Follow the Stars Home (55 page)

But Alan wasn't listening anymore. He had dropped the phone, and he was holding Julia to his chest. She had been sleeping, or at least quiet, but picking up on how upset he was, she began to move. He felt a tremor go through her muscles. She knew, he was sure. This little girl had extra intuition when it came to her mother.

Lucinda was standing in the hallway. She knew something too. Her face was drawn, her eyes expectant. Alan led her into her bedroom, sat her down on the edge of her bed. His face must have shown it all, because suddenly her eyes filled with tears.

“It's Dianne, isn't it?” she asked.

“She's in the hospital,” Alan said, staring straight into her eyes and speaking as a doctor, as steady and
comforting as he could. “She's been hit by a car. She and Amy.”

“No-” Lucinda said.

“I'm going down to New York,” Alan said. “Tim says Amy's okay, but Dianne might not be.”

“Let me come—”

Alan shook his head. He was trying to stay in control. Still holding Julia, he kissed her head, pressing his lips against her cool forehead for ten long seconds. She was Dianne's flesh and blood. She was the only child of his beloved, and he had held Dianne's hand, wiped the sweat off Dianne's brow, the night Julia had come into this world. He had been present at her birth.

“Stay with Julia,” he said, handing the girl into her grandmother's arms. “She needs you.”

“Oh, Alan!”

“I'll call you as soon as I know anything,” Alan said. He stood up, his car keys in his hand. New York was just two hours down I-95. He was a doctor, trained to stay calm at moments like this. But as he looked into the eyes of Dianne's mother, saw the way Julia was staring up at him, it was a monumental challenge.

Tim had to wait for over an hour while they took Dianne down for an MRI, then another hour while the plastic surgeons saw her. By the time they allowed him into the ICU, he had been just about to leave. He was sweating like a pig. Hospitals made him nervous. He swore he'd broken out in hives the minute he'd walked through the door. This brought back the days of Neil, when Tim and Alan weren't allowed inside his bedroom at home, when they were
told that hospitals were where people went to die. And intensive care units were the worst.

He swallowed his fear. He had gotten the call, and he'd come many miles by land and sea to be there. He had done right this time-now they could forget about Newport and Nova Scotia. Tim had shown up. Did they have any idea what this did to him, walking through a hospital, into an ICU?

He felt like all eyes were on him. He was probably green. The nurse smiled, leading him past a bunch of cubicles. Tim's heart was in his throat. He felt as if he were riding through a hurricane, fighting thirty-foot waves. Dianne was in one of those beds. Tim was about to see the woman he had once loved.

“Here she is,” the nurse whispered.

Tim was speechless.

Dianne lay under white sheets. Her face was cut, black and blue, but she was an angel. She was the girl he had married. The years melted away, and he could see her standing there in her workshop with the playhouse Tim would deliver to Alan. He gazed down at her now, wanting to give her courage. That's what he had come here to do.

But she wasn't moving.

Tim pulled over the single chair. He sat there, pushing his long hair back from his eyes, just staring. Her long blond hair was nowhere to be seen. Her light lashes brushed her bruised cheek. Both hands lay outside the sheet, and something made Tim touch her ring finger, where her wedding band had once been.

Dianne opened her eyes.

Tim's mouth dropped open. He saw the shock on her face. As if she had seen a ghost, or as if she'd been expecting someone else. He thought of the little girl saying “Dr. McIntosh,” and he didn't want to go through the same thing again, the humiliation of
trauma-induced mistaken identity. So he shook his head and made himself speak.

“Hi, Dianne,” he said.

She just stared, her eyes widening.

“I didn't have time to get to a barber,” he said. “I know I look like hell.”

Her mouth opened and closed, forming words she couldn't speak.

“The hospital called me by mistake,” he said. “I was on my way to Florida. You had some old pocket-book with the
Aphrodite's
name in it. It was a total fluke that they got me. I saw the kid down the hall, and I thought she was Julia. God help me, Dianne. I came here wanting to help. I thought she was my daughter.”

Dianne's eyes glistened with tears, and Tim McIntosh let all the years of pent-up emotion flow out. With his head resting on Dianne's pillow, right next to hers, he broke down crying.

She cleared her throat.

Tim let himself cry. He could hear her speaking, tiny words almost impossible to hear. She was probably thanking him, letting him know she understood the pain he was in, how hard this was for him. Finally he raised his head and wiped his face. She was staring across the pillow, straight into his eyes. He'd been right: She was trying to speak.

“What?” he asked, inching closer, touching her bruised cheek with his fingers. “I can't hear you, baby.”

“I said get your filthy head off my pillow.”

He jerked up, pulling his hand back as if she'd scalded him. Her voice barely croaked. Her lip was cut, and there were stitches over one eye, across her cheekbone, and along her jaw. Was she delirious?

“I came to help,” he said, shocked.

She just stared, blinking as if each movement of her eyelids represented great effort.

“It is,” she said, “impossibly hard for me to see you.”

“I'll leave,” he said, sensing trouble and ready to go.

“Knowing that you rejected our daughter. Not just when you walked out on us,” she said, her voice weak but rising.

“Hey, Dianne—”

“But in Nova Scotia too.”

“Hey, I came to make up,” Tim said. He couldn't understand why people talked to him the way they did. Malachy last summer and now Dianne. He was doing his best; he'd always been doing his best. His intentions were good.

