Fever Dreams

Bella Mahaya Carter

Word Count 872

1. Gravity

At ten, my mother, Diana, spiked a high fever. The doctor spoke to her parents in the hallway on the other side of her closed bedroom door.

A light appeared on her ceiling. Diana longed to join it. She levitated out of her body, saw herself asleep in her bed below, and then drifted into the hallway.

“Polio,” the doctor said. “If she survives the night, she’ll never walk again.”

That’s not true! Diana thought, wanting to reassure her parents. Her mother’s hair was uncombed. Her father asked the doctor to leave, then filled a tumbler with bourbon.

2. Quarantined

When the fever broke, Diana awakened with paralyzed legs, a “Quarantined” sign affixed to their front door. Banished by local grocers, her mother had to take the train to shop for food. Neighbors covered their noses and mouths when passing her parents on the street. No one was allowed into the apartment, including her mother’s piano students.

Her parents, Ramón and Madeline, argued about money. Her grandmother, Nonna Dina, sent packages from New Haven, Connecticut, to their apartment in Astoria, Queens: canned tomatoes, lentils, and olive oil. And best of all, knitting needles, skeins of colorful yarn, and written instructions with beautiful, hand-drawn diagrams.

3. Busy Hands, Quiet Mind

Diana loved the smooth feel of knitting needles. At night, their gentle, rhythmic clicking helped her fall asleep. During the day, seated beside her bedroom window on a faded velvet love seat, her hands, unlike her dumb, useless legs, became her best friends. While children ran and laughed in the courtyard outside, Diana counted stitches. She’d gone from being nicknamed “monkey” because of the way she could climb a tree to “cripple.”

4. The Bicycle

For months, Diana dangled her limp, lifeless legs over the edge of her bed, willing them to walk. Ramón encouraged positive thinking. Madeline feared false hope.

Ramón bought Diana a stationary bicycle for Christmas, which he placed in the parlor between the upright and the baby grand. Her mother disapproved because her students had finally returned for their lessons but held her tongue, fearing Ramón’s biting silence and, when drunk, his cutting remarks.

Ramón, inspired by Sister Kenny’s healing work in Australia, devoted countless hours to Diana’s recovery. He’d lift her onto the seat, place his hands on her feet, and cycle her legs. He did this every night after work and before dinner. Later in the evening, he massaged her atrophied muscles with Cocoa Butter.

But the hands healing her legs also wandered between them.

5. Straitjacket

Whenever Diana complained to her mother about Papa’s behavior, she’d say, “He was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing.”

At sixteen—six years into the hand wandering—when her father came to her bed, Diana shoved him so hard he crashed against the mahogany armoire.

Ramón chased Diana into the bathroom, grabbing his bottle of bourbon. He smashed it against the washbasin and held the broken bottle to Diana’s throat.

Sal, their burly neighbor from 2C, intervened. He grabbed Ramón’s ribbed cotton undershirt with one hand and punched his gut with the other. “Papa went down,” Mom said when she told me the story. “He was no match for Sal.”

Ramón was taken away in a straitjacket. He spent the night in Bellevue getting sober. Then, a sanatorium on Long Island.

6. Recollection

“I’d like to share it with Grandma Mimi,” I told my mother after reading her a poem about my grandmother, pregnant at sixteen and forced to marry.

“You can’t do that!” Mom snapped.

“How come?” I asked.

Silence.

I flashed back to a visit I’d had with my grandmother three years earlier when, deep in conversation, staring into her morning coffee, my grandmother whispered, “I was a disappointment to my mother.”

“Why,” I asked, leaning in.

She scraped her kitchen chair over the linoleum floor, stood up, and said, “It was a long time ago.”

Interrupting my daydream memory, Mom blurted in a fiery voice, “My father molested me as a child, and she did nothing to stop it!”

A rush of adrenaline raced through my body. I became lightheaded and dizzy. This explained my mother’s animosity toward my grandmother, which had baffled me for thirty years.

“Why did she have to excuse him?” Mom asked in an injured child’s voice.

After telling Mom how sorry I was, I said, “I’d still like to share my poem with Grandma Mimi. I’d hate to see her drag that secret to her grave.”

Mom’s voice went cold. “If I’d known twenty years ago that you might one day tell your grandmother, I never would have confided in you!”

And then suddenly, as if remembering she was my mother and knowing how much I loved my grandmother, Mom added, “She was a better grandmother than mother—but please don’t read her that poem. Her heart couldn’t take it.”

That felt like a lie. I couldn’t help thinking the real reason was payback.

7. Grave

Mom had been right about the paralysis not being permanent—it only lasted one year—thanks to Papa’s efforts. Mom became an American Youth Hostel Leader at eighteen and toured Europe on a bicycle.

My grandmother took her secret to her grave, never knowing we knew.

Bella is an award-winning author of three books, most recently Where Do You Hang Your Hammock? Finding Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book. A devoted wordsmith and spiritual psychology practitioner, Bella facilitates online writing circles for writers, artists, healers, and seekers. Her writing has appeared in various publications, including The Sun, Lilith, and the Brevity Blog. Visit her online at http://bellamahayacarter.com or on Instagram @bellamahayacarter.