Follow the Stars Home (2 page)

“This is Jennifer Hanson from the emergency room at St. Bernadette's Hospital in New York City. I'm afraid I have some bad news….”

Tim straightened up, the human response to hearing “bad news” and “emergency room” in the same sentence. He hated New York, and so did every other fisherman he knew. Even worse, he despised hospitals and sickness with every bone in his body.

“A woman and child were brought in several hours ago. They have no ID save a card with your boat's name on it.”

“The
Aphrodite?
” he asked, bewildered.

“The woman is slender, with blond hair and fair skin.”

He held on, saying nothing.

“Blue eyes …” the nurse said.

Tim bowed his head, his pulse accelerating. His mind conjured up a pair of familiar periwinkle eyes, searching and ready to laugh. Marsh-gold hair falling to her shoulders, freckles on pale skin. But with a child in New York? It wasn't possible.

“Thirty-four or thirty-five,” the nurse continued. “Type O blood. The child is about twelve, has type AB.”

“I don't know them,” Tim said, his mouth dry. Didn't his daughter have type A? His head felt strange, as if he had the flu. The rough seas getting to him. Payback time for running out on his daughter time and again. He felt guilty enough already, obsessed with the way he lived his life. Malachy had never written him off before, and the old man's final rage had shaken Tim to the core.

Throttling back, Tim turned toward Red's. The docks and pilings were white with snow. Ice clung to the rigging of the big draggers. Woman with a twelve-year-old kid. In New York City? He had thought she was too sick to travel, but she
had
been on Nova Scotia last summer.

“The woman was wearing one earring. A small diamond and sapphire, kind of dangling …”

That did it. Glancing up, Tim saw himself reflected in the wheelhouse glass. Flooded with shame and regret, he remembered the little house by the Hawthorne docks, and he could see those trees his wife had loved so much, the ones with the white flowers that smelled so sweet. She wouldn't be calling him though. Not after what had happened last summer.

“The bag is satin,” the nurse continued. “It has a tag inside, with the name of a place—”

“It came from the Schooner Shop,” Tim said,
clearing his throat. “I gave it to her one Christmas. The earrings belonged to my grandmother….”

“Then, you do know her?” the nurse asked tensely.

“Her name is Dianne Robbins,” Tim said. “She was my wife.”

The Briggs taxi was an old blue Impala. Tim sat in back, staring out the window as the driver sped up Route 35. From the bridge, he saw suburban houses under snow, decorated with wreaths and lights. A few had snowmen in the yard. As they approached the Garden State Parkway, kids bombarded the taxi with snowballs.

“Heh,” the driver said. “I should be offended, but in my day I'd've been doing the same thing, snow like this.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, thinking of himself and his brothers.

“Heading up to the city for a good time?”

“To the hospital,” Tim said, his throat so dry he could hardly speak.

“Hey, man,” the driver said. “Sorry.” He fell silent, and Tim was glad. He didn't want to talk. The heater was pumping and the radio was on. Tim didn't want to tell some stranger his whole life story, how he had been running away for eleven straight years and had been just about to run even farther when he'd gotten this call.

Christmastime. Maybe Malachy had been right about this time of year: Families reunited, women forgave, children got better. Tim had wrecked his chances with everyone. He had stolen Dianne from his brother, married her, then walked away from her and their daughter.

Tim had just barely been able to live with himself all these eleven years, way out at sea. But he had burned his bridges with the old Irishman, the man who had made listening to dolphins off Nova Scotia his lifework, and that had woken him up. Malachy Condon had always urged him to make things right with Dianne. Maybe this was Tim's last chance.

Amy woke up slowly. Her first thought was
Mama!
Her second was
Dianne.
Amy was in a hospital bed. The walls were green and the sheets were white. She had a cast on her arm, which was held up over her head by a metal triangle that looked like a trapeze.

“Is Dianne okay?” she asked the nurse standing by her bed.

“Is that your mother, honey?” the nurse asked.

Amy shook her head. She felt tears hot in her eyes. Her mother was back in Hawthorne. Amy wanted to call her, wanted her to come. “Tell me, please,” she said, choking on a sob. “Is Dianne-” she tried to ask.

