“You think I should feel sorry for her too?”
“No, of course not.” Mary lowered her gaze and shifted her weight from side to side. “Sorry,” she mumbled before handing the dress to Louise and hurrying from their berth.
With hands trembling in outrage, Louise snapped the wet dress to shake out the water. She would have hoped, even expected, her teammates to scold Babe or at least say something, but the girls who had convened to see what had happened seemed cowed by the Texan. She sighed. In her annoyance, Louise thrust the dress onto a hook with such force that she heard a small ripping sound come from its waistband.
Sheepish, she turned to Tidye, who stood in her slip, her arms folded across her chest. “Oh, that dress is the least of my concerns. But it sure is starting to feel like you and I are on a different team from the rest of ’em, huh?”
24.
July 1932
Oak Forest Infirmary, Illinois
BETTY AWOKE TO FIND A NURSE HOVERING OVER HER, A woman she didn’t recognize. The nurse raised a thermometer and Betty opened her mouth reflexively to receive it. After a minute or so, the nurse plucked the thermometer from Betty’s mouth and inspected it, smiling. “No fever. No sign of infection. Today’s going to be a good day. I can feel it.”
Mrs. Robinson leaned forward from where she sat by Betty’s side. “I agree,” she said, cocking her head at Betty to check for her reaction.
Betty coughed. What made today any different from the other days? Her hours of wakefulness stretched into a long tunnel of uncertainty. Her mother read books to her, but Betty couldn’t remember what they were. Her father updated her on the newspapers, but none of it stuck with her. Both of her legs were encased in plaster casts from the tips of her toes to the tops of her thighs, while her left arm, also in a plaster cast from her hand to her shoulder, dangled from the ceiling in an elaborate traction system of pulleys and cords. Her life had gone from one of promise to one of pain and doubt. She’d been trying to ignore her worries, lose herself in the haze of medicine that had kept her in a fog, but she knew she needed some answers. “What’s the date? How long have I been here?”
The nurse and her mother looked at each other for a moment before the nurse looked back at Betty and said, “You’ve been here for almost a month.”
It was like a blow to the chest. That long? Minutes, hours, days, daytime, nighttime—everything had become a blur, impossible to measure.
Her mother clasped Betty’s hand. “The nurse told me that she can help you with a bath and then we could do your hair. You know who would like to come and see you?”
Betty shook her head.
Her mother glanced at the lines of cards filling the two windowsills and swallowed. “Bill calls every day to ask about you.” Betty’s stomach gave a sickening lurch, and she turned to look at the vase of daisies on the bedside table; her mother followed her gaze. “He sent those. Aren’t they lovely? Just think, we can get you all fixed up and you can see him.”
The white petals glowed in the indigo shadows of the morning light.
Bill.
Kind, funny, smart, and talented Bill.
Betty scratched at one of the plaster casts entombing her leg. She didn’t remember much from the day of the plane crash, but she did remember Bill proposing. It was the last memory she had. Now that she was injured, what would he make of her? Her mother had not called him Betty’s fiancé. Had he not told anyone about the proposal? Did he still want to marry her?
“You’re looking so much better. Do you feel better? Don’t you want to see Bill?”
Did she? From within her cast, Betty’s knee began to itch. Everything ached and ached, but she felt the weight of her mother’s hopefulness more than anything. “Yes, of course, I can’t wait to see him.”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, she settled into the crisp, fresh sheets on her hospital bed, wearing a pink cotton nightgown instead of her flimsy striped hospital gown. No matter how many lavender sachets her mother sprinkled in the room, the smell of laundry bleach lingered, even over the lily-of-the-valley-scented-shampoo smell of her hair. Her hospital room was finally quiet and empty. After weeks of constantly being surrounded by nurses and her parents, solitude came as a relief. It was like she was a marionette and someone had let go of the strings. She could finally relax.
Her vision swam with tears and she let out a sob. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how hard she had been working to appear cheerful and patient. Not only was her body immobilized, but she could scarcely allow her true feelings to stretch out and reveal themselves for fear of upsetting her parents or disappointing the staff working so hard to make her comfortable. What in the world was going to happen to her? She felt ruined. She wept with a ferocity that frightened her, but gradually her sobs subsided, leaving her raw but relieved and emptied of a weight that had been jammed deep in her throat and chest for weeks.
There was a knock at the door and her mother pushed her head inside the room. “Betty, Bill’s here. Are you ready?”
Betty inhaled deeply and hoped her face didn’t look blotchy from crying.
“Betty!” Bill called as he entered the room. Her mother withdrew to leave the two of them alone, and Betty felt a surprising shyness and almost wished her mother would stay. Bill’s skin shined with good health and summer color, and when he reached the side of her bed and leaned over to embrace her, she could smell the outdoors on him. A tinge of perspiration and the sun-warmed cotton of his shirt. Here in the bland sterility of the hospital, he
