Breathing Room Read online

  She pointed to a door on the other side of the brightly lit area ahead of us. “In there!”

  I knew we could be crossing right in front of the people in the other tunnel. Would they still be far enough back or perhaps too distracted to notice us?

  I had to hope Dena knew what she was doing. And that my legs could move fast. I wasn’t sure of either. Suddenly, as if Sarah sensed I needed her, I heard her voice in my head telling me to count to ten fast. Ten steps and we could be through the door.

  I grabbed Dena’s arm and charged into the light, letting my feet do the math for both of us. Ten steps and we were there—safe!

  But we had to rest. I pulled us forward and into a narrow, deep space where a mop and bucket were stored. Scruffy, grainy sounds wheezed up from my lungs; Dena snorted a cough into her coat’s heavy sleeve. From our dark cubbyhole, we could hear voices and footsteps but could see no people, as if we were hiding among ghosts.

  Finally, Dena tapped my arm and spoke in shorthand. “Now.”

  I followed her up and out into the icy light on the edge of the pavilion. We merged with others on the paths. We hooked arms and walked in slow, sad steps, as if dragging a wagon heavy with Loon Lake sorrows behind us.

  CHAPTER 35

  Good-bye

  DENA’S SIXTEENTH birthday was on February 5, and this time I was ready with a gift for her. In my best handwriting, I’d put together a collection of famous poems. I began with her favorite, “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. I’d read it to her so many times, I could copy it down from memory. I ended with “Tree at My Window” by Robert Frost—the poem I’d given to Sarah for Hanukkah—because Dena had liked his last name. I tied them all together with a piece of yarn from the Activity room.

  I’d wanted to give her the present the night before her birthday, but Dena complained of a headache and was asleep before our evening milk arrived. Dena wouldn’t want any fuss made anyway.

  In the morning, before Nurse Marshall started our routine, she brought in a wheelchair with a large bag resting on it. Dena and I both knew what was happening: she was moving today to the adult ward. She opened her drawer to empty its contents into the bag. She didn’t look at me as she transferred her dragon fan, but I knew just by the careful way she handled it what she was feeling. Same with the picture of Mickey.

  After breakfast, Dr. Keith examined Dena, making sure she got some aspirin for her headache and letting her know he would still be checking on her in her new ward. I was glad to hear that. Then he helped her into the wheelchair and handed the bag to Nurse Marshall to carry.

  I waited, and as they made their way to the door, I got out of bed and placed the poems in Dena’s hand. She said nothing and kept her eyes straight ahead. But as she crossed the threshold, she lifted the poems in salute and said, “Just go on, Evvy. Go on.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Letting Go

  IN MARCH two new girls joined the room alongside the still-unhappy Janelle. The girls, Vera and Gerty, had just turned twelve and were moved up together from the children’s ward. They were thrilled to have each other and remarkably good at tuning Janelle out. Maybe that was easier after living in a ward full of crying children.

  I celebrated my fourteenth birthday with a card and a package from home as the only proof that April 9 was different from any other day. Abe had sent me a little pocket dictionary with a smooth leather cover and a red ribbon to mark the pages. I often fell asleep with it in my hand.

  Father had tucked an old photo of Abe and me inside a Burpee’s seed catalog for spring. Across the cover photo of tulips, he’d written, “With my two lips, I send my love and birthday wishes.” In print so tiny I almost missed it at first, he’d written under “Burpee’s,” “Excuse Mee’s!” Mother gave me some stationery with a fancy E sweeping across the top.

  Grandma had clipped articles, advertisements, and photos—all about the famous Dionne quintuplets. In one picture, the five identical girls were posed with the doctor who had delivered them. Grandma had written on the back of that one—“All doctors good!” As much as Grandma disapproved of the ways people used the quints to make money, she was fascinated by them and assumed because I was a twin I would like reading about them too. I was curious, but not much more than that.