The cabdriver took the Holland Tunnel. Tim hadn't been in a tunnel in more years than he could remember. His life was the sea: crustaceans, the price of lobster at the Portland Fish Exchange, cold feet in wet boots, the smell of diesel fuel, and regret.

Tim's life could have been different. Passing the nice houses decorated for Christmas, he wondered why he had given it all away. Once he had had it all: beautiful wife, nice house, prosperous lobstering business. Sometimes he felt guilty for taking Dianne from his brother, but the choice had been hers. She
could have stayed with Alan-the great doctor-if she had wanted, but she had chosen Tim.

“I'm gonna take Hudson Street uptown,” the driver said. “West Side Highway's stopped deader'n hell.”

“Just get me there,” Tim said. Dianne was in some New York hospital, just minutes away now. The closer he got to her, the harder his heart pounded. He had made mistakes, no doubt about it. But maybe he could undo some of them: He could go to the hospital now, see if he could help. Tim was a good guy at heart; his intentions had never been bad. He wanted Dianne to know that.

Maybe she understood already. Hadn't she gotten the nurse to call him?

Tim would like to show Malachy. He hated picturing their last time together: spit flying from Malachy's angry mouth, shouting at Tim as they stood on the Lunenburg dock. Acting more like Alan than Malachy: sanctimonious, looking down on Tim for his shortcomings. But this might be Tim's chance to help Dianne, to prove both Alan and Malachy wrong.

Besides, didn't the stars point to something? Why had Tim been steaming into Point Pleasant instead of somewhere else? He might have bailed into Nantucket, avoided yesterday's storm. Or he could have veered into the Gulf Stream, headed farther south than New Jersey for his first port, had the radio off, not heard the call.

“Dianne,” he said out loud.

New York was filled with people and cars. Couples stood at every street corner. The Empire State Building was lit up green and red. Christmas trees down from Nova Scotia, where Tim had been the
previous summer, filled the city air with the lovely fragrance of deep pine forests. Dianne loved the holidays. She was a good person, full of love, and she saw the holidays as one more chance to make her family happy-to bring joy to their daughter, he was sure.

As he thought of the little girl he had never met, Tim's eyes stung. Dianne had told him her name was Julia. It didn't help that Alan was her pediatrician, that he used to send letters to Tim through Malachy. Tim had torn them all up. The child had been born damaged.

No renegade lobsterman wanted to be reminded of lousy things he'd done. Dianne had given birth to a sick baby, and Tim hadn't been able to handle it. That's what fishing the Atlantic was for: tides and currents and a big lobster boat named after the goddess of love to take him the hell away.

Tim handed the driver a pile of money and jumped out at St. Bernadette's Hospital-a complex of redbrick buildings too huge to figure out. He ran into the ER, pushing past a guard who told him he had to sign in. The nurses were nice. They took one look at him and knew he needed help fast. Tim had been aboard
Aphrodite
for days, and he needed to wash and shave.

“The woman and girl,” he said to the head nurse. “Who were brought in earlier, the accident, you called me …”

“You're the fisherman,” she said kindly, handing him his grandmother's earring.

Tim shuddered and groaned. He dried his face with the oil-stained sleeve of his brown Carhartt jacket. His knuckles were cracked and bloody from winter in northern waters. He clutched the ancient earring Dorothea McIntosh had given Dianne on
their wedding day, and he remembered it sparkling in the Hawthorne sun as they'd said their vows.

Tim had been roaming for so long, searching for something that would help him forget he had run out on his wife and daughter. Julia had been born sick and crippled. Tim had been too afraid to see her.

“Where's Dianne?” he asked, wiping his eyes.

The nurse led him through the hospital. Tim followed, their footsteps echoing down long corridors. The hospital seemed old, several brick buildings connected by a warren of hallways. Accustomed to starlight, Tim blinked under the fluorescent lighting. Entering a more modern wing, they rode an elevator to the twentieth floor.

“I'm taking you to see the child,” the nurse said. “Her mother is still in surgery.”

“No-” Tim began.

“The girl is scared,” the nurse said. “She's hurt, and she's all alone.”

