Follow the Stars Home (5 page)

“Well …” Dianne said, remembering the look on his face as they'd left his office.

“Dianne?”

“Why does he have to remind me so much of Tim?” she asked.

“Oh, honey,” Lucinda said.

“They move in identical ways,” Dianne said. “Their voices sound the same. Alan's hair is darker, but it gets light in the summer. He wears glasses, but when he takes them off …”

“Superficial similarities,” Lucinda said.

“I tell myself that,” Dianne said. “I feel so bad,
holding this miserable grudge against him. But my stomach hurts every time I think of what Tim did. I lie awake hating him for hurting Julia, but I also hate him for leaving me too. It's horrible, like I swallowed a rock.”

“Ouch,” Lucinda said kindly.

“I know. And every time I look at Alan, I think of Tim. He makes me think of all the hurt and betrayal, of how much I hate his brother—”

“No,” Lucinda said sharply. “That I don't believe.”

“I do, Mom. I hate Tim.”

“But I don't believe Alan
makes
you feel that way. He can't. He wouldn't-he's too good. He cares for you and Julia, he's always been there. Those feelings are yours alone. Wherever they come from, you're taking them on yourself.”

Dianne thought of Alan's eyes, how kind and gentle they were when he looked at Julia. She pictured his hands examining Julia's body, holding her crooked hands as if they were the most precious things on earth.

“I know he's good,” Dianne said quietly.

“Listen to me, honey,” Lucinda said. “When you talk about swallowing that rock, I can see what it's doing to you. I can. You're tough as can be, you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, but those hard feelings are tearing you up.”

The reality of her mother's words brought tears to Dianne's eyes. Her stomach clenched, the rock bigger than ever. Once the sorrow over Tim's departure had gone and the only things left were bitterness and anger and the rock in her stomach, Dianne had realized in a flash that she had made a mistake from the very beginning: She had chosen the wrong brother.

“I'm fine,” Dianne said.

“You say that, but I can see how worried you are. And then when Alan calls, you snap at him-as if it's him you're mad at instead of Tim. When he's just trying to help.”

“Sometimes he gets me at a bad time,” Dianne said.

“With him it's always a bad time,” Lucinda said.

“I'm tired, Mom,” Dianne said, uncomfortable with the conversation and the way her mother was smiling at her.

“When I retire,” Lucinda said, putting her arm around Dianne, “I'm going to spend some time taking care of you.”

Dianne's throat ached. It felt so good to be loved. She closed her eyes and let her mother's strength flow into her. She may have chosen the wrong brother, screwed up her life, but she had the best mother in the world.

“Julia and I have big plans for your retirement,” Dianne said.

“Oh, honey,” Lucinda said. “Not a party, okay? I know you want to do something for me, and I appreciate it, but I'm not the surprise-party type.”

“No party,” Dianne said.

“Besides, there's the library dance,” Lucinda said. “I think they're going to give me a plaque or something this year. I'll have to pretend to be surprised. How's this?” She made a Betty Boop face: round eyes and mouth, fingertips just brushing her jaw.

“Very convincing,” Dianne said, laughing.

“Not that I'm not appreciative,” Lucinda said. “I am-I love them all and I'll miss them like crazy. But I'm ready, honey. My feet have been swollen for forty years, and I just want to kick these dumb oxfords right into the marsh and never see them again.”

“Julia and I will come up with something that involves bare feet,” Dianne said.

“Ahhh,” Lucinda said, closing her eyes in bliss, ticking off the time until July fifteenth.

“Gleee,” Julia said.

“Just imagine, Julia. I'll have all this free time, I'll be able to read all the books I've missed. Will you help me catch up?” Lucinda asked before opening her eyes.

Dianne exhaled slowly. Julia's life was full of love, but it was so horribly, disgustingly unfair: to have her grandmother be the town librarian and be unable to read, to have her mother make real-life playhouses and be unable to play.

“Do you think she's happy?” Dianne heard herself ask.

“Well, I know she is,” her mother said. “Just look at her.”

Dianne opened her eyes, and it was true. Julia was rolling her head in slow rhythms, as if she were keeping time with music in her head. She stared at Dianne. Lucinda touched Dianne's shoulder, and Dianne leaned against her.

“My happy girl,” Dianne said, wanting to believe.

“Maaa,” Julia said. “Maaaaaa.”