  I got to see Dena sometimes in class and heard from her more about the outside world. “They let us read some of the newspapers,” Dena explained after she told me that Greece, too, had fallen to Hitler. “I’d enlist if they’d ever let me.” Any army would be lucky to get Dena.

  Once, I’d asked her about Nurse Gunderson, and Dena just shook her head. “No news.”

  And then, at the start of May, Mr. Blandiss eloped with one of the patients, both of them leaving Loon Lake AMA—against medical advice—and causing quite a stir. Until they could find a new teacher, our classes were canceled. I didn’t miss the schoolwork, but I was sorry not to see Dena either there or at Activity, since she now worked with the grown-ups. She got a note to me once or twice, but then those stopped coming, as did any real mail from Beverly.

  I’d watched Dr. Keith more closely ever since the trip to visit Nurse Gunderson back in January. Would I be able to tell in his eyes if she had taken a turn for the worse, or maybe even gotten better? Sometimes I wondered if he’d seen the fan we left. If he had, he never said anything, probably thinking it had been given to her by a patient a long time ago.

  In some ways it did feel like a long time ago. With the calendar Grandma had sent me for Christmas I kept better track of the time, but that felt more like a curse than a blessing. It had been seven months since Beverly got discharged, over five since Pearl died and Sarah got transferred, and three since Dena moved up to the adult ward. Hours and days would go by and I wouldn’t think about Nurse Gunderson, at least, not in the way I used to—wanting her back in our room, singing in my ear, and telling us stories about horses or the stars. More and more, I was letting go of life back home too. Now I was the one who had the tall stack of letters tied with a string in my drawer. I always read my mail, but home now felt far away, as if it had been moved to a distant planet where I might not even be able to breathe the strange air.

  The only person I held on to tighter than ever was Sarah.

  One day, as Dr. Keith checked my pulse, I looked up and just asked, “Is Sarah ever coming back to our room?”

  I expected my question to be ignored or, at best, met with a serious look. Instead he answered, “Next week. Her progress has been considerable. You’ll be pleased. I intend for you both to continue your steady improvement. Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” I said, stunned and excited at once.

  “Fine, then.” He listened to my lungs and finished up the exam as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said.

  Sarah’s better! She’s coming back! These words charmed me more than all the fancy ones I’d been finding in the dictionary Abe sent me.

  Then I realized something else: Dr. Keith thought I was getting better too. He had talked about our “steady improvement”—mine as well as Sarah’s. Could that really be true? I hadn’t had a high fever for a long time and had been gaining weight. I’d noticed that my ankles were sticking out from my pajama pants—maybe I was actually growing again! Sometimes I even felt a rustle of energy inside me and wanted to test my legs like a spring colt eager to run.

  Now I just had to prove to myself and to Sarah that we could share a room and still continue to get better. That would be our new promise.

  CHAPTER 37

  Bed Post

  MISS WANDA wheeled Sarah back into the room May 8, 1941, at 9:27 A.M.

  I had just finished my morning glass of buttermilk when I looked up and saw Sarah smiling at me.

  Dr. Keith was right. I was pleased. More than pleased. Her face looked softer and fuller and had some color, as if painted in watercolors now instead of etched in charcoal. I watched her step out of the chair and climb into bed on her own. She still looked skinny, but not so bo
ny and frail.

  Sarah was sorry she hadn’t returned in time to see Dena. And since classes had been canceled, I couldn’t share the good news of Sarah’s return with Dena either. We did laugh together over a funny note Dena had sent Sarah shortly after being moved up to the adult building.

  I knew Dena would be pleased that Sarah and I had made a pact not to talk so much. We’d found a better way to communicate anyway. With the new girls and Janelle in the room with us, we started scribbling notes back and forth instead. That’s how I first told Sarah more about seeing Nurse Gunderson.

  In her notes to me, Sarah wrote that Dr. Keith had loaned her a book on medicine that he got from the university. She’d discovered she really liked the chapter on vision. She drew me some sketches about how the eyeball works.