“My daughter,” Tim whispered. Was it really possible? After eleven years, was he about to meet his little girl? His stomach clenched. He had never seen her, but in his imagination she was stunted and palsied, like other damaged children he had seen. By then, sure he was on the brink of meeting her, Tim steeled himself for what he would see.

“In here,” the nurse said, opening a door.

“Which one?” Tim asked.

It was a double room. Both beds were filled. The occupants of each were quiet, their faces in shadow. The nurse indicated the girl with a broken arm. She lay in traction, her arm suspended overhead with lines and crossbars, like the elaborate rigging of a brigantine. Stepping closer, Tim was stunned.

Lying there was a beautiful young girl. Her arm was in a cast, her forehead was bruised, but she was
perfect. Dark lashes lay upon delicate skin. Her face was oval, her nose straight, her lips full. As Tim stared, he began to shake.

“My daughter,” he said, his voice croaking.

“She's waking up,” the nurse said.

The child began to stir. She licked her lips, tried to move her arm. Her cry was awful to hear, and Tim wanted to put his arms around her.

“Oh,” she wept. “My arm hurts.”

“There, honey,” the nurse said soothingly, bending over the girl. She spoke quietly, helping the child to orient herself, blocking Tim from her sight. Tim pulled himself together the best he could. He didn't want to meet his daughter for the first time in shock and looking like Captain Ahab-or worse.

“I want to go home,” the girl cried. “I want to go back to Hawthorne.”

“It's okay,” the nurse said kindly. “You're going to be fine, honey. And you're not alone. There's someone here to see you.”

The young girl blinked. Stepping out from behind the white-clad nurse, Tim watched the child bring him into focus. Blood pounded in his ears like waves smashing over a ship's bow. He tried to smile, not wanting to frighten her. But he needn't have worried. Her fearful expression changed instantly the moment she saw him into one of sheer delight and love.

“Dr. McIntosh!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears.

Tim was too choked up to speak. Hearing only his last name, he thought for one minute that his daughter knew him already. Dianne had showed her his picture. Maybe they kept it on the mantel. They had talked about him all this time.

“Oh, Dr. McIntosh,” she said again, and now Tim heard the rest, the “Doctor.” Shit. She was calling for
his brother. Alan. In her groggy, posttraumatic state, she had caught sight of one McIntosh and mistaken him for the other. Tim's heart fell. He closed his eyes and knew that the little girl had made a mistake.

And so, he thought, probably he had too. But he was going to set it straight. He had to see Dianne.

Conscious only of bright light and searing pain in her arm and head, Dianne moaned. Her eyes tried to focus. Shapes swam before her, green beings saying her name over and over.

“Dianne?” she heard. “Dianne, can you hear me?”

“Mrs. McIntosh, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Amy …”

“Hold steady, that's right.” She felt the pressure of a hand on her forehead. The Plaza, Christmas lights. Headlights came at her, and she cried out. But they weren't headlights. A man in green was standing there, shining a light in her face.

“Dianne, do you know where you are?” came a woman's voice.

“She's lost so much blood,” a male voice said.

“Her pressure's dropping,” came another voice.

“Please, help,” she murmured. Was this a nightmare? She could not move, and her thoughts swarmed in her mind. “Julia,” she mouthed, but she had been with Amy, hadn't she? Julia was at home
with her mother. Alan should be here … if he came, he would know what to do. He would save her. Memory fragments began to materialize, shifting around like parts of a terrible puzzle.

“Mrs. McIntosh,” the nurse said gently. “Amy is being taken care of. Everything we can do is being done. You need to be strong. Stay with us.”

Dianne's mind was fuzzy with pain and injury and blood loss and whatever drugs they had given her. She felt herself losing consciousness. She wished she could open the door and walk through the snow to the marsh. Trying to see, her eyes would hardly focus. She was in New York. That's right, they had come to New York to see
The Nutcracker.

Shivering, thinking of Amy's imagined terror, Dianne cried out in anguish.

“Stay with us, Dianne,” one voice said. “Mrs. McIntosh!” called another. She thought of her home by the Connecticut marshes, her mother and daughter, and Alan. The nurse had called her “Mrs. McIntosh” as if she were still married to Tim. A long time ago Dianne had dated both McIntosh brothers. They had both loved her, and at different times she had loved each of them. Alan was day, Tim was night. Dianne, for whom life had always been gentle, fair, and kind, had chosen the brother with a dark side. She had married Tim, and she had paid a price.

