Follow the Stars Home (28 page)

Alan gave Malachy that gift. Mentioning Yeats, he'd handed Malachy the key to Gabriel. And Malachy heard his son still. The dolphin songs were like Gabriel's poetry: beautiful, ethereal, too sweet for this world. After all this time, Malachy had met very few people who could hear it, truly get the magic. Most folks heard clicks, trills, crooning, keening. Only the emotionally intense, the spiritually advanced, the madly in love, the truly insane, the terminally foolish, the grief-stricken, the guilty, the enlightened, the people with souls of poets and hearts of children, could hear the dolphins sing their songs of love.

Alan McIntosh was one such man. His brother Tim was not.

The McIntosh boys: the only sons Malachy Condon had left. They weren't his flesh and blood, but did that matter? Malachy had adopted them in his heart, as they had adopted him. Malachy believed that people didn't choose one another. They were given to each other by God, companions for the journey. The McIntosh boys had entered Malachy's life for a good reason, whether he could always see it or not.

“Call your old man,” he said out loud with his pipe in his mouth.

He was alone on his tugboat. The dolphins talked his ear off, not a human voice among them, unless he counted the spirit of Gabriel. Malachy believed that voices carried, that even though Tim and Alan were nowhere in sight, they could hear him calling all this distance away.

“Call me,” he said again. “You know you want to, by God. What the hell're you waiting for? You think this life goes on forever?”

Alan had telephoned last month. He was due again, and so was Tim. The brothers had unfinished business with each other, deep trouble, and they couldn't rightly get on with their separate lives till they fought it through. Malachy had words of wisdom they both needed to hear.

He had an unusual variety of second sight-common in the Irish but rare in men. He pictured Dianne, her stunning beauty quiet and natural, like Brigid's had been; he could see the girl, Julia, gnarled as a tree root, soaking in her mother's light and love. Malachy could have picked up the phone, contacted the boys, but it wouldn't be the same. Fathers liked to be called. Good men knew to call their elders. Malachy had faith, so he listened to the dolphins with one hand ready to pick up the telephone and take Tim's call. It was time.

“Who are you taking?” Amy asked.

“Taking where?” Lucinda asked.

“To the library dance.”

“Oh,” Lucinda said, smiling. They were sitting on the porch, having a cup of tea. Dianne had taken Julia to Alan's for her checkup.

“Considering you're the-what do they call it?”

“Guest of honor,” Lucinda said as humbly as she could.

“Well, considering you're the guest of honor, you should be able to take anyone you want.”

“Like you?” Lucinda asked.

Amy's mouth dropped open. She had been baldly hinting for days, but now that she was caught in the act, she acted shocked. “Me? Not me. I didn't mean that—”

“How's your reading coming?” Lucinda asked.

“Well, I'm almost done with the book Dianne gave me.
Anne of Green Gables.”

“She gave you that two months ago! A smart girl
like you, I'd have expected you to have read five or six more books by now.”

“I just love it so much,” Amy said, beaming. “Anne's all right. Going around that island looking for kindred spirits … she cracks me up! Do you like it, Lucinda? Don't you think it's a good book?”

“A very good book,” Lucinda said dryly. “A three-months'-worth book.” She knew she was being conned.
Anne of Green Gables
was her favorite book and she was certain Amy knew it. Like Anne, Lucinda had been orphaned as a child. She had lived in a Providence orphanage for three years, then been adopted by angry people. Although she had called them her parents, she had lived with a secret hole in her heart, the place where her real parents dwelled. She had wished she'd been sent to a kind home like Anne's.

“Is there a real Prince Edward Island?” Amy asked.

“Yes,” Lucinda said. “It's one of Canada's Maritime Provinces.”

“Have you ever gone there?”

“No,” Lucinda said, sipping her tea. “Emmett always said he'd take me, but he died before we could get there.”

“Was Emmett your kindred spirit?” Amy asked, gazing over the edge of her teacup.

“Oh, yes,” Lucinda said. “He was.”

“My father was my mother's kindred spirit,” Amy said. “They were best friends, not just another married couple.”

Lucinda smiled. The child had wisdom beyond her years. “That's how it's supposed to be,” she said. “But sometimes isn't.”

“Their song was ‘You've Got a Friend,’” Amy said. “By James Taylor. They promised they'd always
be there for each other. My father's name was Russell and my mother's was Theresa, and there's a tree downtown near the library that has their initials, R and T, in a big heart. He carved it.”

“Good thing the librarian didn't catch him,” Lucinda said.

“You'd have liked him,” Amy said. “He was a good man. Dianne said so.”

“Well, he has at least two fine things going for him: Dianne saying so and you for a daughter.”

“Were Dianne and Tim kindred spirits?” Amy asked.

“Well …” Lucinda began.

“Wild for each other, madly in love?”

“Yes, they were very much in love,” Lucinda said. “But I wouldn't say they were kindred spirits. There's a big difference. ‘In love' has to grow an awful lot to approach the realm of kindred spirits. Things help it along-hard times, joy, sickness, humor, money worries, having children. All the events of everyday life. But when one person decides he can't stick around, that's the end of that.”

“I hope,” Amy said very quietly, “that I wouldn't be the type to leave.”

“I have a feeling you're not,” Lucinda said.

“They think I'm bad,” Amy said, bowing her head.

“Who thinks that?”

