For the last year Helen had been reading and rereading the Missouri Daily Observer’s Amsterdam Olympic coverage. The newsprint smudged, the paper turned brittle and yellowed, but she continued to pore over the articles, memorizing the results. Since Miss Thurston had found her in the outbuilding with Jimmy, Helen had been spending more time alone, thinking. She couldn’t change the past, but moving ahead, she could do things that would make everyone proud of her. Reading about the Olympics had given her some ideas.
She proceeded to the barn, went inside, and rummaged around Pa’s worktable for a moment, looking for a hammer. Once she found one, she walked to the barn’s wide entryway, drove a couple of tacks into the dry wooden doorframe, and strung a line of twine across the opening. She then paced a couple of hundred feet down the driveway away from the yard, turned, and raced back toward the barn with everything she had. Her bare feet thundered along the packed-dirt road. Her lungs burned with the sudden exertion. She reached the doorway and pulled through the twine, imagining it was finish tape. Truth be told, she hadn’t made it loose enough and it stung a little across her chest, but she didn’t mind. She welcomed the pain. It told her she had been running fast. Really fast.
When her breathing settled, she reached for the pitchfork leaning against the wall next to her and got to work mucking out the horse’s stall. After she finished her chores in the barn, she headed for the house. Dr. McCubbin’s Model A was parked next to the picket fence by the farmhouse. Helen slowed. What brought him out here? At the fence gate, she paused, peeling a few chips of white paint off the wood with her grubby fingers. Tense voices floated toward her from the open windows of the parlor. She edged toward the house, stopping upon the first step of the porch, listening, and hunching her shoulders, making herself small so no one would see her.
Dr. McCubbin said, “Now, Frank, you must take this seriously. Your wife is to have no more children. All things considered, it’s fortunate this pregnancy ended as it did. Bertie needs some rest, but everything will be fine.”
“Fine?” Pa huffed. “Doc, don’t you see where I live? What farmer doesn’t have a bunch of kids to pull their own weight around the homestead? I need help.”
“You have a mighty strong daughter. Sure, she’s a bit accident-prone, but she’s stronger than most boys her age.”
“A girl.” A derisive snort. “I never wanted her.”
Dr. McCubbin spoke again, assuring Pa that Bobbie Lee would be helpful, but the words dropped away. Helen suddenly felt light-headed and she dropped to the first step of the porch. She rested her skinned elbows on the knees of her overalls, staring into the distance.
I never wanted her.
Her vision blurred with tears.
There were so many ways she had disappointed her parents over the years. She knew Ma wished she could muster enthusiasm for playing an instrument. She knew Pa wished she were a boy. She knew both Ma and Pa were shamed by what she had done with Jimmy. Why, she had shamed herself with that too. She gave an involuntary shudder at that memory and glanced back at the door.
From the sounds of it, Dr. McCubbin would be leaving soon. Desperate to avoid detection, she dashed from the porch steps, out the gate, into the cornfield adjacent to the yard. She galloped along a path where the cornstalks stood tall, blocking her from view. When she reached the far end of the field, near a bare patch of ground, she stopped at the salt lick. No one could see her here. She could be by herself, do some thinking. To keep her lower lip from trembling, she tore a foxtail from next to a cornstalk and placed it in her mouth, the bitter taste of it a welcome distraction from what nagged at her.
I never wanted her.
She lay down on the warm, hard-packed earth. The cornstalks fanned around her, cutting her off from the rest of the world. Above, cumulus clouds swept across the sky. She studied them, playing her favorite game, looking for shapes. A lamb. A pail. A feather. She tried to push Pa’s words from her mind.
I never wanted—no, stop.
She closed her eyes, tried to banish the sick feeling that slithered around her stomach as she thought about Ma’s troubles. At least Dr. McCubbin made it sound like she would be fine after a few days with her feet up. In the distance the rumble of the doc’s automobile revved, but she stayed, savoring the feeling of the sun warming her. Her breath slowed. Her toes splayed out as the cords of her legs loosened. It felt as though she were drifting on one of the clouds overhead.
And then she was running again, surrounded by people smiling and cheering. Hands waved in the air, applauding. She ran and burst through a finish ribbon; a sensation of silk slipped across her chest and arms, almost like walking through a spiderweb. Someone handed her a silver winner’s cup and she held it aloft. It glimmered in the sunlight, blinding her as she turned in a circle so everyone could see. She basked in the crowd’s joy. Hands patted her shoulder. The warmth of victory suffused every inch of her.
Everyone wanted her.
Her eyes cracked open to see blue sky but she closed them again, eager to hold on to the sense that everyone loved her. A line from one of the newspapers about the Olympics came back to her, the typed words drifting across her mind’s eye the same way clouds floated across the sky. When notified by phone, Mr. Robinson said of his daughter reaching the finals, “She’s the
