It Happened at the Fair (34 page)

“It’s at least three feet in diameter. It’s the distance that makes it look so small.”

The wheel lurched again, along with her stomach. The second group began to disembark.

After a bit, he smoothed the hair away from her face. “Do you feel like sitting up? We’ll be getting off soon, and I thought you might want to repair your shirtwaist first.”

Placing a hand against his chest, she pushed herself to a sitting position, then tried to remove her glove but was too weak.

He steadied her on his lap, then pulled the fabric of her blouse together and buttoned it, his knuckles and fingers grazing her skin. It had been a long time since anyone fussed over her. She barely recalled the last time her mother had performed such a task.

It felt much different when he did it.

She studied the side part in his hair, tempted to run her hand through it. Tempted to rest her nose against it. Tempted to breathe in his scent.

But air was still too precious and the patrons of the car were shocked enough as it was, so she stayed put.

Lifting her chin, she allowed him to secure the last few buttons. Though she made eye contact with no one, stares pierced her from all around. She wondered if this was how her students felt when people realized they were deaf.

Her eyes widened. They could lip-read. Those sweet, precious children would be able to see every ugly thing people whispered about them.

Cullen lowered his hands to her waist, bracing her for the next lurch. It wasn’t long in coming.

When they stopped again, he scratched his thumbnail against her waist. “We’ll be next.”

She braved a glance over his shoulder. Men eyed her with lasciviousness. Women eyed her with disgust.

For the first time, she experienced what it was like to be “different.” What her students experienced, through no fault of their own, every single day. This was what she had been trying to protect them from. For if they used sign language in public, it would garner every bit as much attention as she had.

Yet deafness didn’t make them inferior any more than her inability to breathe made her inferior. She was still the same person she’d always been.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said. “I should have known better. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s my fault. I didn’t expect it to bother me.” She wondered if the entire episode had stemmed from a fear of being closed in or launched up into the air.

“You’re okay, though?”

“For now, I think. My stomach is still upset and my limbs are weak, but the rest has gone away.”

He nodded. “Your color looks much better.”

“I still want off this thing and don’t ever want back on.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m sorry for all the chatter in here. I know you saw it.”

She swallowed, having forgotten he could lip-read enough to garner the gist of the conversations around them. “I think I’d have been more prepared for their comments if I’d known I was going to become so frightened. The whole thing took me by surprise.”

“There’s still no cause for what they said.”

“They didn’t know we’d ‘hear’ them.”

“They knew God would.”

She gave him a slight smile, wanting to rest against him again. To thank him for his fierce protectiveness. It was the same protectiveness she felt for her students.

But she couldn’t be with them forever. At some point, they’d have to face the world and its prejudices. And when they did, would lip-reading be enough? The man from the National Association of the Deaf didn’t think so, and if she were completely honest with herself, she didn’t think so either.

No, her students would need as many tools as they could garner, including sign language. For sign language was not only a tool, it was one of the most critical. As was spending time with their parents. She’d been so tied up in her quest to make the children “normal” she ended up making them abnormal. For what could be more unnatural than being wrenched from their parents’ loving arms when they were barely old enough to dress themselves? And then being separated from them for another five years?

She shook her head. She’d been hindering these children for years, all under the guise of benevolence.

She needed to speak with her director. There was no question the school and other deaf advocates had the children’s best interests at heart. The problem was, those who supported sign language accepted difference, while those who supported lip-reading sought equality. What she’d just begun to grasp was the deaf were not one or the other; they were both different and equal.

ENTRANCE TO THE WOMAN’S BUILDING

“A chattering group of women entered the building, a gust of wind filling their skirts like bells until the large wooden door clicked shut behind them.”

CHAPTER

36

Cullen paced outside an infirmary just off the vestibule in the Woman’s Building, then sat on a bench provided by the Board of Lady Managers, then went back to pacing. The intricate tapestry draping one of the soaring walls depicted episodes in William the Conqueror’s rule. It seemed oddly out of place in this building until he read a plaque stating the original had been fashioned by William’s wife. Still, the piece held his interest for no more than a moment before his concern for Della returned.

WOMAN’S BUILDING

“Is everything all right, sir?”

A Columbian Guard approached. He looked much like the others Cullen had seen—tall, fit, and serious. Except this one wore cowpuncher boots.