But over the last three magical seasons, she and Alan had started to come back together. For the first time in eleven years, Dianne had just started to love again, and now she lay in this strange bed in a New York hospital, so far from home, feeling as if she were starting to die. She spun back: winter, fall, summer, all the way to last spring….

It was April, and the scent of flowering pear trees filled the air of Hawthorne. The trees had been planted one hundred years earlier, along the brick sidewalks around the waterfront, and their blossoms were white, fragile, and delicate. Looking up as she passed underneath, Dianne Robbins wondered how they survived the fresh sea wind that blew in from the east.

“Flowers, Julia,” she said.

Her daughter slept in the wheelchair, unaware. Reaching up, Dianne stood on her toes to grab hold of the lowest branch and break off a twig. Three perfect blossoms curved from thread-fine stems. The petals were pure white, soft pink in the center. Dianne thought they were beautiful, the more so because they lasted so short a time. The flowering pears of Hawthorne stayed in bloom less than a week.

Julia had once seen a flower and said “la,” her first word. So Dianne placed the twig on her sleeping child's lap and continued on. She passed White Chapel Square, named for the three churches that surrounded it. The sea captains' houses came next, gleaming white Federals with wide columns and green-black shutters, overlooking the harbor and lighthouse. Dianne had always dreamed of living in one of these houses, ever since she was a child.

She slowed in front of the one she loved most. It had an ornate wrought-iron fence surrounding the big yard and sea-flower meadow. At age nine Dianne had stood there gripping the black fence rails and imagining her life as a grown-up. She would be an architect and have a wonderful husband, beautiful children, two golden dogs, and they would all live blissfully in this house on the harbor.

Glancing at her daughter, Dianne pushed the wheelchair faster. The breeze had picked up, and it
was cold for April. Low clouds scudded across the sky, making her wonder about rain. They had been early, with time for a walk after parking the car. But now it was almost three o'clock, time for Julia's appointment with her uncle, Dr. Alan McIntosh.

Alan McIntosh sat as his desk while Mrs. Beaudoin went through Billy's latest pictures in search of the perfect one for the Wall. She was a very young mother-Billy was her first baby-and Alan had long since learned that every patient's mother's goal was to see her child properly enshrined in the collage of photos hanging behind his desk.

“In this one he's drooling,” she said, smiling and proudly handing it over nevertheless. “And in this one he's squinting. He looks just like an old man!”

“He is one,” Alan said, cradling Billy in one arm while he wrote out a prescription for ear drops with his other. “Six months on Tuesday.”

Martha Blake, his nurse, appeared at the door. She raised her eyebrows, as if to ask whether Alan needed help in hurrying Mrs. Beaudoin along. He'd had an emergency at the hospital that morning, so now he was backed up with a packed waiting room. He'd been so busy, he hadn't had time for lunch, and at that moment his stomach let out such a loud grumble that Billy's brown eyes flew open with surprise.

“I like this one where he's squinting,” Alan said, glancing over for permission to hang the picture on the Wall. “He looks like he's thinking deep thoughts.”

Walking Mrs. Beaudoin to the door, he gave her the prescription and told her to keep Billy's ears dry when she bathed him. His office was in an old brush
factory dating back to the early 1800s, and some of the doorways were very low, built for humans two hundred years shorter of bone. Alan, six four since eighth grade, had to duck to walk through.

When he straightened, he saw the waiting room packed with patients: mothers and children everywhere. Children sniffling, huddled at their mothers' sides, trying to read picture books, their big eyes looking in his direction as if the big, bad wolf had just stepped off the page. Only two children looked happy to see him, and they filled his heart with the kind of gratitude he had become a doctor to feel. They were both young girls, just a year apart in age, and only one of them had an appointment.

Amy was sitting in the big playhouse in the corner. She was twelve, slight, with silky, uncombed brown hair and big green eyes, and she was theoretically too old to be playing there. Hidden in shadows, she ducked down so she couldn't be seen by any of the mothers, but she gave Alan a wide grin. He gave her a secret smile, letting her know he was playing the game and would find time to talk to her later.