  I nicknamed our mail system the Bed Post. Our messages eventually got tossed into the brown bags with our soiled tissues, so we didn’t worry too much that Nurse Marshall or anyone else would bother to read them. Over time, we started to write about more private matters.

  Sarah told me more about being Jewish, including how she’d once been jeered by other children at Easter for “killing Jesus.” I’d almost written “Didn’t they know Jesus was Jewish?” then remembered I hadn’t known that fact either until Sarah had told me. So instead I wrote “I’m sorry that happened.” Those few words hardly seemed enough. I wished I could have borrowed Abe’s blue crayon to show her how I really felt.

  But we also wrote back and forth about more lighthearted things. One day Sarah told me she spoke some Yiddish. I didn’t know what Yiddish was but figured if it was a language, people in some country must speak it.

  With Sarah back, the May anniversary of my arrival at Loon Lake seemed bearable. Our flurry of Bed Post notes had me laughing instead of crying about those first miserable weeks here.

  Maybe because Sarah and I had been separated for so many months and could only imagine talking or writing to each other all that time, our system of sending notes back and forth suited us. I liked it best when I made Sarah giggle; she liked it best when she made me think. And we both liked feeling we were getting better—together, one Loon Lake day at a time.

  CHAPTER 38

  Midnight Journey

  “EVVY, WAKE UP,” a voice said.

  A male voice. Familiar but somehow not familiar too. Not Abe’s or my father’s—even in my groggy state I knew that.

  “What?” I lifted my head off the pillow.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” the voice said in such a reassuring way I almost drifted back to sleep.

  “Do you think you could walk a ways, Evvy?” the voice asked.

  The voice—it was Dr. Keith speaking. As my eyes adjusted, I made out his silhouette—his slumped shoulders, his scribbled hair, his wire eyeglasses.

  “I shouldn’t ask this of anyone,” he mumbled.

  “Ask what, Dr. Keith?” I looked around to be certain he wasn’t talking to someone else. “Do you need my help?”

  “Yes, Evvy, I do,” he said. “Or more important, she does.”

  A wave of worry washed over me.

  He leaned over my bed. “Can you get yourself up and into your robe and shoes? I need you to come with me. Now.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, and slid my feet out of bed.

  “I’m coming too!” Sarah called out from the dark.

  Dr. Keith spun on his heel to face Sarah’s bed. “No, Sarah.”

  But she insisted. “I’ll go in a wheelchair, and Evvy can walk.”

  Dr. Keith took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I really shouldn’t have come at all.”

  “But you did,” Sarah said, “and we’re going to help. Just like Evvy helped me.”

  Sarah’s determination fueled my own. “We go together, Dr. Keith, or not at all.”

  He turned away, his shoes scuffing across the floor.

  I couldn’t blame him for leaving. We’d just complicated whatever plan he had. Still, I was disappointed and tried halfheartedly to convince myself that seeing Nurse Gunderson might not be the best idea—for Sarah or for me.

  Then I heard a whir, whir, whir and footsteps. Dr. Keith was back, pushing a wheelchair to Sarah’s bed.

  “She needs you,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Just don’t wake the others.”

  I put on my robe, then grabbed Sarah’s and let Dr. Keith help her into the wheelchair. I made my way to the little closet where Up Patients stored their additional clothes and slipped on my shoes. Then I waited in the blurry darkness for Dr. Keith and Sarah.

  Sarah whispered, “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Can you help her, Evvy?” Dr. Keith didn’t wait for a response. “I’ll wait here.”

  At night, a soft light was left on in the bathroom, making it easier for me to guide Sarah where she needed to be. I had never helped anyone use a toilet before. I faced Sarah, put my arms under hers, and eased her up. She tipped a bit as she pulled down her pajama pants, but I didn’t let her fall. I had to squat down in front of her, face-to-face, and keep my arms on either side so she didn’t lose her balance. I could feel the indentation where Sarah’s rib had been taken out—and hoped my pressing arm didn’t hurt her. For a moment, nothing happened. I crossed my eyes and made a funny face, and we both giggled. Sarah finished, and I helped her back into the wheelchair, to the sink to wash her hands, then out the door.

