Follow the Stars Home (29 page)

Julia was wheezing. Her eyes were shut, her lids stuck together with yellow crust. Dianne dabbed them with a damp cotton ball. Alan said Julia probably just had a cold. Even so, Dianne felt nervous. She had known Amy was coming over that day, had been looking forward to seeing her, but she wanted to keep Julia isolated. There were so many germs floating around at school.

“How's your back?” her mother asked.

“What?” Dianne asked. “Oh. It's fine.”

“It doesn't look fine,” Lucinda said.

Dianne had thrown her back out carrying Julia upstairs. She had felt the strain the last few days, but everything had been fine until she'd felt the pop-something in her lower back letting go. She had to hold herself in a strange twist, favoring the right side.

“It's fine, Mom,” Dianne said.

Lucinda settled down in the rocking chair. She had her half-glasses on, and she was reading something-a letter maybe. Dianne turned back to Julia, working amber crystals off her yellow eyelashes with the cotton ball.

“What's that?” Dianne asked without turning around.

“It's a poem,” Lucinda said. “By Amy.”

“Really?” Dianne asked, smiling. “Will you read it?”

“Mmm,” Lucinda said, reading intently.

“Mom?” Dianne asked, feeling Julia's head to see if she had a fever. “Will you read Amy's poem to us?”

“I can't, honey,” Lucinda said, rocking. “Amy didn't say I could. I'm sorry, but you'll have to ask her.”

Dianne nodded. She felt hurt, a pang in her heart. Amy hadn't been over much in the last few weeks, and she missed her a lot. She understood that Amy had her own mother, her own home, but that girl had added so much to Dianne's existence. She had brought Julia to life. Made her laugh, understood her language, treated her like a best friend. If only Julia didn't have this cold, Amy could be visiting with them now.

“Is it good?” Dianne asked, admiring her mother's respect for Amy's literary privacy.

“It's wonderful,” Lucinda said, never taking her eyes off the single sheet of lined paper.

Alan got to Dianne's house late that night. He had come straight from the hospital, from doing rounds. He came whenever he could, spending every minute he could with her. Turning into her driveway, he noticed an old car parked in the dead-end turnaround. Alan walked out to the street to see who it was, and the car peeled out. Alan stood there watching the taillights, unsettled because he had glimpsed the driver, who looked like Buddy Slain.

Lucinda stood in the kitchen, cleaning up. She smiled when Alan walked in, kissing him on the cheek. This was becoming a pattern. He didn't live there, but he was sleeping with her daughter, and Lucinda seemed to accept it. Even was happy about it.

“I saved you some clam chowder,” she said. “I'll heat it right up. Salad and bread, a glass of cider …”

“Thanks, Lucinda,” he said. “That sounds great. Listen, have you noticed anyone parking on the street lately?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But teenagers sometimes do. It's a regular lovers' lane down here some nights. The dead end, and all …”

“That's probably it,” Alan said, peering out the window again. The old car had had a teenage look to it, with rock band stickers on the windows and the muffler hanging by baling wire. He wished he could remember Buddy's car, but he had never paid much attention. “Is Dianne with Julia?”

“Yes,” Lucinda said, her lips tightening. “You'd better go on up.”

Alan patted her shoulder. He climbed the stairs. The lights were dim, which meant Julia was asleep.
Coming down the hall, he could hear her breath. It sounded loud and rattling, as if she were verging on pneumonia.

Dianne sat stiffly in the rocking chair by Julia's bed. She beamed at the sight of him, watched as Alan listened to Julia's heart and lungs with his stethoscope. But when she tried to stand, to give him a kiss, she cried out.

“What is it?” he asked.

“My back,” she said sheepishly.

“What happened?” he asked, touching her spine.

“Oh, I pulled something.”

“Carrying Julia upstairs?” Alan asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Alan helped her to the twin bed where Amy had slept during the summer. Just sitting down caused her so much pain, her face twisted up. Alan eased her onto her side, then onto her stomach. He put the pillow on the floor so she could lie flat.

“How's her breathing?” Dianne asked, her voice muffled.

“A little rough,” Alan said. “I brought some antibiotics for her. Lie still.”

“Okay,” Dianne said.

He pushed her shirt up. It was a faded blue cotton shirt with long sleeves, very soft and frayed, and as he worked it up to her shoulders and his hands slipped along the sides of her back, her skin felt smooth and warm. He began to knead her shoulders, feel along her spine. She flinched sharply.

“Is that the spot?” he asked.

“It hurts,” she said.

Alan lightened his touch. He felt excited by her naked back, by the feel of her body. Leaning down, he kissed the back of her head.

