Follow the Stars Home (47 page)

Then she woke up.

Julia was crying. Getting out of bed, Dianne felt wide awake and shaken. Julia was wet; her nose was stuffed up. Dianne set about taking care of her, going through the motions she went through every night.

“Maaa!” Julia cried, sobbing as if she had had a nightmare too.

“You're fine, love,” Dianne whispered. “We're safe, we're on dry land, we're together.”

Julia tossed listlessly, as if she felt uncomfortable but couldn't decide where. Her skin was pale, and
Dianne held Julia's hands in her own, warming them up. They were as cold as if she'd been swimming in the sea.

“Is she okay?” came Lucinda's voice from the hall.

“I think so.” Dianne nodded, still rubbing Julia's hands. “We had bad dreams and woke each other up.”

“Want to tell me yours?”

“It was of Tim,” Dianne said, shuddering, facing her mother. “He tried to pull me overboard.”

“You were in a boat and he was in the sea?” her mother asked.

“Yes. Should I feel sorry for Tim? Is that the message?”

“Sorry for
Tim?”
her mother asked.

Dianne hugged herself. She was cold too. As cold as Julia's hands, as chilled as a person who had just come through a storm. Heat was pouring out of the radiators, but Dianne couldn't get warm. She closed her eyes and thought of Alan. She knew he would save her, would never let her drown. He would do whatever it took.

But she was still ice cold from her dream.

She knew this was the wreckage from her past, part of what made up the emotion she could not name. To love Alan so much, she had to contend with much regret and sorrow. She started to cry, feeling sorry that she had dreamed about Tim. Feeling grief that her life had been shaped by such a traumatic first love.

Amy was on the school bus. She had finished her story, and she was on her way to Dianne's to use the computer. Amber rode the same bus, making life extremely
awkward. But Lucinda had given Amy some helpful advice: Always have a book with you, and when you feel uncomfortable, get lost in the story.

Amber and David made fun of Amy. They whispered and pointed, and she heard them cursing her out. Amy cared, but she tried not to show it. She was wearing new school clothes and shoes, a present from Dianne and Lucinda. Dr. McIntosh had bought her fresh notebooks, pencils, and pens.

She had a handful of shells and sea glass, from some of the castles she and Julia had built over the summer, in the zipper pocket of her bookbag. Recently she had discovered Madeleine L'Engle and was halfway through
A Wrinkle in Time.
When Amber and David threw gum wrappers at her, she pretended to read as she thought of the short story contest.

Amy had rewritten the story, ending it with Catherine's mother recovering from her depression, giving everyone hope. In her last scene Dickie was gone for good. She had sent him to California for a new job, but then she ripped up those pages.

Dickie was going to jail for what he had done. He had beaten his puppy, Catherine's mother, and Catherine herself. He was a bad man, and in Amy's story he was going to pay for it. Mona, Catherine's sister with birth defects, was just about to learn to walk.

On the last page, Catherine, Mona, and their mother, whose name was Beth, were kneeling on a beach, building a sand castle. The sand was fine and white: Hawthorne sand. Dolphins were singing in the sea, and you could hear their music. Castles might wash away, but love lasted. The mother had pink cheeks, and her hair fell in golden waves.

Okay, so in the story, Catherine's mother had Dianne's hair.

“Sue me!” Amy laughed. “It's only fiction!”

“Huh?” Amber asked.

“Um, nothing,” Amy said, embarrassed.

“Talking to yourself and knocking innocent people down,” Amber said, drawing on her own wrist with a ballpoint pen. “Really mature.”

“I said I was sorry …” Amy said, shrinking.

“Hanging out with the retard has made her retarded,” David said, only he pronounced
with
“wit.” Amy gave him her steadiest gaze, as if his favorite worm had just died, and she pitied him with all her heart.

Amy couldn't wait to win the contest. From there it would be easy to imagine her poems and stories getting published in magazines. Amber would open
Seventeen, and
there would be Amy's story about the best friend who became a whore-fink. David would open his stupid heavy-metal magazines, the kind Buddy used to get, and he'd see a picture of Aero-smith thanking Amy for letting them use one of her poems for their newest song lyrics.

Jumping off the bus at Gull Point, Amy didn't look back. She tore straight to the studio, holding her breath until she saw Dianne and Julia inside. She felt so relieved, she could have shouted for joy.

“Hi,” Amy called, walking through the door and getting her face licked as Orion went mad with happiness to see her. She went straight to Julia, did a little hand dance with her.

“How was school?” Dianne called from her workbench.

“Good,” Amy said. “Got a B on my science quiz. It was a high B, though-eighty-eight.”

“You're heading for the honor roll,” Dianne said.

“I hope so,” Amy beamed.

“Noise,” Dianne warned, turning on her saw.

Amy played with Julia for a while, but Julia just seemed tired. She didn't want to move her hands much, and she kept resting her head on her left shoulder. Once again, as she had the last few times she'd seen Julia, Amy felt worried. She glanced at Dianne as if to ask her what was wrong, but Dianne had her eye protection on, was concentrating on cutting a plank with her band saw.

The noise was loud. The stereo was on, and Dianne was singing. Amy pushed Julia's chair over to the desk and pulled her notebook from her knapsack. She glanced at Dianne, looking for an okay. Dianne gave her the thumbs-up, and Amy got ready. They had computers in school. She knew how to use them, but she had never done anything like this before. She had never typed up a story she had written herself. Sitting there, she had a lump in her throat.

She started with the title: “Sand Castles.”