“You’ve been circling this foyer like a squirrel in a cage,” the man said. “Is there somethin’ I can help you with?”

“No, I’m sorry. I have a . . .” A what? A tutor? A friend? Neither of those came close to what Della had become to him. “The lady I’m with is in the infirmary.”

The guard smiled—not a polite smile but a full-fledged grin. “Is that right? Well, don’t you worry about a thing. The doc in there’s the best of the best.”

“He is?” Cullen glanced at the door. “He’s trained, then?”

“Graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan.” The man puffed up as if he’d been the one to receive the diploma. “And it’s a she, not a he.”

Cullen frowned. “Who’s a she?”

“The doc.”

He took a step back. “He’s a she? Do you mean to tell me my lady isn’t seeing a real doctor?”

The guard narrowed his eyes. “She’s real. And before you say anything else, you probably ought to know she’s my woman.” He looked at the door, pride and affection replacing his irritation.

Cullen tried to process the idea of a female doctor. The guard didn’t seem to notice, though. He simply clapped Cullen’s shoulder and told him again not to worry.

Cullen wasn’t sure that was possible. Della had been weak as a babe. He hoped her distress in the Ferris wheel had been just that—distress. If it was anything more serious, he figured the doc would know. Still, a lady doctor. That was going to take some getting used to.

The guard disappeared around the corner, leaving Cullen alone with his thoughts. He called himself ten kinds of a fool for taking Della to the wheel to begin with. He’d seen what happened in the elevator. The wheel was a hundred times worse. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking.

But he did know that when she turned from white to gray to white, his heart had dropped to his stomach. Every protective instinct he had kicked in. He wanted to shield her from the intrusive eyes of others, from the terror she was experiencing, from the helplessness she felt at not being able to capture enough air. And he wanted to do it for the rest of his life.

A chattering group of women entered the building, a gust of wind filling their skirts like bells until the large wooden door clicked shut behind them.

“I want to be sure to go to the Violet Booth,” one of them said, fluffing her skirt. “It has a little booklet called The Story of the Woman’s Building, but it’s been adapted from Three Girls in a Flat.”

“Has it? How very clever.”

Cullen stopped his pacing and let the women pass, then sought out the bench once more. He stared at the door of the infirmary, his mind finally accepting what his heart had been screaming these last three months. He wasn’t ever going to fall in love with Wanda. And he wasn’t doing her or himself any good by promising to marry her when he was in love with someone else.

Didn’t matter that they’d set a date. Didn’t matter that everyone expected it. What mattered was, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Della.

He’d waited for those exact same feelings to surface with Wanda and had fully expected them to come. But now he knew better. If they hadn’t shown up by now, they weren’t going to show up at all.

If he and Wanda had already been married, that would be different. But they weren’t. And after the scare of losing Della, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. It was time to be honest about his love for her and his sorrow for having tied Wanda up when he shouldn’t have.

Wanda would be heartbroken. Her mother would be livid. Her father . . . he didn’t even want to think about her father. His own family would be shocked as well. Should he write a letter? Wait until he returned home?

But he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to express his feelings now. He wanted to have the freedom to love without guilt.

Della stepped out of the infirmary and into the vestibule.

Leaping off the bench, he strode to her. “What did the doc say? Are you all right?”

She pulled on her gloves. “The doctor was a woman.”

“So I heard.”

“There wasn’t a single man in there at all. Everyone, from the secretary to the nurses to the doctor, is female.”

He glanced at the door, still a bit befuddled.

She touched his arm. “I liked her, Cullen. She was, well, she was wonderful.”

He rubbed his eyes. “So, what was the diagnosis, then?”

“I’m fine. Embarrassed, but fine.”

“You’ve no call to be embarrassed. Did the . . . the doctor say anything else?”

“I’m to stay away from closed-in spaces that soar high above the ground.”

He grimaced. “I’m sorry, Della. I can’t believe I took you up there.”

“It’s not your fault. Neither one of us expected that to happen.” She dusted nonexistent dirt from her skirt. “And I am embarrassed. While we were up there, I made my brain tell my body to quit being ridiculous, but it refused to listen. It just went right ahead and did whatever it pleased.”

“Well, I suggest we heed its warnings. In the meanwhile, I say we call it an early night.” He offered his elbow.

And though they usually talked nonstop, they headed toward Harvell House in silence, both caught up in their own thoughts.

CHAPTER

37