Could a person die from loving too much? Could the weight of Julia crush her, squeeze the breath right out of her? Summer seemed like a sweet dream. Her mother would be retired; she, Dianne, and Julia could lie on the beach, feeling the hot sand under their backs, letting the breeze take away all their troubles.

“Go for a row, sweetheart,” her mother said. “I'll stay with Julia.”

Dianne hesitated. She thought of that perfect white house down on the harbor: Lately all her own dreams went into the playhouses she built. Her own home was broken. Dianne felt hard and frozen in-side.
Her muscles ached, and she knew it would feel good to pull on the oars, slip through the marsh into open water.

“Thanks, Mom,” Dianne said.

Lucinda held her gaze. She was small and strong. Even without touching Dianne, her support and force were flowing into her. Outside, a light breeze blew through the golden-green rushes. Sea otters slid off the banks, playing in the silty brown water.

“Go,” her mother urged.

Nodding, Dianne ran down to the dock.

As kids, the McIntosh boys had lived by the sea. Neil, Alan, and Tim had grown up on Cape Cod, ten miles east of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Alan had spent several summers working in the hydrophone lab there. His mentor, Malachy Condon, told him he had the best ear for dolphin talk of any student he'd ever met. But Alan was destined to be a pediatrician.

Now, eighteen years later, on his Wednesday afternoons off Alan went to the library to read the latest issues of
Delphinus Watch
and
Whale Quarterly
-to keep up with his old interest and to see an old friend-Lucinda Robbins. The Hawthorne Public Library was two blocks from his house. But Alan went running first, so it took him forty-five minutes to get there.

“Did you do six miles?” Mrs. Robbins asked, standing behind the counter.

“Seven today,” he said.

She handed him a folded towel she had picked up from a cart of books to be reshelved.

Several months after Tim had walked out on Dianne, Alan had stopped by the library after his run. He had been missing Mrs. Robbins. She had always been good to him, accepting him into her family from the very start. He had more in common with her than Tim did-he had practically lived in libraries at Woods Hole and Cambridge, and during Tim and Dianne's marriage, Alan and Lucinda were always talking books and ideas.

But that day, eleven years ago, he had stood there, noticing the trail of sweat dripping on the brown linoleum floor, feeling the librarian's wrath. What had he expected? He was a McIntosh, Tim's brother, and that fact alone was bound to set her off.

The next week he had gone home to shower first. He didn't want to alienate Mrs. Robbins. He had realized how important she had become to him, and now she wanted nothing to do with him. Taking care of Julia, he felt the family connection more than ever, and he had come to apologize. To his surprise, Mrs. Robbins had greeted him with a striped towel.

“I'm sorry about last week,” she had said. “My evil eye is an occupational hazard.”

“You had every right,” he had said.

“No,” Mrs. Robbins had insisted, vigorously shaking her head. “You come in here sweaty anytime you want. What Tim did isn't your fault. You do so much for Julia and Dianne….”

Alan had started to protest, but he'd stopped himself, accepted her offer. His relationship with Dianne was tenuous, and he'd do whatever he could to guard it. He had considered the towel a one-time peace gesture, but Mrs. Robbins continued to bring it in every Wednesday afternoon.

Today he said thanks, took the towel, and found his favorite armchair. The oldest library in the state,
its rooms were bright and lofty. The reading room had a stone fireplace large enough to roast an ox, and Alan settled beside it with a stack of journals to read. Clear April light flooded through the arched windows; he lost himself in the latest literature on marine mammals. And then he thought of his own family.

Their oldest brother, Neil, had loved whales. When they were only teenagers, he, Tim, and Alan had run their own whale-watching business, taking people out in their runabout to the feeding grounds off Chatham Shoals. Leaving from the steamship dock in Hyannis, they had charged ten dollars per person. It had been Neil's idea to give full refunds, no questions asked, if they failed to spot whales or dolphins. That was Neil through and through-generous, good-hearted, and confident enough of their whale-finding abilities to know those refunds would be few and far between.

Neil died of leukemia. The summer they were sixteen and fourteen, Alan and Tim had watched their older brother slip away. Locked in the house, the curtains drawn and no one allowed to make any noise or enter Neil's room, Neil had suffered horribly. Not just from the pain of his disease, but from isolation. He had missed the sea, the whales, the boat. He had missed his brothers. At eighteen Neil had died of leukemia, but also of a broken heart. Tim had spent the last two nights of Neil's life sitting on the grass under his window. Alan had snuck inside to be with him.

