The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

“What are you thinking?” she finally asked.
“He said if I’d started treatment early, I could have had a normal foot.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “Most babies born with clubfeet have them fixed right
away.”
“All the way fixed?”
Susan put her hand on my shoulder. “Yes. All the way.”
I could have always lived outside the one room. I could have been like
Jamie, running fast. I said, “I thought you kept writing to Mam because you
wanted to get rid of us.”
Susan said, “No wonder you were angry.”
I felt fragile, not the way I had when I’d exploded on Christmas Eve, but
the way I’d felt the next morning, when the only thing that kept me together
was Jamie’s smile. Jamie’s and Susan’s smiles.
At home I sat at the table while Susan put the kettle on. “Do you want to
go ride?” she asked. I shook my head. I drank the tea she put in front of me. I
pulled my plait over my shoulder and studied the blue ribbon at the end of it.
Then I pulled off the slipper shoe Susan had made, and pulled off my
stocking, and looked at my foot. The awkward U-shaped ankle. The tiny toes
that curled up, not down. The rough calluses where my skin had torn open
and then healed, over and over again.
Susan said, “It’s not your fault.”
I said, “I always thought it was. I thought I’d done something wrong.”
“I know,” Susan said.
“It’s disgusting,” I said.
Susan said, “I never thought so.”
I searched her face to see if it was a lie. She looked at me steadily. She
said, “If you feel very angry, go outside and throw something.”
I didn’t feel angry. I felt sad. So sad I could get lost in the sadness. But
when I finished my tea, I got out paper and a pencil, and in my very best
handwriting, wrote a letter.
Dear Mam, it said, please let them fix me.