must go first,” he told my mother and me. “I’ll get everything ready. Then you’ll come.”
I was already twelve. I begged my father to hurry, worried that the older I got, the harder it would be for the American doctors to cure me.
My mother cried when my father left and every day after that. I wasn’t sure whether she missed him or was afraid of the uncertain future that awaited us.
After a year, my mother and I were able to join my father. We went to Rome first, then flew to America on one of the new “jumbo jets.” Since my uncle, who drove us to the airport, wasn’t allowed to carry me onto the plane, the captain himself, the tallest man I’d ever seen, carried me. He deposited me in my seat, in what resembled a giant bus. There I sat, sick to my stomach and sucking on lemon slices for eight hours.
At the New York International Airport, my father had permission to carry me off the plane.
“You’re in America, gioia!”
He was surprised to see how much I’d developed.
“Our little girl is a signorina now,” my mother told him. I blushed, because being a signorina meant I was already getting my period.
“You won’t need to be carried much longer.” My father kissed me as he lifted me in his arms out of the taxi we took at the airport and carried me into our new home. “Presto guarisci, soon you’ll be cured.” He was triumphant.
He had rented an apartment in Brooklyn “senza scale,” without stairs, which he had furnished completely. He had found “un buon lavoro,” a good job, doing construction. He didn’t mind having to work for a boss. It was the only way to get the best medical insurance for me, which was called Blue Cross. He took the card out of his wallet to show it to me: his Blue Cross card, my ticket to being cured.
Most important, he had found “il migliore ospedale,” the best hospital for me. Every day, as we waited for the call from the admitting office, he repeated, “Presto guarisci. Presto cammini. Soon you’ll be cured. Soon you’ll walk.”
My mother was afraid… of this country so different from Sicily, of the tall buildings and wide streets, of all the people who spoke a language she couldn’t understand. And she was afraid of what the American doctors would do to her daughter.
I knew the doctors would hurt me. The doctors in Italy had always hurt me. How different could the American doctors be? I didn’t quite share my father’s optimism. But, at the same time, I didn’t share my mother’s fear. I was too excited. I couldn’t wait to find out what life in this new country had in store for me.
I didn’t have to wait long. Less than a month after my arrival, I sat with my parents in the admitting office of the Hospital for Special Surgery, in Manhattan, near the East River. My father struggled to answer questions, showing off the English he’d been learning in night school. My mother and I sat next to each other, anxious and confused.
“We have to wait before we can go up to the room,” my father explained, when there were no more questions to answer. And we waited quietly, my mother and I afraid to talk to each other, as if we were in church.
Finally a nurse appeared. She was pushing a wheelchair. My father stood and started speaking in his tentative English. I was sure he was telling her we didn’t need the wheelchair, because he could carry me. The nurse didn’t understand or agree with him. She pushed the wheelchair right up to me and smiled. I smiled back and, lifting myself with my arms, with a swinging motion, managed to sit in it.
I’d never used a wheelchair before, never even seen one. But the feeling of moving on wheels was a familiar one. My mother had pushed me in my baby carriage, and when I started middle school, my father had bought me a bicycle with training wheels. He added a back to the seat, with a handle so I could be pushed.
I wasn’t sure whether it was hard to get wheelchairs in Sicily, or whether my father didn’t want to see me in one. He looked unhappy as he watched me get into the wheelchair. He rushed over and kissed me on the head.
“Don’t be afraid of the chair. It’s only until they cure you.”
I wasn’t afraid. As the nurse pushed me, I savored every second of the smooth ride. My parents had to walk fast to keep up with us. I couldn’t keep my hands from moving down toward the push rims, knowing instinctively what they were for. The nurse must have guessed I was itching to push myself, because somewhere in the middle of a long corridor, she let go of the push handles and pointed straight ahead. “Go!” she said. I knew exactly what she meant. And I knew exactly what to do.
Without hesitation, I took off. Arms pumping, wheels turning. Go! For the first time in my life, I was moving on my own. No one carrying me, no one pushing me. I could go straight ahead. Or curve to the right, or to the left. I could go full speed or slow down to let my parents catch up. Stop and turn around to see how far I got. Then go again!
That day, in that long corridor in that American hospital, I fell in love—with the wheelchair. It was a heavy, ugly hospital wheelchair. Shiny chrome and green vinyl. But I loved it. Arms pumping, wheels turning. Go! On my own. Go! On my way. On my way to start my new life in America.
I was put on a floor with children and teenagers. Since I was thirteen, I went on the side with the teens. I felt very grown-up.
This hospital was different from hospitals in Italy. It was a cheerful place, with colorful pictures on the walls, kids in wheelchairs racing and laughing in the hallways, music coming from the rooms. Some rooms had four beds; some had two. I went to a room with two beds.
“Non aver paura, gioia, don’t be afraid,” my father repeated. But I was excited, not afraid.
Seeing the tears in my mother’s eyes when she kissed me good-bye, I reassured her: “Non ti preoccupare, don’t worry! I like it here.”
My roommate’s name was Rosa. She spoke some Sicilian, which she had learned from her grandmother. My being placed with Rosa was no coincidence. The thoughtfulness of the social worker, who knew I couldn’t speak English, was behind it.
Rosa had polio, like me. She was older, already fifteen, and knew how to put on lipstick and set her hair on pink plastic rollers. She started teaching me English words—pillow, blanket—making me repeat them until I pronounced them right. When I made mistakes she called me babba, dumb. She said her grandmother called her that, so I didn’t mind.
I made friends right away. I was ecstatic. In Sicily, I thought I was the only crippled girl in the world, and here I found myself surrounded by so many disabled girls and boys. The first English words I learned were the names of their different disabilities. Some of the names were difficult for me to pronounce: cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular atrophy… I was glad when I found out I could use acronyms: CP, MD, SMA… The names of other disabilities sounded Italian and were easier to pronounce and to remember: dystonia, spina bifida, osteogenesis imperfecta…
“I don’t understand how you can say osteogenesis imperfecta and not cerebral palsy!” complained one of my new friends, Jane—personally offended, since her disability was cerebral palsy. To make up for the offense, I told her how easy it was for me to understand her. Because of CP, her speech was wonderfully slurred, so I grasped a lot of what she said, while I couldn’t understand the other kids, who spoke too fast. I was glad that in English my disability was called the same as it was in Italian: polio. I didn’t know what I would