“The State of Connecticut,” Amy whispered, tears running off her nose. “They think I'm violent because I knocked Amber down.”

“That means you made one mistake,” Lucinda said. “It doesn't mean you're a violent person.”

“They say I learned it from Buddy. That when a kid learns that stuff in her own home, she can turn bad.”

“She might learn it,” Lucinda said evenly, recalling her adoptive father's brute face and scalding tongue, the crack of his belt, the hours spent locked in her room. “But she doesn't have to incorporate it into her life.”

“She doesn't?” Amy asked, looking up.

“No. In fact, I'd say it was her duty-to herself, to her parents, and to God-to rise above it.”

“Huh,” Amy said, drying her eyes.

“You make your own life,” Lucinda said. “Your actions are your own responsibility. Blaming others is always an excuse. You're a good girl, Amy.”

“Thank you,” Amy said.

“You've brought a lot of joy to Dianne and Julia.”

“I wish Tim hadn't left them.”

“So do I.”

“You don't leave your kindred spirit,” Amy said.

“No, you don't,” Lucinda agreed.

Dianne stood beside Julia while Alan did the EKG. He squirted white conductor gel on her skin, attached the suction cups. Her rib cage was malformed, her chest sunken. The lines of her bathing suit straps showed, a slight tan on her neck and arms. Her shoulder bore a fading decal of a tiny rose.

“Her tattoo,” Dianne said, noting his gaze.

“Amy?” he asked.

Dianne nodded. “Yes. We went to Layton's, and Amy decided she and Julia should have tattoos for the summer. See?” She pointed at Julia's left foot.

Alan smiled. Just above Julia's ankle bone was a blue and orange butterfly. Clasped around it was an ankle bracelet, colored beads strung together in flowerlike clusters.

“That's pretty, Julia,” Alan said. “My niece is the coolest girl on the beach.”

“Alan,” Dianne said, her voice shaking in spite of herself. “Could you please do the test?”

Alan nodded. He flipped on the machine. The engine hummed, and the printout began almost instantly. The machine turned out a long white tape, similar to a grocery store receipt, covered with black markings. He saw Dianne trying to read it, her head tilted to the side.

“Just relax,” he said.

She let out a long exhalation.

“Sorry,” he said. He was as nervous as she was. His palms were sweating as he handled the long paper. As he scanned the graph, he looked for changes. Julia's previous EKGs were in her file, but he was familiar enough to compare without looking. She had a murmur, an unidentified click.

“What does it say?” Dianne asked.

“Hang on,” he said.

Julia lay on the table, staring up at the adults. She wrung her hands. Hand wringing was a common behavior of girls with Rett syndrome-the disease was genetic, affecting almost only female babies-but when Alan saw Julia twisting her hands, he felt helpless, as if she were expressing despair.

“Can you tell anything?” Dianne asked as Alan turned off the machine.

Alan lowered his glasses, peered over the rims at the minute markings. He scrolled through the long paper. He knew it was low and base to be excited by her closeness at this particular moment. Here they were, examining Julia's EKG, and he was drinking in the smell of Dianne's hair and skin.

“If you don't say something,” she said, “I'm going
to scream like a crane. I can't even help it. The scream's coming, it's in my throat right now—”

“I can't see any significant change,” he said, feeling her lean against his side. He tapped the paper, and she looked closer. “This area here might be something, but I'm not sure. I'll fax it up to Providence, let Barbara Holmes take a look at it.”

“Something like what?” Dianne asked, now holding Julia's hand. She hadn't moved away from Alan's side though. She was sandwiched between him and the child, touching them both.

“An irregularity,” Alan said. “A very slight change in the pattern.”

“You just said there's no significant change,” she said.

“That's what ‘very slight’ means,” he said. She was wearing a sleeveless white and yellow checked blouse. Her bare arm was tan and lightly freckled. It felt warm against Alan's arm, through the thin fabric of his blue oxford shirt. He wanted to bend over and kiss her naked shoulder, but she moved away so fast, suddenly his whole left side felt cold.

“I'm not a doctor,” she said dangerously, leaning over Julia as she started to remove the suction cups from her skin.

“I know,” he said.

“I don't like it when you patronize me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I know the difference between ‘significant’ and ‘very slight.’ But you're faxing the results to Dr. Holmes, and you wouldn't do that if it was normal.”

Alan watched her gently wipe the sticky gel from Julia's skin. She used baby wipes from her own bag, dabbing carefully, not wanting to hurt Julia or leave any residue behind. She soaked a wad of cotton balls in warm water, sponged off the remaining lotion. By-passing
the stiff brown paper towels, she dried Julia's chest with gauze squares. Her shoulders were tight.

“Dianne,” Alan said, wanting her to turn around.

She just shook her head, her back to him, still cleaning Julia.

“I never want to be patronizing to you,” he said, feeling the pressure in his throat. “Never.”

She shrugged. He saw her shoulders lift, but she was so tense, they stayed somewhere up around her ears. She had said she was no doctor, but she knew her way around his office better than Martha. She had done medical procedures on Julia that would scare most laypeople far away, maintaining, at various times, shunts, colostomies, a feeding tube, a splint.

Taking hold of her shoulders, Alan turned her around. She was so resistant; he felt her not wanting to look at him. Her head tilted downward, staring at his feet. Her hair was pure gold, shiny in the light. She smelled of flowers and the beach. Alan's heart was beating so hard, he almost didn't trust himself to speak.