“Mommy! Mommy! Maaaaaaaaaaa!” I cry out in the night. Where is my mother? My legs hurt so badly. The light on my ceiling clicks on. I see the big pink roses on my wallpaper. My little toy dog, Brownie, is too far away on the maple dresser. I want him. “Mommy, please give me brownie,” I ask. She does. The soft quilt is on the floor. I don’t want it. It’s too hot. My old goose feather pillow is flattened and wet from my sweat. The white sheer curtains billow in the cool night breeze from the dark city backyard. My mommy is beside me in her long nightgown. I am safe.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying and screaming?” mommy asks. She looks at me like she knows something that I don’t know. I’ve seen that look before. This time it scares me. She puts her palm on my forehead. “You’re on fire,” she says. “Does your throat hurt? Your ears? You’re tummy?” she asks. I’m very small; those are too many questions to answer.
“My legs hurt so bad! There’s big pains in them. Please don’t call Uncle Eli. He’s gonna give me a needle,” I tell her between sobs. Mommy rubs my legs and stretches one. “Oooow,” I screech and push her away. I’m really a big girl. But I can’t stop crying. My mommy’s face looks scared like when I fall down and before she sees that I’m okay. She’s leaving my room. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me! Come back!”
She turns and says, “I’m calling Uncle Eli. He’ll come right over. I want my brother to look at you. He’s a wonderful doctor and he’ll make you all better. A little girl with such sore legs shouldn’t wait till morning to be examined.”
I hear mommy talking on the hall telephone in her voice for grownups. “Mommy,” I shout to her, “Tell him I don’t want a needle!” She tells him. I hear the phone hang up, then water running in the bathroom sink. Mommy brings in a wet towel and gently wipes my face and shoulders with it. It feels so cool, so good. I love my mommy. She pushes the hair off my forehead. Daddy is still asleep. The house is quiet. Love is stronger than pain.
The doorbell rings. Mommy runs to the front of the house and opens the door. Uncle Eli rushes in carrying his mysterious black doctor’s bag. He has trousers on over his pajama pants. His striped pajama top looks silly too. He’s so tall. Mommy looks scared again as he sits on the bed next to me, making the mattress squish down under him. “Look at those beautiful rosy cheeks,” he admires me. “Does it hurt here?” he asks as he presses my tummy. I shake my head no. “Here? Here? There?” Nothing hurts there. He does doctor things to my neck and arms and head and back and chest, and he looks in my eyes and ears and mouth with a light.
“How does this feel?” he asks, slowly bending my legs. I scream from the pain. I can’t stop. My mommy starts to cry. I’m sorry I make her cry. I like when she’s happy. Uncle Eli sits me up. I cry louder and a stream from my nose runs into my mouth and makes me choke. He taps my knees with a little hammer. “Now I want to see you walk. I must see you walk,” Uncle Eli commands me. I walk. I walk across the room and back and pick up Brownie on my bed. Everything feels better when I walk. He listens to my chest and taps my knees again.
I look up at my Uncle Eli’s wonderful big face. There are tears behind his glasses. Mommy cries out, “What is it Eli? What is it?”
“It’s not polio, Sally. It’s not polio,” he tells her as he hugs me hard. “It’s just an ordinary virus and growing pains in her legs.”