“Do you think I'll win?” Amy asked a week later, after the story had been typed, the corrections made, the manuscript ready to be submitted to Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Macomber at the library.

“It's a great story,” Lucinda said.

“But will I
win?”

“You would,” Dianne said, “if I were the judge. You wrote a wonderful story and an excellent poem. I'd give you first place.”

“Girls, girls,” Lucinda said, pretending to be exasperated. “How often do I have to tell you? It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you see the world!”

“You never say that,” Amy said, frowning.

“She does, all the time,” Dianne said, rocking Julia on her lap. “She just says it in different ways.”
“Like what?” Amy asked.

“Like love each other,” Dianne said. “Like forgive the people you don't like.”

“Buddy?” Amy asked. “Never.”

“Then he'll hold you prisoner forever,” Lucinda said.

“Ewww,” Amy said, shivering. “Buddy holding me prisoner …I'd rather eat bugs. But even so, don't hold your breath on me forgiving him.”

“Does your mother like your story?” Dianne asked.

“She hasn't seen it,” Amy said quietly.

“Dleee,” Julia said.

Dianne reached down to hold her daughter's hand. Lucinda watched her wrap Julia's fingers around her own index finger, try to hold them there. Julia's grip slid away, and Dianne pressed it again. Dianne could be so stubborn, Lucinda thought. Had she realized, talking about forgiveness, that she was still swamped with bad feelings for Tim? That dream …

“I still hope I win,” Amy said. “Even if I'm not supposed to.”

“Gaaa,” Julia said.

“You really liked the story, Dianne?”

“I loved it.”

“Huh,” Amy said. “I'm glad.”

Lucinda swallowed. She wondered whether Dianne had noticed that Amy had given the mother Dianne's looks.

“Gleee,” Julia squeaked.

“See? Julia thinks I'll win.”

“I'll tell you what,” Lucinda said, staring at the two young girls, thinking back to when Dianne had been that age. “Win or lose, I'm getting tickets for
The Nutcracker.”

“The Nutcracker
ballet?” Amy asked. “The one
on TV at Christmas every year? That's the one you mean?”

“Mom took me,” Dianne said. She looked tired, as if the stress of her life, of just trying to hold her daughter's fingers, were a little too much today. “It was one of my favorite things we ever did.”

“And now it's your turn to take Amy,” Lucinda said.

Julia had another seizure. This time it was the middle of a cold November night, and Dianne heard her kicking the walls like a wild horse banging its stall. Flying into the room, she grabbed Julia and tried to hold her hands, to keep her from punching herself in the face. Holding her child, she could hardly stand the choking, garbled sounds coming from Julia's mouth.

“What is it, Dianne?” Lucinda asked.

“Call 911,” Dianne gasped. “Call Alan.”

Her mother disappeared. Dianne was alone with Julia. The girl's airway was blocked. She couldn't breathe. Had she swallowed her tongue? Choked on something left in her bed? Julia was turning blue.

Panicked, Dianne jumped up. Julia was still seizing. Dianne tried slapping her on the back. Something cracked, as if she had broken a bone. Still, Julia was choking. Dianne tried to turn her upside down. She was frantic, listening for sirens. How long since Lucinda had called? Lifting Julia into her arms, Julia's fists pounding her face and her heels kicking her legs, Dianne tried to carry her downstairs.

Dianne's thoughts were flying: Help was downstairs. Her mother was there, the ambulance was coming. Struggling with Julia, Dianne's back ached. She felt the spasm down low, ignored it. Julia needed air. They could do an emergency tracheotomy. Or they could do nothing…. Dianne paused, choking on a sob, leaning against the stairway wall. They could let Julia go, and it would all be over. All her suffering …

“No,” Dianne said, unable to stand the thought. She kept going, she had to get Julia help, she kept moving down the stairs. “Don't leave me, Julia.”

The ambulance was there. Help came all at once. Lucinda had told them Julia was having a seizure, so the EMTs were ready. One shot of diazepam, and the seizure stopped. They cleared her airway: She had bitten her tongue, and she'd been choking on her own blood. Dianne held Julia's hands through it all. She blocked out the furor, concentrated on her daughter's eyes. They were closed, but Dianne knew them by heart. She could see them, enormous and blue, searching her mother's face.

“I love you,” Dianne whispered, leaning over Julia as they carried her outside. “I love you, I love you.”

Alan met them at the hospital. He made sure Dianne was okay, settled her in the waiting room, then went into the examining room to see Julia. Tubes ran into her arm, nose, and throat. An oxygen mask was over her face.

“She was breathing on her own when they brought her in,” the attending physician said. “But she's not now.”

Alan nodded. His throat ached as he stared at his niece. Her color was very bad, her lips cyanotic. That
purplish discoloration came from a lack of oxygen in the blood, and he checked the flow of oxygen coming from the tanks on the wall. The on-call neurologist wrote orders for an MRI, an EEG. The cardiologist wrote orders for an EKG. Kissing Julia's forehead, he walked out to see Dianne.

“Tell me,” Dianne said, jumping to her feet. She grabbed Alan's hands, stared into his eyes.

“She's going for tests,” he said.

“It's worse this time, isn't it?” she asked. “It's much worse. You'd tell me if it was, wouldn't you? Is it? Is it, Alan?”

“I don't know,” Alan said. He tried to capture the professional calm that had gotten him through times like this before. He took a deep breath, looked around the familiar ER, reminded himself that he was a doctor. But this was Dianne, and the patient was Julia, and all his training went out the window. His eyes filled with tears. They spilled over as his arms went around Dianne and he began to sob. “I don't know,” he said again.