All the Major Constellations (5 page)

WHEN HE GOT HOME, he placed the piece of paper on the kitchen counter and stared at it for a few minutes. He smoothed it out with his fingertips, crumpled it up, and smoothed it out again. Becky trotted into the kitchen and gently nudged him. Becky no longer charged at the door and threw herself at him when he got home. She was getting old, he thought. He took her out for a walk, and for the first time in a long time he carefully avoided Laura's house.

The piece of paper was now in his pocket, burning the proverbial hole. He kept worrying it between his fingers, but then it occurred to him that he might smear the number off or accidentally tear it to shreds. He took it out and made sure it was still legible and whole.

He and Becky had been ambling around for a while when he realized that he was running late for work.

Andrew guessed that Avella Pharmaceuticals employed about a quarter of the town. There were white-collar executives, secretaries, janitors, security, and grounds crew. Then there were consulting doctors and nurses. Local artists had been hired to beautify the interior with paintings and sculptures. There was even an on-site yoga instructor. The Maple Momma catering company hauled lunch up the mountain every day.

Avella was also magnificent to look at. It was a series of large white buildings that were built into the valley of a mountain range. The drive up was steep, hence the moniker “up the mountain” when anyone referred to it, but Andrew knew the phrase meant something about money and class too. It was always kind of fun to downshift his hatchback and crawl up to the gates of Avella. The grounds were kept beautiful by the maintenance department, which quadrupled in size during the warmer months by hiring temporary workers like him. The temps were usually high school or college students.

Andrew arrived just in time. The crew assembled outside the main shed and waited for Neal, the manager, before starting their shift.

“Workin' today?” Cory asked, and spit liberally on the ground. He narrowly avoided his own shoe. Cory was a philosophy major at Cornell. He wore circular wire-rimmed glasses and shaved his goatee for the summers he worked at Avella. It made Andrew laugh, the way these educated college kids affected the speech and style of working-class men.

“That's why I'm here,” Andrew said.

“How's Brian?” Cory asked. Cory was two years older than Andrew and always acted as though he and Brian were old friends. Andrew knew very well that Cory was the kind of guy who Brian had probably shoved into lockers for fun.

Andrew shrugged. Cory grunted. The rest of the crew assembled. There were a few new guys who Andrew didn't recognize, and some old-timers, actual working-class men, who said hello to him.

“Andrew, Cheeve, and Ben: pond duty. Get in,” Neal said. “The rest of you”—Neal glanced at his watch—“start on the bushes on West End. We'll meet up at seventeen hundred hours.”

Andrew was glad to be picked to go into Neal's cart. That usually meant harder work, special projects, but it also meant hanging out with Neal. The men grumbled in unison and went on to their various tasks. Andrew got into the back of the cart. Ben, Neal's son, sat next to his father, and Cheever, an old-timer, sat next to Andrew. Andrew nodded to Cheeve, who nodded back and then spit on the road. Cheeve was extremely intelligent, but unlike the college boys he didn't show it off
or
try to hide it. Cheeve in the cart meant that something sophisticated and mathematical was going on. Andrew was worried; he was good at carrying stuff and digging stuff up, not planning things.

“Okay back there, son?” Neal asked.

“Me? Fine, thank you,” Andrew said.

“Cheeve?”

“Ayup,” Cheeve said.

Neal was a small, compact man. Strong, graceful. He seemed to expend the precise amount of energy required for the task at hand. He inspired respect because he moved with enormous physical confidence despite his lack of size. He was also compassionate and intelligent, gruff but loyal. Neal's son, Ben, was mentally disabled in some subtle, barely discernible way. Ben's age was impossible to determine. His face and its expressions were childlike, but his hands were a little wrinkled, and his hair had a few gray strands. Like his father, Ben was strong and small. He did exactly what was asked of him without an ounce of servility or obsequiousness, but he couldn't do anything too complicated. Andrew admired the father and son—was, in fact, rather jealous of their bond.

“Heard about that accident?” Neal said.

“Damn shame,” said Cheeve.

“Did you know that girl, Andrew?” Neal asked.

“No,” Andrew said quickly. He did not want to cry in front of these guys. Then he felt ashamed and said, “I mean, yes, I know her.”

“Okay,” Neal said. The subject was promptly dropped as Neal and Cheeve started talking about the pond.