“Her name is Julia,” Dianne said.

“Hey, lower your voice,” Tim said, feeling nervous and looking around. She was squirming around in the bed, trying to get enough of a grip to hoist herself up.

“She's a beautiful, amazing child,” Dianne said. “She's so good, she puts up with so much, Tim, and you've never even seen her.” The nurse came hurrying over. She tried to ease Dianne back onto the pillows, but Dianne wouldn't lie down. She had gotten strength from deep down, and she had to finish this here and now.

“Look. Hey. You're hurt,” Tim said. “You don't know—”

“I
do
know,” Dianne said, and her eyes were clear and focused.

“I think about her,” Tim said. “I know her name. You act like I don't—”

“You're dirt to me, Tim McIntosh,” Dianne said.

“I came all the way—”

She leaned back on her pillow. He could see that she was exhausted, that she had been in a bad accident, but it was those last five words that did it. Tim
said them, and he watched her collapse. Her skin was ashen, and she was shaking her head. When she spoke again, her voice was nearly gone.

“You've missed her whole life.”

“Sir, it's time for you to leave …” the nurse said.

“Dianne, you might not believe this,” Tim said, suddenly realizing he was going to walk out the door and probably never see her again. His mouth was dry, and his knees were weak. “But I never meant to hurt you or her. Never. That's the truth.”

Dianne was lying on her back. Her eyes were closed and tears were running out of them into her ears and the bandages around her head. Being on his boat was one thing. It was easier to justify his life out at sea. But seeing Dianne like this reminded Tim of everything he had ever thrown away.

“My mother says I should forgive you,” she whispered.

“Just understand.”

She moved her head-a violent movement. Her eyes were squeezed tight so she wouldn't have to look at him.

“I'll forgive you,” she said, her voice full of tears. “But I can't understand. I don't even want to try. Now leave us alone.”

Tim opened his mouth to reply, but the nurse had noticed a change in Dianne's blood pressure. She adjusted the machine, and then she signaled for one of the doctors to come over. Dianne's blood pressure had dropped, and Tim heard them sounding concerned about internal bleeding. The overhead lights were bright, and several nurses came hurrying. Pushed aside, Tim turned away from Dianne. He walked away from the nurses, and he left the ICU.

Alan bumped into Tim coming through the heavy door to the ICU. The two men faced each other, ten feet apart. Alan had expected Tim to be gone by then. He had made the call, summoned Alan, so why was he still there? Alan's body ached. He tensed at the sight of him, wondering what he'd been saying to Dianne, and at the same time he felt old ties of brotherhood.

“The doctor's with her,” Tim said, his blue eyes steady. “She's taken some kind of turn.”

Alan didn't wait to hear more. He burst through the ICU doors, saw a huddle of activity in a cubicle down at the end. Running through the unit, he was stopped by a nurse and two doctors.

“That's Dianne,” he said. “I've got to see her—”

“They're working on her.”

“I'm a doctor!” he said, raising his voice.

“Out, please,” one of the doctors said, insistent. “You can't help right now. You're going to have to wait outside.”

Alan backed away. He felt helpless.

Tim met him in the hallway.

“Did she say anything?” Alan asked. “Did she seem conscious?”

“She was conscious,” Tim said.

“How did she look?” Alan asked. His voice broke. He had caught only a glimpse of her from across the ICU. Her face was so pale, covered with bruises.

“She's hurt,” Tim said.

“God help me,” Alan said, holding his head, pacing in the small hallway. Driving down to New York, he had held it all inside. The fear came pouring out now, flooding out of his body, the pent-up terror of losing Dianne. “Jesus, help me, help us….”

“Alan,” Tim said.

Alan's eyes were wild. He couldn't catch his breath. He had witnessed families at the ICU a thousand times, and now he was one of them. Dianne was in there. He shook his head, choked down a sob. His brother stood there, sweaty and filthy with hair that hadn't been combed or cut in a month. He looked just like the little boy Alan had taught to fish, had taught to swim off the sands of Cape Cod.

“I'm leaving,” Tim said.

“Tim,” Alan said, paralyzed with fear. He realized then he didn't want his brother to walk away.

Tess Brooks hung up the phone. Amy had been hit by a taxicab. She was hurt, lying in a big hospital. She had nearly bled to death! Tess was breathing so hard, she thought she was going to pass out. The house was empty and dark. She walked in circles, tearing at her hair.

After what Buddy had done to Amy! Being dragged into his car, watching him try to drown the dog, nearly drowning herself. And now this! Tess
howled out loud. Her daughter had been hit by a car! Oh, what a lousy mother she was. What a crummy, selfish woman.

Tess strode through her small house. In and out of rooms. Her bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, Amy's room. As she did, she saw flashes of the past. Amy's baby shoes, Russell's fishing boat, her wedding dress. Tess had heard of people whose lives flashed before their eyes, but didn't that happen on deathbeds? Why was it happening to her right now?

In Amy's room she stopped before Russell's shrine. Well, that's what it was: Amy had assembled a collection of memorabilia, Tess didn't even know where she'd gotten it all. Russ's portrait smiling out with that honest joy he'd always had. He could have sold a million cars…. Hanging from the picture was a fishhook, a cardboard cutout of the Ford logo, a plastic dolphin, and a drawing of a sand castle.