Follow the Stars Home (2 page)

The taxi struck the crowd. People flew up in the air together, tumbled apart, and landed with separate thuds. Skidding across the pavement, skin scraping and bones breaking, they slumped in shapeless heaps. For one long moment the city was silent. Traffic stopped. No one moved. The snow was bright with red blood. Down the block, horns began to blare. A far-off siren sounded. People closed in to help.

“They're dead!” someone cried.

“So much blood …”

“Don't move anyone, you might injure them worse.”

“That little girl, did she move? Is she alive?”

Five people lay crumpled like broken toys, surrounded by people not knowing what to do. Two off-duty New York cops out for the evening with their wives saw the commotion from their car and stopped to help. One of them ran to the wrecked taxi. Leaning through the shattered window, he yanked at the door handle before stopping himself.

The driver was killed, his neck sliced through by a sheet of door metal. Even in death, the man reeked of whiskey. Shaking his head, the cop went to the injured pedestrians.

“Driver's dead,” he said, crouching beside his friend, working on the girl.

“What about her?” he asked, pulling open Amy's coat to check her heartbeat.

With the child their first priority, the two policemen had their backs to Dianne. She lay facedown in the snow. Blood spread from her blond hair, her arm twisted beneath her at an impossible angle. Moving quickly, a stranger bent down beside her. He leaned over her head, touching the side of her neck as if in search of a pulse. No one saw him palm the single diamond earring he could reach, or pull the pearls from her throat.

By the time he grabbed her bag, a woman in the crowd noticed. The thief had the strap in his hand, easing it out from under the fallen woman's arm.

“Hey,” the observer yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

The thief yanked harder. He held the bag, tearing at the clasp. It opened, contents spilling into the snow. A
comb, ballet tickets, a crystal perfume flacon, some papers, and a small green wallet. Snatching the wallet, the man dashed across the street, disappearing into the dark park.

One victim, an old man, was dead. A wife lay motionless while her husband tried to crawl closer to her. Bending over the child, one policeman barely looked up. The other moved to the woman-had to be the girl's mother-noticing the blood pumping from her head. Taking off his jacket, he pressed it to the open wound. Police cars arrived along with an ambulance, and the technicians turned the blond woman over. She was lovely, her face as pale as ice. The policeman saw a lot of death, and the chill that shivered down his back told him the mother was in bad shape.

The crowd stood back, everyone talking at once. “The taxi … out of control … skidded on the ice … five people hit … mother tried to save the little girl… scumbag stole her wallet.”

“Crackhead got her ID?” the ambulance driver asked. “No. Shit, no. You mean no one knows their names? We got no one to call?”

“That's right,” one of the cops said. He knew the ambulance driver wasn't necessarily being altruistic, imagining someone waiting for these two somewhere with no way to get in touch with him. Unidentified victims were a paperwork nightmare.

“Goddamn,” his friend said, watching the EMTs load them into the ambulance. The lady was so pretty, delicate and petite. Bystanders were saying she had curled her body around the child to protect her from the runaway cab. Ten to one she was from out of town, staying at the Plaza for a special holiday treat, nailed by some celebrating cabbie on his way back to the garage with a bellyful of cheer.

Throwing the useless handbag into the ambulance,
they watched the vehicle scream down West Fifty-ninth Street, heading for St. Bernadette's Hospital.

Speeding crosstown, the ambulance driver ran every light carefully, easing through intersections. Storms brought out the worst in New Yorkers. They panicked at the first sign of snow. The driver stayed steady, focused on avoiding the slow traffic and numerous fender benders. Aware of his critical passengers, he called ahead to alert the emergency staff.

Oxygen masks covered the victims' faces. The attending EMT pulled away the woman's cape, searching for a heartbeat. Checking her blood pressure, he felt shocked when her eyes opened. She lay still, her lips blue. The intensity in each small movement was frightening to behold as she opened her mouth to speak one word: “Amy,” she said.

“The little girl?” the technician asked.

“Amy …” the woman repeated, panic apparent in her eyes and in the effort it took her to whisper.