She moaned softly. Reaching around, she took his
hand. Guiding it to her lips, she kissed the back of his hand. Gently he eased her arms down at her sides, straightening her spine. She drew in a long breath, letting him do his work. He leaned down to kiss her ear. He rubbed hard in places, soft in others. He worked on each vertebra, counting downward toward her sacrum. She sighed with pleasure. Across the room Julia's breathing was coarse but steady.

“That better?” he whispered into Dianne's ear.

“Much,” she whispered back.

Alan nodded. The light was warm and low. He was with his family, the girls he loved. He wanted to seem calm, to help Dianne relax. She hadn't just strained her back; she was carrying around a load of tension. But inside Alan was churned up.

He knew that things were getting to be too much for Dianne. Julia was too big for her to be carrying up and down stairs. They needed a room on the ground floor. Things were changing this fall, and they would continue to change. Dianne sensed what they didn't know for sure; she had begun spending almost all of her time with Julia, in the house, away from her studio and her work.

Julia was taking the turn. Alan couldn't see what lay ahead, but he felt it coming. He looked across the room. She lay on her side, eyes closed, body drawn into a crescent. She was as much his baby as if she'd been born his daughter instead of his niece. His throat ached with the pain of wanting to be her father, to adopt her before she died.

“Oh, that feels so good,” Dianne murmured.

“Good,” Alan whispered. “Just enjoy it.”

“Mmm …” Dianne said. Her eyes were closed, face turned to the wall. Alan rubbed her back, drawing the covers up around her sides, her breasts, thinking she might be feeling cold. He wanted to
take her into her bedroom, make love to her. But not tonight. Tears had come to Alan's eyes, and he ducked his face to dry them on his shoulder. But they just came back.

“Thank you,” Dianne said.

“For what?” he asked.

“For everything. I'm so happy with you. I never thought I could be so happy.”

“Neither did I, sweetheart,” he whispered.

“It feels like,” Dianne whispered, “we're a family.”

“That's all I've ever wanted,” Alan said, leaning over to kiss the side of her face.

Alan ran before work some mornings, and lately he had found himself going a new way. Instead of circling around Hawthorne Park, behind the library and the arboretum, he had started running along the waterfront. Two days in a row, when he should have been keeping up his pace, he had slowed down just as he reached the big white houses on Water Street.

There it was, the house Dianne had always loved. Running past, Alan noticed the tall windows, the ionic columns, the sunporch, the three chimneys. He saw the wide yard stretching into a meadow, the iron fence, the three outbuildings. From the street it was impossible to guess the layout. The house was large, and he wondered whether there were any bedrooms on the first floor.

Alan wanted to find a new place to live. His house was big and rambling, but it had too many memories. He had lived there his whole time in Hawthorne. Many of Alan's girlfriends had stayed over; Tim had bunked upstairs many nights by himself and, after one late party, with Dianne. He knew
she felt uncomfortable every time she came over. The place needed a lot of work; and there were no first floor rooms that would be suitable for a bedroom.

Maybe he was just dreaming. He hadn't asked Dianne how she felt, whether she'd consider living with him. But what if she would? They had gotten closer since she had returned from her trip; it sometimes felt as if their uncomfortable past belonged to two different people. He caught his breath, leaning on the iron fence. The house looked great, in perfect repair. Whoever lived in it kept it up well. The side yard had fruit trees, a vegetable garden, stone walls. Flower beds overflowed with chrysanthemums.

He wasn't sure, but he thought the first floor looked larger in back. As if it jutted out in an L, right behind that boxwood hedge. They could have their bedrooms back there, his and Dianne's right beside Julia's. So Dianne wouldn't have to carry Julia up the stairs. Buying her this house would mean so much more to Alan than ease and convenience: It would mean making her happy, in as real a way as he could.

Starting up again, he ran toward home. It was getting late, and his first patient was scheduled for nine o'clock. He checked his watch. If he sprinted, he'd have time to shower and change and call his friend Nina Maynard at Hawthorne Realty as soon as he got to the office.

Amy got A's on all her quizzes and tests. She had never made honor roll before, but her teacher told her that if she kept working hard, she'd make it this term. It was going to be a surprise for her mother. Amy felt worried about her mother again, about the way she was still in bed when Amy left for school in the morning, sometimes when Amy came home from school.

“Mom!” Amy called, sitting at the kitchen table.

No answer.

“Mom, want some tea?”

When her mother didn't reply, Amy got up and turned on the stove. The weather had turned cold, and something seemed to be wrong with the furnace. Maybe her mother was staying under the covers just to stay warm. Amy couldn't blame her for that.

