Helen turned and ran down the stairs, hoping Doogie would chase her. With each step, the creases behind her knees felt slippery with sweat, but she wanted to run, feel the air move around her, no matter how hot it was. She wanted escape, action, and freedom from tedium.
She aimed for the front gate. When she was running as fast as she could, she turned and found Doogie loping along beside her. At that moment, Helen’s foot caught on something. Maybe it was one of Bobbie Lee’s toy trucks, or a gardening trowel of Ma’s, or maybe just one of her big feet got in the way—she never figured it out.
But she flew.
She sailed over the flat ground and marveled at the surrounding stillness. The dusty brown yard. The fields stretching beyond the fence. The silent barn. And then she landed with a whoomph!
Pain screamed through her chin, lips, and neck. Everything burned. With the wind knocked out of her, she simply lay in the cloud of dust, lungs straining, eyes tearing from the pain, mind reeling. Doogie’s snout poked her cheek, her breath snuffling hot against Helen’s face. A gurgling sound came from her own throat. She tasted copper in her mouth. She wanted to cough, but something blocked her throat and a bib of blood appeared to be blooming over her pale yellow cotton work shirt. Doogie barked, quick staccato sounds that made the hair on Helen’s arms stand at attention. She tried to pull the shingle from her mouth, but it hurt too much and, defeated, she dropped her hands back to the ground.
From behind her, the screen door banged open. Ma screamed. Bobbie Lee’s high voice whimpered. A stampede of feet. The toes of Pa’s scuffed work boots appeared and a towel was pressed into her neck. Voices rose and fell, but what were they saying? She stopped trying to understand. Her throat burned as if consumed by flames. She closed her eyes and faded from her surroundings.
From far away, Doogie continued to bark.
WHITE SHEETS, WHITE walls. An unnatural, sterile sense of blankness surrounded Helen. She couldn’t move her head.
“Helen,” Ma’s voice said gently from somewhere beside her. “We’re at the hospital. You’ve had an accident. Don’t try to talk.”
She tried to swallow but it felt like trying to jam a boulder down her throat. She gagged, unable to breathe. Her eyes watered.
“There, there,” Ma murmured, but Helen couldn’t see her. She wanted to move, adjust herself from the overwhelming sense of stiffness, but she couldn’t. She wanted to look around, but she couldn’t. Her eyes now watered from frustration, not just pain.
“Bertie, is she awake?”
“Yes,” Ma answered.
“Aha, here she is.” A man’s voice hovered farther away, low and calm, and then a round face with glasses and gray hair bobbed into her vision. Dr. McCubbin. “Helen, we need to stop meeting like this.” Cold hands cupped her cheeks, lifted up her eyelids, prodded her chest. “Your broken wrist mended a lot more easily than this will, but sit tight. I’ve performed a small procedure that will leave you feeling tired for a spell. In fact, you’re going to need a quiet summer. Lots of rest and no talking. You’ve punctured an important part of your throat and it’s going to need time to heal properly.”
The doctor disappeared from Helen’s line of vision. The white wall returned. Her mother’s voice drifted past her, along with the doctor’s. She closed her eyes and slid into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
4.
July 1928
Malden, Massachusetts
LOUISE’S HEART HAMMERED. THE GROUND SPED PAST and gravel pinged off her shins, but she didn’t let up.
When her basketball teammates had led her to the railroad tracks and pointed down the long straightaway, she almost hadn’t believed them. This was where the track club trained? She had been running along these tracks for as long as she could remember and knew this section like the palm of her hand. With a shrug, Louise set off in a pack with the others, not wanting to shoot to the front right away, especially since she was one of the youngest girls out there. She’d be fifteen in the fall and attend the high school. At this point, it was best to fit in, get a read on the different girls. Only after they were done warming up and Coach Quain had explained the interval workout did she allow her gait to lengthen. She rocketed to the front, savoring the feeling of letting loose. When she ran, her thoughts faded and the burn of exertion took over. It hurt, but that was part of running’s draw, hitting the delicate balance between pain and release. It was a relief, a reprieve from thinking too much. From remembering.
When she reached the railroad tie with a splash of red paint on its end, she slowed, turned, and dashed back to where Coach Quain waited, stopwatch in hand. The other girls trailed behind her, their faces splotchy and strained with exertion.
Louise was fast.
For as long as she could remember she had run everywhere.
When most people walked, she ran.
But then there was the accident with her sister and running changed. It became less about having fun and more about testing herself. She needed to be fast. She had memories, painful ones, that reminded her she would never be fast enough to save what was important.
When her basketball teammates encouraged her to go to Coach Quain, the man who sponsored the Onteora Track Club, she wasn’t sure she could do it, yet a curious longing in her wouldn’t let up. Could a stopwatch tell her something she didn’t already know?
Suddenly, the earth seemed to quake. The five o’clock train from the city roared past. She blinked her eyes to keep from getting dizzy as it clattered along beside her, a streak of glistening metal, smoke, and moving parts. Pale faces pressed to the windows, a few grinning and waving. Not until it rounded the bend and disappeared did its import sink in.
Five o’clock.
She needed to get home. Emily could be left in charge only for so long. Louise summoned a final burst of effort and Coach Quain blurred as she sprinted past him and then slowed.
He whistled, looking at his stopwatch. “Now, look at that. You’re the speediest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Pride stirred in her chest.
“You don’t even look winded,” he marveled, appraising her up and down.
In truth, she felt exhausted but had no intention of revealing how hard she had been working. The other girls ran past, their eyes glassy with fatigue, sweaty hair plastered to their foreheads. The exposed skin on their bare legs and arms looked pale, mottled, and vulnerable to the blazing-hot sun, but the darkness of Louise’s skin hid the sizzle of blood coursing through her veins. In a town full of fair-skinned Irish, Louise was from one of the few black families, but Coach Quain didn’t appear to give the color of her skin a second thought.
“I hope you’ll join us. With your natural ability, think how fast you’ll get with a little training and coaching. What do you say?”
“Thank you, sir, but I need to talk to my parents.”
“You do that. We’ll be back out here tomorrow. Same time, same place. You’re young, and I wouldn’t put you in any big meets until next year, although some time trials later this summer season might be useful. Could be good training for a girl with so much potential like you.” He held The Boston Globe out in front of him and pointed to a page. “Did you know girls are running in the Olympics this year? All the way over in Europe? Who knows? Maybe one day this could be you.”