“Your daughter?” the EMT asked. “She's right here beside you, she's just fine. You're both going to be just fine. Lie back now, there you go. Just-” he said, watching her unimaginable distress behind the oxygen mask before she slid back into unconsciousness.

The kid's arm's a mess, he thought, silently chastising himself for the blatant lie.

The trauma unit was ready. Intercepting the ambulance beneath the wide portico, they slid the woman and girl onto gurneys. IV lines were hooked up. Blood and plasma were ready, just waiting for blood samples to be typed. Nurses and doctors in green surrounded the victims, assessing the worst of their injuries. Woman and child were wheeled into separate cubicles.

While the doctors worked, an EMT brought the black satin handbag to the desk. The head nurse checked it for ID, but the police report was right: The wallet was missing. She found two tickets for the ballet, two Amtrak ticket stubs originating in Old Say-brook, and two business cards, one for a lumberyard in Niantic, the other for a fishing boat called
Aphrodite.

“Find anything?” a young nurse asked, coming from the injured woman's cubicle. “It would be awfully good to call someone.”

“What's her condition?” the head nurse asked, glancing up.

“Critical,” the younger woman said, discarding her gloves. She was thirty-eight, about the same age as the woman she'd just been working on. She had children herself, including a ten-year-old daughter, just a little younger than the girl, and nothing made her count her blessings and fear the universe like a badly injured woman and child. “Both of them. Extensive blood loss, bruising, concussion and contusions for the woman, fractured humerus and severed artery for the girl. They're prepping her for surgery.”

“There's nothing much here,” the head nurse replied. “Cards for a lumberyard and a fishing boat …”

The head nurse squinted, taking a closer look. She saw a fine zipper she had missed the first time, along the seam of the bag's lining. Tugging it open, she reached inside and fished out a small card filled out in elegant handwriting:

In case of emergency, please call Timothy McIntosh (203) 555-8941.

“Connecticut number,” the young nurse said, reading the card. “Think it's her husband?”

Dialing the number, the head nurse didn't reply.
She got a recording: The area code had been changed. Using the new numbers, she learned that the phone was out of service. She tried the lumberyard: no answer at this hour. Frustrated, she looked at the last card and wondered what good could come from calling a fishing boat at the end of November. Since she had no options, she called the marine operator and requested to be put through to the
Aphrodite.

Waves pounded the hull and light snow sifted from the dark night sky. Tim McIntosh gripped the wheel, steering a long course due south. He had been lobstering in Maine, saving enough money to last the winter in Florida. He wore thick gloves, but even so his hands were chapped and rough. His leather boots were soaked through, his feet blocks of ice.

He glanced at the chart, illuminated by light from the binnacle. Point Pleasant, New Jersey, was his destination. He'd put in at Red's Lobster Dock for one night, then leave on the dawn tide for his trip south. Tim had had enough winter to last him for the rest of his life. Malachy Condon had once tried to talk him out of leaving for good, but that was before their final breach. Tim was heading for Miami.

A foghorn moaned over the sound of waves crashing against the steel hull. Checking his loran, Tim swung right into the Manasquan Inlet. The water grew calmer, but he could still feel the Atlantic waves pounding in his joints. He had traveled a long way. Great rock and concrete breakwaters flanked either side of the channel. Houses looked warmly lit; Christmas trees twinkled in picture windows, and Tim imagined other sailors' homecomings.

The radio crackled. Tim's ears were ringing from the constant roaring of the wind and throbbing of the Detroit diesel, but nevertheless he heard the high seas operator calling him.

“Aphrodite,”
the voice said. “Calling vessel
Aphrodite
…”

Tim stared at the set. His first thought was that Malachy had relented. Tim felt a quick spread of relief; he had known Malachy couldn't stay mad forever, that he wasn't cold enough to just banish Tim from his life. Malachy Condon was an old oceanographer, scientific as they came, but he had a family man's romantic vision of the holidays. Malachy believed in setting things right. He would want to fix things between them, press Tim to change his ways toward his daughter, her mother, Tim's brother.

“McIntosh, aboard the
Aphrodite
,” Tim said, grabbing the mike, ready to greet the old meddler with “Happy Thanksgiving, what took you so long?” A click sounded, the operator connecting him to the caller.

“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.