.S. I’m going to ask Izzie to place this letter in your hands, so you don’t get in trouble.
When Izzie comes home from playing, Mami orders him to wash up and change his clothes before she’ll let him have his chocolate milk.
I hear them yelling at each other in the living room.
“Mami, I’m thirsty! Let me have a sip!”
“No, mi niño. Do as I say, por favor. Or do you want me to tell Papi when he gets home?”
Izzie storms into the room. “Hi, Roofie,” he says. “Mami is being very mean today.”
“She’s just tired, Izzie. But you be a good boy, okay?”
“Okay, thanks, Roofie,” he says and reaches over and hugs me. He smells like the street—like the grass I can’t step on.
Izzie throws open a drawer and pulls out clean pants and a clean shirt. I turn my head as he slips out of the old clothes into the new. We’ve always shared a room, so we’re used to looking away when one of us is changing.
He’s about to rush out of the room, then turns back and asks, “Hey, Roofie, you want some chocolate milk?”
“I can’t have any. Mami says I’ll burst out of the cast,” I tell him, trying to act like it’s funny.
But Izzie realizes it’s not funny. “Sorry, Roofie,” he says. “You can’t have cookies, you can’t have chocolate milk. What can you have that’s good?”
“Maybe you could you get me a glass of water?”
“Sure.”
He runs off on legs that he knows will take him where he wants to go. I’ve already forgotten what that feels like.
A minute later he runs back with the water for me.
“Here, Roofie.”
Izzie watches as I sip the water slowly so I don’t spill it. I dip my face down, as if I had a beak and were a sparrow drinking from a fountain.
“It’s gonna take you till tomorrow to finish that water,” he says.
“That’s okay. I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“Roofie, that’s not funny.”
“Well, in the hospital they had straws. That made it easier.”
Izzie shakes his head and looks sad. He runs out and I hear him say to Mami, “We don’t have any? Not even one?”
Mami says, “Go ask Aunt Sylvia. Maybe she’ll have some.”
The front door slams as Izzie rushes out. I imagine him racing down the stairs to the fourth floor.
Minutes later he’s back.
“Look what I got you, Roofie.”
He passes me a straw and I drop it in the glass. Finally I can hold the glass straight. It’s a relief to hear that slurping sound as I drink my way down to the bottom. “That was sweet of you, Izzie,” I say.
He shrugs.
I look at my little brother and now I notice the bald spot on the side of his head where they shaved his hair. I realize no one’s been telling him to get well, no one’s been trying to comfort him. He was in the accident too.
“I was wondering, Izzie, those stitches on your head, do they hurt?”
“Sometimes they hurt. Papi said not to complain.”
“Well, you can complain to me. I promise not to tell anybody.”
Izzie draws closer and whispers in my ear, “The stitches hurt a lot when I put my head down on the pillow, but then I fall asleep and I forget they hurt.”
“The stitches are still fresh. But you’ll be better soon.”
“Roofie, it was spooky. The doctor sewed me up with a needle and thread, like I was a pair of pants.”
“Wow, Izzie, you saw him?”
“Yeah, I was awake.”
“Hey, Izzie . . .”
“What, Roofie?”
I remember the letter to Ramu.
“Can I ask you for a favor?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Will you give this letter to Ramu tomorrow? If you don’t see him on the way to school, then give it to him in the cafeteria. Put it in his hand, okay?”
“Okay.”
Izzie stuffs the letter into his pants pocket.
The next day Izzie gives Ramu my letter in the cafeteria. He comes
home with something hidden inside his lunch box, a gift from Ramu.
“Quick, eat it before Mami finds out,” Izzie says.
It’s a samosa, with the crispy soft potato filling, and it’s a bit spicy and tastes even better than the first time. As I hurry to finish the last delicious bite, I feel a sudden sadness in the pit of my stomach, knowing it will be a long time before I can give my friend Ramu a sweet guava pastry in return.
a teacher all to myself
Mrs. Sarota keeps her promise. The following week the school sends a tutor to our house who will come three times a week.
I’ve never had a teacher all to myself! Her name is Miss Hoffman, but she tells me to call her Joy. She’s wearing bell-bottom pants and a peasant blouse with puffy sleeves, and she has shiny dangling earrings.
“You look like a hippie, not a teacher,” I say.
She laughs. “You’re right, I am a bit of a hippie. I believe in love, peace, and flower power. But I’m also a teacher.”
“That’s good,” I say to Joy. “Because I don’t want them to send me back to the dumb class after missing so much school!”
“That won’t happen,” Joy says. “Not if we keep your brain working. Being bedridden shouldn’t hold you back.”
“Bedridden”? The word sounds to me like a witch’s curse: And you, Ruth, will be BEDRIDDEN for the rest of your days . . .
Mami and Joy set up a chair and table next to my bed and that becomes my classroom.
Joy arrives late in the morning, after Papi has left for work and Izzie has gone to school. Mami makes toasted Thomas’ English muffins for both of us. She gives Joy a whole muffin spread with butter. I get half a muffin with a dab of butter so I don’t get too fat to fit in my cast.
Joy reads out a list of words and asks me to spell each one and tell her what it means. They’re easy words and I know them all.
“Far-out,” Joy says after I get all the words right. “You’re so smart! I’m surprised they kept you in the remedial class for so long.”