Julia was in her wheelchair. She had huge, eloquent eyes. When she smiled, every tooth in her mouth showed. Seeing Alan, she let out a bellow of joy, causing her mother to lean over from behind and wrap her in a hug. Dianne Robbins laughed out loud, pressing her lips against Julia's pale cheek. When Dianne looked up, the expression in her blue eyes made her look as happy and carefree as a young girl sailing. Alan started to say he was running late, but something about the moment left him temporarily unable to speak, so he just walked back into his office.

Amy Brooks was invisible. She was as clear as her name: a clean brook that ran over rocks and stones and pebbles, under fallen trees and arched bridges, through dark woods and sunny meadows. Amy was water. People might look in her direction, but they'd see right through her to things on the other side.

Amy felt safe there in Dr. McIntosh's playhouse, and she wasn't sure which part was best. Knowing that Dr. McIntosh was in the next room or sitting in the little house itself. Some lady in Hawthorne had made it to look just like one of those white mansions down by the water. Outside, it had glistening white clapboards and dark green shutters that closed. The heavy blue door swung on brass hinges, with a bronze sea horse door knocker.

A little kid knocked on the door, wanting to come in.

“Grrrr,” Amy growled, like the new puppy in the cage at home. The little kid couldn't see her because she was invisible, but he could hear her. That was enough.

“Mine again,” Amy whispered to the house.

Glancing at her father's watch, a huge Timex weighing down her wrist, she wondered what time Dr. McIntosh would see her. She had had a good day at school-she was a sixth-grader at Hawthorne Middle, three blocks from his office-and she had purposely missed the bus to tell him about it. Just then she heard a strange noise.

It was a kid: From across the room, some child with its back to Amy started making funny sounds, like water trying to flow through a broken pipe. Its mother was pretty, like the golden-haired mother in storybooks, with silver-blue eyes and a smile meant only for the child. The two mothers on either side bent double like jackknives trying to get a peek at
what was wrong. The kid's ratchety noise turned pretty, like a dolphin singing, and suddenly the kid's mother joined in.

The nurse called them, and they disappeared down the corridor. The mother caught Amy's eyes as she passed the playhouse. She smiled but just kept going. When the office door shut behind them, Amy missed their odd song.

“Pretty music,” Alan said.

“Julia was singing,” Dianne said, holding her daughter's hand as the young girl rolled her eyes. “I just joined in.”

“Hi, Julia,” Alan said. He crouched beside Julia's wheelchair, smoothing the white-blond hair back from her face. She leaned into his hand for an instant, eyes closed with what appeared to be deep trust. Dianne stood back, watching.

Alan spoke to Julia. His tone was rich and low, the voice of a very big man. But he spoke gently to Julia, tender and unthreatening, and the girl bowed her head and sighed contentedly. He was her uncle; he had been her doctor for the eleven years she had been alive. In spite of their history, the awkwardness between them, Dianne would never take Julia to anyone else.

Alan encircled Julia with his arms, easily lifting her onto the exam table. She weighed very little: twenty-nine pounds at the last visit. She was a fairy child, with a perfect face and misshapen body. Her head bobbed against her chest, her thin arms flailing slowly about as if she were swimming in the bay. She was wearing jeans, and a navy blue Gap sweatshirt over her T-shirt, and Dr. McIntosh must have just
tickled her because she suddenly gasped. At the sound, Dianne turned away.

She let herself have this fantasy: Julia was healthy, “normal.” She was just like all the other kids in the outer office. She could read books and draw pictures, and when you took her hand, it wasn't ice cold. She would jump and dance and demand her favorite cereal. Dianne would know that her favorite color was blue because Julia said so, not from hours of watching for slight changes of expression as Dianne pointed at colors on a page: red, yellow, green, blue.

Blue! Is that the one you like most, Julia? Blue, sweetheart?

To be a mother and know your own child's heart: Dianne couldn't imagine anything more incredible. Could Julia even distinguish colors, or was Dianne just kidding herself? Julia could not answer Dianne's questions. She made sounds, which experts had told Dianne were not words at all. When she said “la,” it did not mean “flower”; it was only a sound.