When they reached the site, they got out of the cart and reviewed the specs, which Andrew pretended to understand but did not. Neal pointed out various areas that needed to be built up with cement. There was a lot of talk involving equations and chemicals. Cheeve took a sharp pencil from behind his ear and chewed on the eraser while he studied the plans.

“Andrew, you go with Ben,” Neal said.

Andrew nervously followed Ben down a path toward a large pile of bagged unmixed cement.

“Uh, what are we doing exactly?” Andrew asked Ben.

“Haulin' bags of dirt,” Ben said.

“Oh, okay.”

“Over there,” Ben said as he pointed to a distance some ten yards off where a cement mixer sat next to other large pieces of machinery.

“Okay,” Andrew said. He wondered why the cement hadn't simply been dropped off by the mixer, but he decided not to ask. Andrew occasionally got the impression that Neal created work for his son—not all the time, but every once in a while—when there was nothing else to do. Neal liked to keep Ben close.

“How's about I carry the first bag over, and then when I get there, you start in with the next bag?” Ben said.

“Sounds good.”

Ben lugged the first bag over his shoulder and started walking. When he had almost reached the mixer, he turned slightly and nodded. Andrew nodded back, picked up a bag, and followed him. In this way the two of them would constantly cross paths and be able to smile or nod or speak briefly to one another during the work, but not be under the pressure of having to make constant small talk.

Ben liked to make little subtle games out of his workday. When he mowed lawns, Neal always assigned him a partner. Ben made it so that you would start at opposite ends of the field
and then mow toward one another to meet in the middle. The organization of it was soothing to him, but he also derived a companionable pleasure from it, a pleasure to which Andrew was compassionate. Andrew knew he wasn't the best temp worker on the Avella grounds crew, but he almost always got picked to go in Neal's cart simply because he was nice to Ben.

The bags were heavy, and Andrew felt himself tiring after the first hour. He was hungry and thirsty. Every few minutes he checked his pocket and felt the note from Laura. Half of him was saying,
Yes, this is it!
The other half was disgusted with the whole situation. He should be thinking about Sara, not Laura. Laura wanted to counsel and comfort him because of the accident, not because she wanted to hang out with him. And even if she did, how could he possibly be excited and happy about that when Sara was in a goddamn coma? He felt like an asshole. He dropped one of the bags and gave it a hearty kick.

“What did you do that for?” Ben said. He came up behind Andrew and added his bag to the pile.

“I don't know, man.”

“Okay,” Ben said. He turned around and walked away. “Little break then?” he said over his shoulder.

“Yeah.”

They sat under the shade of a weeping willow and drank water mixed with orange Tang. Andrew reached into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper. He stared at the tiny cross next to Laura's phone number. It occurred to him that a cross was a very strange symbol. After all, it was an instrument of torture.
Jesus, man or God or whatever he was, had died in agony. If Jesus had died on the rack, would pretty girls wear gold-dipped racks around their delicate necks? Would sugared racks decorate bakery buns at Easter? He imagined Laura sketching him love notes peppered with racks.
I can't call her,
he thought. Maybe she felt sorry for him, maybe she even felt really bad about Sara, but she was just doing this because of her religion. It was an obligation, nothing more. He would destroy the note. That was the right thing to do. Or was it? He tried to conjure up Sara in his mind. Sara was their unofficial leader. She called the shots, doled out the advice, led by example. Now she was beyond him, beyond helpless.
Where was she?
He lowered his head in his hands.

“Are you all right?” Ben looked at him uncertainly.

Andrew realized he was agitating Ben. “I'm okay. Let's get going.” Andrew stood and clapped him on the back. Ben smiled shyly.

Andrew hoisted a bag over his shoulder and groaned. He watched Ben as he walked toward the mixer with his own easily lifted bag of cement. The sun was in front of him, and Andrew squinted to see Ben turn and wave. He started after him, half dragging his bag. Andrew didn't play sports during the school year and always began the summer feeling a little weak. The bag pressed down on his back, the sun beat down on his head, and in his heart he thought,
I can't call her, I can't call her, I can't call her . . . can I?