Alan's parents had been afraid the cancer was catching. It didn't matter that Neil's doctor had told them it wasn't. They had a primal fear of the blood disease, and they had lived in terror of losing all their sons. They were simple people, a fisherman and his
wife. Alan's dad would go to sea, barely coming home at all. His mother had turned to drink.

Alan and Tim had spent the next few years caring more about fish and whales than about people. Tim had dropped out of school to lobster. Like his father, he would lose himself at sea. Alan had latched on to Malachy Condon at WHOI. The old guy was as crusty as a fisherman, but he had a Ph.D. from Columbia. Tim would steam in from a night off Nantucket, meet Alan on the docks at Woods Hole, and listen to Malachy's colorful stories about research trips to the North Sea and the Indian Ocean. Both brothers were numb with losing Neil and the attention of their parents, and Malachy had been a steadying force.

In Alan's senior year at Harvard, he had found himself dreaming every night of Neil. One cold November morning he ripped up his application to Woods Hole and applied to Harvard Medical School instead. Malachy had been disappointed, and Tim had thought he was crazy. Tim had had the idea they could share a boat, him catching fish and Alan studying them. He had confronted Alan on the steps of the Widener Library, wanting to talk some sense into him.

“Stick with fish,” Tim had said. “If they die, who cares?”

“Exactly,” Alan had said. “I'm studying plankton past midnight every night, and I can't get that worked up about it. I'm going to be a doctor.”

“And do what?”

“Help people,” Alan had said, thinking of their brother, their parents.

“You want to spend your life with sick people?” Tim had shouted. “You think you can make any difference at all?”

“Yeah, I do,” Alan had said.

“Like Dr. Jerkoff did with Neil?”

“He should have talked to us,” Alan had said. “Told Mom and Dad what could happen. Helped them to understand, to prepare us better. He should have helped us help Neil die, Tim. I hate thinking of us all going through that alone.”

“What's the difference, how it happened?” Tim had asked wildly. “He's gone. Nothing can change it.”

“But he suffered,” Alan had said. “It didn't have to be so bad—”

“I know he fucking suffered,” Tim had shouted, shoving Alan. “I was there. You think you have to tell me?”

“Quit acting like an asshole,” Alan had said. “Neil would hate it.”

“He's dead,” Tim had shot back, hitting Alan's chest with the heel of his hand.

With Neil gone, Alan was the oldest brother. Tim was tougher, but Alan was big and had never lost one of their fights. He'd stepped away, shaking with rage.

“You sat outside his window,” Alan had said. “You were afraid to go in. I want to help people not be afraid.”

“Fuck you,
afraid”
Tim had said. “I'll shove it down your throat….”

He hooked a right, and Alan took it in the gut. Their eyes met, wide and surprised. Alan grunted and swung back, driving a left into Tim's side. Tim moved in, and Alan tried to push him off, but Tim raked his fingers down Alan's neck, and the brothers were rolling on the sidewalk in the middle of Harvard Yard.

Alan slammed him with a right to the head. Tim had him by the hair, and Alan jerked his arms hard to
break the grip. A gash over Tim's eye was bleeding, and Alan felt the nail marks down his throat. Springing up, he reached down to yank Tim to his feet. Tim wasn't done fighting. He swung blindly through the blood in his eyes. Alan came to his senses.

“Hey, knock it off,” he'd said, shaking Tim by the shoulders.

Another left hook.

Alan caught it in the air. The brothers circled, unsteady on their feet. Both were wary, but Alan's burning anger was gone. As Tim swung again, Alan hit him in the solar plexus and sent him to his knees. He stepped away, but Tim kept coming back for more. It's insane, Alan thought. All he wanted was to help children, cure them when he could and comfort them when he couldn't, and here he was, fighting to the death with his brother.

After the fight, Alan and Tim drifted even further apart: Alan buried himself in his studies, Tim chose to escape back to the sea.

For the next few years Tim had stayed at sea. Lobstering took most of his time. It weathered his face and toughened his hands; even more, it hardened something deep inside him. He forgot how to be with people. He'd drink and fight, or he'd flash a smile that let some girl know how lonely he was. That he needed her to hang on to.