  Dr. Keith guided us with urgent, quick steps down our familiar hallway to another and then to another not familiar at all.

  The sanatorium looked so different late at night. Had I ever used this corridor to go out to the pavilion? Wasn’t the stairwell on the right instead of the left? Were there always chairs in that alcove?

  In a matter of minutes, I felt as confused as I had my first day at Loon Lake.

  A nurse passed by and bowed her head slightly. “Good evening, Dr. Keith.” Her eyes glided over Sarah and me as if we were invisible.

  He then led us into an area that must have been used for visitors, since we heard no coughing and saw neither patients nor staff. I knew Dena and I had never come through here, though maybe by this point she and I had gone into the tunnels or were skirting along the outside wall. I wished Dena were with us now, but I couldn’t complicate Dr. Keith’s plan further by asking to go get her.

  We stepped out of the building into the cool night air. The stars pulsed overhead, as if to signal we were getting closer to Nurse Gunderson.

  Once in the next building, we faced the elevators. “I know what this will mean to her,” said Dr. Keith as he pushed the button once, then again, then a third time. At last an elevator arrived. Dr. Keith swung Sarah’s chair around and backed into the small space. Then I hurried to step in alongside before the big doors closed. All three of us looked up at the line of numbers, staring at the yellowish 1 as if our concentration alone could lift the elevator off the ground.

  After a long second, the machinery clunked, then surged, and the elevator began going up. We whirred past the second floor. Isn’t that where Nurse Gunderson had been? I was sure of that, but maybe she’d been moved.

  The elevator hummed as it slowed to stop at the third floor. The doors opened onto a busy hall. Nurses scurried about, seeming to go in all directions at once. I gave Sarah a perplexed look. This seemed so different from the quiet floor where Nurse Gunderson had been before.

  Dr. Keith forged ahead through a door and into a place unlike any other I’d seen at Loon Lake. This room was long and narrow, with a single line of beds stretching to both our left and right. Ahead of us was a wall of blackness. Not a wall, I realized, but a series of floor-to-ceiling windows running the length of the room. All the beds faced these opened windows, but there was no breeze; the place still had the musty, sour smell of a forgotten corner in a basement.

  Why had Dr. Keith allowed Nurse Gunderson to be here? Was she being punished because they loved each other?

  Dr. Keith turned left down the aisle that ran between the beds an
d the windows. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at one patient after the next—grown women looking as feeble as babies, some even crying. I wouldn’t have lasted a day here. How could Nurse Gunderson stand it?

  I reached for Sarah as Dr. Keith guided us the last steps.

  And so together, hand in hand, Sarah and I saw her resting like a frail leaf atop the last bed by the wall.

  It wasn’t Nurse Gunderson.

  It was Dena.

  Our Dena.

  “She’s been drifting in and out of a coma,” Dr. Keith said, checking her pulse. “I thought maybe seeing you …” He gave up explaining and stepped back against the wall.

  Sarah pulled her wheelchair in closer as I sank onto the bed. Someone had pushed back the damp strands of Dena’s dark hair, which made her face seem small and naked.

  “Dena, it’s us, Evvy and Sarah,” I whispered.

  Her eyes moved under her half-closed lids. Did she know us? Could she tell we were here? Could she feel our hands holding hers?

  “Dena,” I said again, leaning in close enough to hear her shallow, fast breaths and to feel the fever rising hot from her skin.

  “Tell her a poem,” Sarah said.

  I knew which poem Dena would want to hear. I just didn’t know if I could bear to say it.

  Then I closed my eyes and began reciting her favorite poem.

  INVICTUS

  by William Ernest Henley

  Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.