HE DREADED GOING BACK TO the hospital. It had only been four days since the accident, but it felt more like four months. Marcia spent her days and nights there, curled up in a ball on one of the chairs in the lounge. She had learned how to suction secretions from Sara's throat, something she was so good at that the nurses let her do it with minimal supervision. The suctioning made Andrew feel nauseated, and he had to leave the room whenever it had to be done. While Janet recovered her senses and Andrew shuffled around the hallways, Marcia had become the captain, the steward, the commanding officer. It was both like and unlike her. It mystified Andrew.

He wondered who was looking after Marcia's mom, and if he ought to check in on her himself. He could swing by before he went to see Sara. Anything, he thought guiltily, to postpone his visit to the hospital.

Marcia's mom was like that old lady in
Great Expectations
whose fiancé jilted her at the altar. The one who forever wore her wedding dress, forever stopped her clocks, and ceased to move forward in life. After her husband had been murdered, Marcia's mom froze herself in a sustained posture of pure grief. There were times, Marcia had confessed to Andrew, that her mom would not speak for weeks. She loved her daughter, but she drifted about her life, and Marcia's life, as if she were a cool, inconsequential breeze on a summer's day. Those were the good days. Other days she would lie in bed, unable to get up, refusing both food and water from her frightened daughter.

Over the years Marcia's mom had gotten a little better. When Marcia was fourteen, she had suggested, and then insisted, that her mother seek help. Mrs. Stryker was now taking medications, but refused to see a therapist. The all-day-in-bed jags had ceased, but the great gulfs of self-imposed silences had not.

Andrew got out of the car and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He looked up at the second-floor window and thought he saw a pair of eyes watching him. A lacy curtain dropped, and the eyes were gone. The door opened suddenly and Andrew stepped back.

“Marcia!” he said.

“Hey,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“I thought I'd check on your mom. Nice to see you out of the hospital.”

“I'm going back in a minute. We need to talk.”

“What's up?” Andrew said as he slipped through the door.

“Come upstairs,” Marcia said.

Andrew had long legs, and he usually took stairs two at time. But at Marcia's house he moved as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. This seemed to be a kind of unwritten rule. Andrew always felt a little nervous in Marcia's house. Marcia and her mother were small people, but their house felt too small, almost shrunken. The furniture was stiff, old-fashioned, and uncomfortably tiny. There was some kind of bizarre Victorian-meets-Asian theme to the décor: bronze statues and red kimonos hung next to prissy lace curtains, a painting of the Buddha in a minuscule, claustrophobic, carpeted bathroom. Empty golden birdcages hung about the ceilings.

When they reached Marcia's bedroom, she closed the door behind her and gestured for him to sit. He sat at her desk and said, “So what's happening?”

“Sara's been transferred.”

“To another floor?”

“No. Out of state. To New Hampshire.”

“What? When?”
Why didn't you call me?
Andrew thought, but squelched the question in his head.

“Hours ago,” she said. “It's a huge teaching hospital. There's a special floor for patients like her. More resources, rehab for when she wakes up. They couldn't really keep her at St. Peter's anyway.”

“But she's okay?”

“Out of the ICU. Stable enough to transfer, anyhow.”

“That's great,” Andrew said.

“She could wake up, you know.”

“Like that guy. The ‘moving through darkness' guy.”

Marcia didn't respond. A man two doors down from Sara had awoken from a brief coma and kept saying that he'd been “moving through darkness.” He'd said it to the doctors, nurses, his wife, and Andrew and Marcia as he was wheeled through the hallways. He didn't seem scared, exactly, but he wasn't happy either. It was more like he was flabbergasted and desperate to communicate what he'd been through.
I was moving through darkness, moving through darkness! Do you know what I mean? Do you understand?

Andrew noticed that Marcia's suitcases were out. “Wait, you're going too?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Marcia—”

“Janet can't take that much time off of work. If she takes a leave of absence, she won't get paid, and more important, she won't get insurance.” Marcia paused, then said, “She's going to make me the proxy.”

“Whoa. Really?”

“I'm eighteen,” Marcia said, her chin set in a stubborn line. “Besides, I won't make actual decisions. It's just so someone is there to talk to the doctors when Janet is working.”

“That sounds like a lot to take on.”

“Yeah,” Marcia said vaguely. She turned from him and opened her top dresser drawer.

“Marcia,” he said.

She didn't respond.