Amy found herself making excuses for her mother.
Maybe she's cold
, Amy would think.
Or maybe she was awake during the night, couldn't get back to sleep, needs to catch up on her rest.
Depression was hard for Amy to understand. Her mother's doctor had told her it was anger turned inward. Amy's mother felt so guilty for being angry at her father for dying, she directed that rage at herself instead.

“Why does life have to be so complicated?” Amy wrote. Sitting at the table, she was working on her story. It took place in a small house in a town called Oakville that was an awful lot like Hawthorne. Her main character was a twelve-year-old girl named Catherine who had a mother suffering from depression and a sister who had been born with birth defects. When Amy had especially troubling thoughts, she let Catherine think them. To build her hope for the future, she had Catherine go to the beach, to build beautiful sand castles.

“Hi, honey,” Amy's mother said, coming out of her room. She was wearing a pink bathrobe. Her hair was flat on the left side, and her cheek had pillow marks. She yawned and lit a cigarette.

“I'm making tea,” Amy said. “Want some?”

“Um, sure,” her mother said. She took a seat at the table, and her eyes fell on Amy's story. “What's that?”

“My story.”

“What's it about?”

“It's an adventure,” Amy said, for some reason feeling self-conscious. It was an adventure, only not about the sea, mountaineering, jungles, or space. It was an adventure about a family, lovables and unlovables, who lost each other for a long time and found each other again.

“Sounds very thrilling,” her mother said, but she didn't sound thrilled. Just trying to smile, her lips trembled.

Amy didn't know why that should make her feel so mad, but it did. Why couldn't her mother just smile? Why couldn't she be all-out happy? Amy's own anger scared her a little. She felt so much of it. She kept remembering last summer, when she had shoved Amber and the CWS had practically branded her a violent person. On the other hand, Amy didn't want to turn her fury inward, become depressed as her mother had. It seemed like such a fine balance, so she handed the problem over to Catherine, who was also dealing with oceans of anger.

“Are you depressed today, Mom?” Amy asked.

“Oh, a little,” her mother said.

“You seem tired. I get worried when you're in bed a lot.”

“Don't be, Amy,” her mother said. “I'm doing my best.”

“Taking your medicine?”

“Yes,” her mother said, trying to smile.

“Would it be okay if I brought Orion to live over here?” Amy asked suddenly. “I miss him, and I think Dianne's too busy to spend much time with him.”

“I don't know,” her mother said. “He was Buddy's dog….”

“Dickie,” Amy said out loud, using Buddy's fictional name from her story before she could help herself.

“Who's Dickie?” her mother asked.

“No one,” Amy said. But then, because she felt bad for lying, she said, “He's in my story. He's—”

The kettle began to whistle. Amy's mother stood up, shuffled over to the stove. She took the kettle off the burner, took down two cups, poured the boiling water over the tea bags. Amy had been telling her mother about her story, and she had just walked away. Just as if she hadn't been listening to a word.

“That,” Amy began, and it took every ounce of effort she had to say the words, “makes me mad.”

“What does?”

“When you just walk away,” Amy said. Her eyes filled with hot tears, as if the anger in her chest had boiled the tears before sending them out. Amy was so sick of anger, she could scream.

“I was listening,” her mother said. “Finish telling me about Dickie.”

“It doesn't matter,” Amy said.

“Sure it does,” her mother said, settling down with her tea and cigarette, giving Amy the most sincere smile she'd seen in a few days.

Why was it never like this with Lucinda and Dianne? Amy and her mother had been talking for less than five minutes, and Amy was ready to screech like an owl. Everything about her mother made her mad! The fact she'd been sleeping, the fact she was smoking, the way she pronounced “Dickie” with a smile in her voice, as if he was a cute little baby instead of a repulsive middle-aged creep.

“Tell me the rest,” her mother said.

Amy took a deep breath. She still felt mad, and she didn't like it. Her mother was trying to be nice. For one second she felt like pointing that anger at herself:
You're a jerk, Amy, for being mad at this nice lady who happens to have given
birth
to you who's
doing the best she can.
But wasn't that turning her anger inward, just asking for depression? She'd have to explore this puzzle with Catherine.

“Mom, where are Dad's pictures?” Amy asked instead.

“Photos of Russ?” Her mother said his name.

“Yes.”

“Well, I think most of them are in the attic,” her mother said. “It was hard for me to look at them. For so long. You know? Because I missed him so much.”

Amy nodded. Catherine's father had drowned, and her mother had missed him so much, she'd stuck all their favorite cassette tapes in the basement. When Dickie had found them, he had moved them out to the garage, closer to the garbage.

