The War Came Home with Him: a Daughter's Memoir by Catherine Madison

Author:Catherine Madison [Madison, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO000000 Biography & Autobiography / General
ISBN: 9780816698776
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2015-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

It was an April Friday, one of those days when it was impossible to concentrate on anything except the intense pea green of the new grass and the translucent clouds brush-stroking the sky. Usually during PE, boys went to one field and girls to another, but today we were all together, sitting in clumps on the side of the hill that sloped down from the parking lot. Our teachers were chalking off start and finish lines in the flat area below us where we planned to run the races we had practiced all week. We wore gym uniforms: for girls, a white pullover blouse and blue bloomer shorts with an elastic waist and roomy legs that showed your underwear if you weren’t careful. I sat with my arms wrapped around my legs, hoping no one would notice the hair.

Miss Dorfman’s shrill whistle started the meet. My stomach knotted as I waited for my turn at the fifty-yard dash. Usually I was a good sprinter, but this was my first real race. I tried to remember to breathe. I checked my shoelaces and made sure my blouse was tucked in. I wondered whether I should try the starting position that someone had just showed me, but I was afraid I would trip over my feet and mess up. I wanted to win.

Miss Dorfman called my name. I went to the starting line. I decided to run the way I always did, nothing fancy, just faster. The whistle blew, and I took off. I felt the wind rush past my ears and the ground slide under my feet as if I were hardly touching it. My glasses stayed on my nose, and even though my side vision was blurry, I could tell that I was ahead of everyone else. I had never run this fast before, and the finish line was there, right in front of me. I was going to come in first.

Then I was down. On the ground in a heap, hot pain searing my ankle. When I tried to lift my head, I almost threw up. I tasted acid. My limbs quivered. I looked back to where my foot was twisted in the grass. I had stepped in a hole I never saw.

“Don’t get up,” said Miss Dorfman, crouching beside me. “Wait until we can get help. We need to call your parents.”

I did not want that.

“I can walk,” I said. I started to pull myself to a sitting position but quit when I tasted vomit.

“No, you can’t,” she said in a low voice, not barking. “Just wait a minute.”

Teachers flurried about while one of them strode off to make a phone call from the office. I glanced at the other kids, most still in their places on the hillside, a few waiting for the next race. They were watching me, and I tried not to notice. After a few minutes the adults grabbed my arms and legs and scooted me off to the side, where I was out of the way.

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