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Home
We slept in identical twin beds with sharp-edged walnut headboards. Every Friday night, our mother took the warm wax from the Shabbos candles and held it in her hands until it was soft as butter. She pinched and pulled at the translucent lumps until they emerged as a pair of rough white angels, then put one on each headboard before we recited our evening prayer: Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One.”
Problem was, Mom watched me like I was one of her glass animals. She never stopped scrutinizing me for signs of relapse. I was a sickly little pot that must not be allowed to boil.
I would have complained except that I wanted her to watch me closely, so close she could see through my skin. I wanted to be a translucent plastic model, like a snap-together kit of the see-through Visible Woman, so that she could explain me to my doctors when all I could say was “It hurts.”
I discovered that being watched by Mom was not the same thing as being stared at by strangers. We’d barely step out of the house when people would stop us and demand “What’s wrong with her?” as if competing for prizes on a medical quiz show. To my dismay, Mom would provide all they’d need to win the vacation package and the new Cadillac. She laid out the details of spina bifida, its causes and effects, as if deputizing a city-wide cadre in case I had to be rushed to an emergency room. For me, this kind of visibility was like being scraped along the sidewalk.
And what did they see, those starers, those strangers?
A little girl of four or five or six, short for her age, with dark brown hair and brown tortoiseshell cat-eye glasses. She wears a smocked shift that her mother has made because regular girls’ clothes don’t fit so well, one of the lovely hand-sewn dresses designed to cloak the girl’s bulging rib cage and the gibbous swerves of her spine.
Her dresses can’t hide the way the girl walks: an up-and-down-and-sideways oscillation that can be seen from blocks away. The girl’s left ankle folds like a bird’s neck when she turns. Her right leg is two inches too long, badly evened out by the two-inch lift on the left shoe, Boris Karloff shoes in child’s size 3. From strangers’ reactions, you’d have thought that the girl sported fangs, antlers, turquoise plumage, and fourteen tap-dancing legs.
April 25, 1963
I settled into life on Laconia like a cat on its owner’s lap, always expecting to be dislodged from my perch. I returned to Children’s Hospital over and over, yanked back by infections, tests, checkups, more infections, and “procedures” that left their marks on my skin.
Yet on that particular Thursday, I wasn’t the one in the hospital; Mom was. She’d gone into Jewish Hospital several times over the winter, but I wasn’t worried. This was the morning of my fifth birthday party. There was no chance that she’d miss my big giant important day.
Doug and I were staying at Grandma’s house, but I was sure that Mom was about to walk through the door and gather me into her arms. And after the party, we’d all go home to Laconia Avenue, where Mommy would sleep in the room next to mine once again.
I put on my party dress and patrolled the front door, stomping to the rhythm of When is she coming, when is she coming, patent leather party shoes, clack, clack, clack. I turned away from anyone who tried to talk down my one-girl protest march.
My frazzled grandmother sent in Grandpa and Uncle Barry, who sat me down on the gold brocade couch between their four hundred and fifty pounds of baritone Horwitz. Grandpa said, “Riva, we are very, very disappointed in you. Your mother can’t help that she’s not here. She is sick. You understand sick, don’t you?”
Barry added, “It’s time to be a big girl. You’re making us ashamed of you.”
I didn’t feel very big. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
An hour later, I was awash in cake and presents and relatives in droves. I was five years old, and easily distracted into happiness. Grandma’s present was a girl-sized metal stove and sink and refrigerator, complete with pots and dishes that fit exactly inside. My cousins crowded around to play with my new, miniature world.
I picked up the shiniest package: From Mommy and Daddy with Love. Inside was a big blond doll. The name on her box was Chatty Cathy. There was an extra bundle containing a blue velvet coat the color of Cathy’s eyes.
I looked up. My father was turned away, laughing with the uncles. I remembered all over again that my mother wasn’t there.
Second-grade class at the Randall J. Condon School, Cincinnati. I am second from left, front row. Julie is back row, under “March.”
CHAPTER 7
The Island of Dr. Moreau
September 1963
Mom had been in and out of the hospital over the summer, but this day the three of us—Mom, Grandma, and I—were wedged into the front seat of Grandma’s green Pontiac Catalina. It had finally arrived: my First Day of School. And I was totally confused. The neighborhood kids all went to Swifton Elementary, just three blocks away from our house, so why did it look like we were on our way to Children’s Hospital? If Mom and Grandma were lying to me about our destination, something truly awful must be waiting for me at Children’s.
Mom’s voice got more cheerful by the mile. “You’re going to love school. Daddy and I already met your teacher and she’s really nice. You’ll hardly miss me at all.” Grandma chimed in, “Be good, and do what you’re told. But you’re a smart little girl, you have nothing to worry about.” By the time they finished reassuring me, I was a wreck.
We turned onto Rockdale Avenue and got to the intersection with Burnet Avenue, where all the hospitals were lined up like Monopoly hotels, but instead of turning left, Grandma stayed straight on Rockdale and pulled over in front of an unfamiliar building. Definitely not the hospital.
I craned my neck at the silver letters above the entrance:
THE RANDALL J. CONDON SCHOOL
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We checked in with the principal—Mr. Halfter, a Herman Munster look-alike so tall his head seemed to occupy the next floor up. Mom signed his stack of paperwork, then it was off to our next stop: the nurse’s office.
The nurse wore a white uniform, exactly like in the hospital. She took my bag of medical supplies and unpacked it inside a medicine chest that had shelves that went all the way to the ceiling. There were beds in the next room, and out in the hallway I saw kids in wheelchairs or on crutches. This place sure looked like a hospital to me.