“Can I put some up?” Amy asked. “In my room?”

“Sure,” her mother said. To Amy's amazement, her mother had ground out her cigarette and pulled down the little trapdoor in the kitchen ceiling. The folding stairs came down, and her mother crawled right up. Amy stood at the base, her heart pounding, and she was still there thirty seconds later when her mother handed her down a brown paper bag.

“Pictures …” Amy said. This was amazing. Buddy's prohibition on talking about or displaying pictures of Russell Brooks had been so deep that Amy hadn't even known these existed. There weren't many, only three: her father as a baby, at his high school graduation, and in a suit jacket.

“He's so handsome there,” Amy's mother said gently, touching her husband's face. “That's from when he tried to quit fishing and take up selling cars. They made him wear a suit and tie, and he told me he was going to choke to death. This was the picture they had hanging on the wall of the showroom.”

“Daddy sold cars?” Amy said, her eyes filling with
awestruck tears. Her father had been incredible. A fisherman, a car salesman …

“Only for a little while. When I was pregnant with you. I was just so scared to have him go out to sea.”

“What kind of cars?” Amy whispered.

“Fords,” her mother said.

Amy tried to picture the Ford logo. She needed to find it so she could add the symbol to her collection, her most important memories and significant objects. The Ford logo would be right up there with fishing boats, dolphins, sand castles, and withering apples.

“This picture hung on the wall for everyone to see?” Amy asked. She had never realized that her father was so well known.

“Yes,” her mother said, fingers trailing across the frame's dusty glass. “Right down there at Brenton Motors. If only he could have stayed with it …if only he hadn't gone back to sea …”

“Don't cry, Mama,” Amy said, feeling her stomach tighten. Tears flowed down her mother's face, dripping all over the picture frames.

“These old pictures,” her mother sobbed, holding them. “They bring it all back. He was a wonderful man, honey. Funny and sweet. Nothing like anyone you've ever known.”

“My dad,” Amy said, arm around her mother's shoulders.

“Russell Brooks,” her mother said. “I was Mrs. Russell Brooks.”

“Mama, he didn't drink a lot, did he?” Amy asked, getting up all her nerve. She didn't even like to put such a thought into words, but she had never quite gotten over Amber's vicious lie.

“No, honey,” her mother said. “Your father never liked liquor. He didn't want his head all fuzzy way out at sea. He didn't drink much at all.”

“I didn't think so,” Amy said. She touched her father's picture and thought about her story. Nothing like this had ever happened to Catherine. No way could Amy imagine Catherine's mother wriggling around the crawl space, coming out with her father's pictures, one of which portrayed him as a Ford dealer. In a suit and tie! Amy liked the distinction between her and Catherine; she wondered how many others would emerge before the story contest deadline.

The best part was, Amy's anger was all gone. It wasn't raging outward, it wasn't turned inward. For the time being, it was just
gone.
She had just enjoyed being with her own mother, the same way she loved being with Dianne, Julia, and Lucinda. For the first time in ages, she loved her own family as much as theirs.

Lucinda walked down the road to get the mail. Among the catalogues and bills, she found a check from Tim McIntosh, his monthly payment on the loan she and Emmett had given him, forwarded to her from the library. Staring at his handwriting, she almost didn't notice the car. It was a rusty old thing, parked in the turnaround, tires looking as if they could use some air.

Walking over, Lucinda saw that it was empty. She glanced around. Sometimes bird-watchers came down here. There was always a lot of ornithological activity in the marsh, with herons, plovers, blackbirds, terns, and songbirds-especially during the spring and fall migrations. Artists also favored the spot, setting up their easels in the reeds. But Lucinda didn't see anyone around.

Sticking Tim's check in her pocket, she strolled toward the house. Dianne was inside with Julia. They had been inseparable lately, ever since Julia had
caught that cold. Alan would come over every night, examine Julia, set Dianne's mind at ease. Lucinda tried to stay out of their way.

She let herself into Dianne's studio. She didn't know why, but she felt like being alone. Lately, with Alan around so much, with his and Dianne's relationship deepening, Lucinda had begun feeling like a third wheel. Maybe it was time she moved to Florida, joined all the other retirees. Or maybe she should fly back to Nova Scotia, listen to dolphins with Malachy Condon.

Lucinda didn't like getting old, but she accepted it. She had heard sixty-five-year-old women say they felt exactly the same as they had twenty or forty years earlier. That when they looked in the mirror, they expected to see young women. That wasn't true for Lucinda. She had earned every wrinkle, every gray hair. Maybe that's why she liked Malachy: He had seemed unapologetically seventyish, every minute of his age showing. He seemed like someone she could talk to.