“Marcia, talk to me.” Andrew stood up and grabbed her arm. Marcia was tossing her clothes haphazardly into a suitcase. She dropped a shirt onto the carpet. They both stared at it. It was Sara's shirt; Marcia must have borrowed it. They were always borrowing each other's clothes. Andrew picked it up. It was light green with little painted pink flowers in a circle at the center. A favorite with both of the girls, it was cute without being cloying. The shirt hung off of Marcia's small frame in a way that looked ragged and elegant. On Sara it looked kind of hippie and sweet.

“Sara's shirt?” he said.

“It was mine originally. Not that it matters.”

Andrew handed the shirt to her. “This is kind of nuts. You know that, right?”

“Drew, you realize that Janet has no one else.
Sara
has no one else.”

He looked around her room. It was so neat and clean: books and notebooks all lined up, the bed carefully made, and through a crack in her closet, her graduation gown pressed and hung. “What about graduation?” he asked.

“Give me a break. I'll pick up my diploma later. Jason can make the damn speech.”

“Sara wanted you to do that speech!”

“I'm not going to break down and cry in front of a bunch of people I don't care about!”

Andrew opened his mouth to protest, thought about it, then
closed his mouth. “Okay,” he said. “I get that. What about finals?”

“Done and done.”

“No shit?” Andrew said, almost smiling. “When?”

“About an hour ago. I only had two anyway because with my grades, I got opted out of the rest. Mr. Thibault let me take the physics and English back to back.”

“Awesome.”

“I know. They were actually”—and here Marcia smiled too—“the most stress-free exams I've ever taken. I didn't think about it, didn't even study.”

“More important things to worry about?”

“You can say that again.”

“So, where are you going to stay?”

“The hospital has a place for families of long-term patients. It's like a motel. Janet will come up on her days off.”

“I don't know about this, Mar,” Andrew said. He wanted to say more, but Marcia had a point. And who better than Marcia to deal with all this medical shit? Who better than Marcia, who was used to taking care of her mother, who was going to be a doctor in a few years?

“Your mom's cool with this?” he asked.

“More or less. I'm leaving for college in a couple of months anyway. Now it's just like I'm leaving a little earlier.”

“Hmm,” Andrew said.

“Why is this so weird for you? Actually, I wanted to know if you'd come too.”

“What?” He had not for a moment considered this option.
He felt ashamed. Then he thought of the hospital, of Marcia's eager role in all the proceedings, of his own helplessness. He sat down at Marcia's desk and ran his hands through his hair. He felt the note in his pocket.

“What are you doing?” Marcia asked.

“Nothing,” he said. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and stood.

“Look, I understand if you can't go. I mean, you have your job and your dog and stuff. . . .”

And Laura's phone number,
Andrew thought with a vertiginous lurch of guilt. He struggled to push Laura out of his mind.

“Your parents probably wouldn't want you to come,” she said.

“Brian is home this summer.”

“Oh, shit,” Marcia said. She placed her hand on his arm.

“It's fine. It's whatever.”

“That sucks.”

“Seriously, it's fine.”

“Well, then . . . come with me,” Marcia said. “Come with us,” she urged.

Andrew turned away. He didn't want to go. And there
was
his dog and his job. Those were real things for which he was responsible. He couldn't just bail. But the truth was, he couldn't stand the thought of watching Marcia fuss over Sara's body. He couldn't do those things for Sara, and he wasn't sure that Marcia
should be doing them either. And
fuck fuck fuck . . .
he wanted to call Laura, connect with Laura, be with Laura.

“Listen,” he said, “I really do want to help.”

“It's a nice hospital,” she said.

Hospitals. The toneless hallways that seemed to never end, to rise up at you as in a nightmare. The smells, the noise, the worried or anguished expressions of the patients and their families, the calm, thoughtful blankness of the doctors and nurses. And Sara, half dead, lying in a puddle of tubes and diapers and despair.

“That's great,” he said.

She must have heard the hesitation and dread in his voice because she turned away and said, “It's okay, Andrew. You don't have to go. There won't even be enough room for the three of us when Janet comes.”

“I could sleep on the floor,” he said, but already he felt a rush of relief followed by more guilt.

“Don't be silly. And I get it about your dog and stuff.” Her voice was cool. “You can visit.”

Marcia handed him a piece of paper on which she'd written different phone numbers. “That's where I'll be,” she said. “I'll call you with updates.”

He put the numbers in the same pocket as Laura's note and closed his hand tightly around both. He squeezed until it hurt.