It was the l950s and all parents worried about it. After all, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt caught it and had never walked again without heavy leg braces, and human props at his sides. If someone of his stature contracted Poliomyelitis, then no one was safe.

 Allie was one who was not safe. Nobody knew why. She’d swum in the same pools in the small town near Baltimore as had all the other kids, gone to the same public places like movies and museums, picnics, playgrounds and dances. But Allie caught Polio, and no one else did.

Tall and golden, Allie was so intelligent it astonished everyone. Her hair was long and straight, thick, the color of tall grasses in fall, and her eyes, widely spaced, took on the color of whatever sky Allie stood beneath.

She was one of those multi-gifted youngsters, so good at so many pursuits her parents frequently worried she may never be able to settle on only one thing as a career. Their relief would have been great had they been able to read the future and see their beloved daughter would one-day author three best sellers on important subjects, one written completely in Spanish, and that she would teach literature and the gentle arts at a fine New England university.

Allie could play the piano perfectly without bothering to learn to read music. She won every school contest she ever entered–math, spelling, debate, writing, art, and so excelled at sports she never knew the meaning of junior varsity. Coaches chose her for every team; schoolmates consistently chose her as captain.

And Allie was loved, which amazed, because it is the general rule that perfect golden girls are passionately disliked by their contemporaries. But not Allie.

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She had dozens of swains vying for her attentions, grateful for any glance or smile from her. These young boys all but fell to pieces when she agreed pleasantly to go to a dance or a movie with them.

And then, quite suddenly, Allie vanished one spring and everyone wondered why and everyone knew why. There were hushed conversations on phones and at gatherings on which Allie’s friends eavesdropped and came away in terror of the iron lungs the adults whispered about.

Was Allie in one? Would she never breathe by herself again? Was she lying there silently on her back, staring up at the world in a tilted mirror? Would she never run or play or dance again?

It was too horrible and they would not think about that.

And they heard the word “therapy” a lot then, in those quiet conversations they hid to listen to. A new word for them, and ominous sounding. They also heard the words “pain,” and “paralysis” and “massages” and that maybe soon there would be a vaccination or something, like all the kids got for Smallpox which left a round, pearly scar on their upper arms or thighs, and all those other diseases like measles and Chicken Pox, DPT, so countless many, all but forgotten because vaccinations had made them go away.

Allie’s young friends could not know that she would one day walk, although her leg would have a terrible twist and bend to it, and without a cane, she could go nowhere. They could not know their beloved friend would delightedly work that cane to great advantage all her adult life when she wanted a seat on a bus or a train.

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And then the word finally came; Allie was coming home for Christmas, two years after she’d gotten “sick” and had mysteriously vanished.

She would be in a wheelchair, they said. You mustn’t stare, they said. Try not to notice, they insisted. Not to notice? How?

The kids were afraid. What could they say to Allie? Would she be very different? Scarred? Deformed?

Allie would come to the annual neighborhood Open House Christmas party, a huge affair. Everyone went.

The party began and people arrived. It was festive, a happy occasion, but all everyone spoke of was Allie’s arrival. The pine-scented air was charged with tension.

“She’s here.” Everyone turned, their Christmas punch cups held in the space in front of them, the Christmas napkins soggy and shredding. Then thumps and mechanical scrape sounds came from the front hall.

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Allie’s skinny, shrunken knees came in first, and then the rest of her. She sat in her wheelchair looking small and flat like a paper doll. A sprig of holly was in her now-short golden hair.

She looked up slowly into the tense faces of the people there in that big room, people she’d known all her life, her blue eyes stopping at each person for an instant. And then Allie grinned broadly.

“Merry Christmas, everyone,” she said. “And my, how tall you’ve all grown.”

LC Van Savage is a local writer and can be reached at lcvs@comcast.net.

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