One of those girls was Dianne. Knowing that Dianne was interested in Alan made Tim go after her full blast. He had pulled out all the stops. Tim wanted someone to save him, and he chose a woman with a special talent for giving. Some of his behavior was an act, he thought, as he played the part of a lonesome, drunken lobsterman just to get her attention. But it worked, because it was real. So he
thought he was playing a role, but he really wasn't. And Alan had watched it happen, Dianne falling in love with his brother.

Alan gave up without a big fight for only one reason: If he couldn't have Dianne, maybe she could at least straighten his brother out. At least that was what he told himself. Dianne was strong and solid, and Tim had been heading downhill since the day Neil had died. Maybe marriage and children would fill the void, make him stop hurting. But they hadn't.

“I hear you saw my girls yesterday,” Mrs. Robbins said, startling Alan as she wheeled in a cartload of periodicals to be shelved.

“I did,” Alan said.

“How is Julia?”

“She's a champ,” Alan said.

Mrs. Robbins had been the Hawthorne librarian for forty years. Alan had heard kids in his office claim she had read every book on the shelves, and he could almost believe it was true. Her blue eyes were clear with intelligence and compassion. Curiosity kept women like Mrs. Robbins young.

“But how
is
she?” Mrs. Robbins asked evenly.

“You know,” Alan said. “She's holding her own.”

Mrs. Robbins bit her lip. She shuffled through a pile of
National Geographics
as if to make sure the issues were in order. But Alan knew she was just pulling herself together.

“Well, Alan,” Mrs. Robbins said. “We count on you.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“I'm worried for Dianne,” she said.

“Why?” he asked, alert.

“She wears herself out,” Mrs. Robbins said, starting to whisper. The words came out fast, and her brow was creased with worry. Alan leaned forward
to hear her. “Julia's light as a feather. She's no weight at all. But the effort … even when she's just sleeping, resting in the corner of Dianne's workshop. It takes every bit of energy Dianne has just to let her be. Not knowing the future.”

“That's the challenge …” Alan said, pulling something out of his generic repertoire. Doctors were supposed to be wise. Inside, he was a mess, hearing about Dianne's pain.

Thinking of Neil, Alan understood what Mrs. Robbins meant. Seeing a person you love suffer is the hardest thing there is. Taking action-bandaging the wound, setting a fracture, cleansing a burn-was always easier than sitting back, accepting there was nothing you could do.

“Dianne's brave,” Alan said.

“Most of the time.”

“She could ask me for more help than she does.”

“Oh, Alan,” Mrs. Robbins said. “Don't you know how hard it is for her to be around you-as kind as you are-you will always be a reminder of Tim.”

“Yeah,” Alan said, hurt to know the truth from Lucinda.

“Heard from him lately?”

Alan shook his head. Two months earlier, Tim had called from Camden, needing to borrow a thousand dollars. Before that Alan would get collect calls or postcards from ports from Lubec to Halifax. Tim had become a seafaring drifter. Sometimes he visited Malachy. He had no home, no address. That was the price he'd paid for what he'd done: leaving his wife and child.

“The poor wretch,” Lucinda said. “It's almost impossible to loathe him when he's so tormented. But not quite.”

“I know what you mean,” Alan said, feeling
Lucinda's gaze. He wondered whether she had figured it out. She was too loyal to Dianne, too discreet to ask, but he believed she knew.

Alan was in love with Dianne.

The feeling had never gone away. Even when she'd chosen Tim, with Alan tricking himself into thinking Dianne was stopping Tim's decline, saving his life, he loved her anyway. He'd do anything to help her, then or now.

He told himself he was a doctor, his compassion was natural. Dianne's eyes showed everything. Her hair was the color of Cape Cod marshes in autumn, golden in the October sun. She smelled like paint, lumber, and the sea. Frustration often creased her brow, but when she looked at Julia, the lines would disappear into such deep love that Alan sometimes felt pressure in his throat.

Psychiatrists-and Malachy Condon-would say he loved his sister-in-law because she was totally inaccessible.
Fear of commitment? No problem-pick someone your brother has left, a woman who hates your family with a passion.
Alan was screwed up in the area of relationships-he knew it well. He dated good women. They were all better than he deserved. He had a lousy habit of forgetting to call after the third or fourth time. He had never been married, and as much as he loved children, he had none of his own. And it would probably stay that way.