Follow the Stars Home (56 page)

Sand castles were significant to Amy. Tess had never known why until she'd read Amy's story. Tess had gotten all bent out of shape that the mother had looked like Dianne, and because of that Amy had never even turned her story in for the contest. With Tess's life flashing before her eyes, she saw the hard truth: She had dashed her daughter's dream yet again.

“Depression rots, Russ,” she said, sitting down in front of his picture. “Why'd you go and leave me?”

No answer.

“I've tried to do it on my own, and look where it's gotten me.”

No answer.

“Just look!” she said again, catching sight of herself in the mirror. She had wide, intelligent eyes, a sad expression on her mouth. She tried to smile, but her daughter was in the hospital.

She sighed, staring at Russell's picture again. Photos
didn't talk. Drowned husbands didn't return from the deep to console wives who'd screwed up their lives. Or to wait by the phone to hear the latest update on their daughter. Feeling shaky, Tess walked into the kitchen. She opened up the junk drawer, and there it was. Amy's story.

Imagine-her story stuck in the junk drawer.

The corner was glossy with peanut butter grease. Tess tried to blot the oil stain out. No luck, but she could still read the typing. She didn't want to read the words. They still hurt her too much. But Amy had put such effort in, the way she did everything, the way she did life.

The least Tess could do …Suddenly she found herself pulling on snow boots. She tugged on an old jacket. The car wouldn't start, she'd need a jump, but there wasn't anyone she wanted to call. Besides, the snow had stopped and the night was clear. Amy was out of danger, and Tess would catch a train to New York in the morning.

She'd walk to the train station, starting now. She rummaged through her junk drawer a little deeper, found her envelope of mad money. That should cover her ticket. Tucking Amy's story in the pocket of her coat, she was glad the train station was so near the library.

The deadline had passed. Amy's story was late being turned in, it was coated with peanut butter, it didn't have a fancy folder. But maybe if Tess called Mrs. Robbins, she could ask that Amy be granted an extension. She could try anyway.

Trying was new for Tess. But she had to start somewhere. Leaving her dark house, she walked out into the cold, starry night.

The night was long. Alan walked the halls. He sat with Amy. He held her until she went to sleep. He read her chart, conferred with her doctor, adjusted the angle of her traction. He telephoned Lucinda. Julia was fine, she told him. She was sitting up with Lucinda, more alert than she had been in weeks. It seemed, Lucinda said, almost as if she knew that Lucinda needed her comfort.

Alan asked Lucinda to put the phone to Julia's ear.

“I love you, Julia,” he said.

“Daaaa,” she said back.

Alan returned to the hallway outside the ICU. Tim had fallen asleep in one of the chairs. He had been ready to go, but Alan had asked him to stay. Their resentments were deep and ferocious, and they'd stared at each other so long, as if they were squaring off for a fight.

Alan looked down at him now. It felt strange to see his younger brother age. There was gray in his blond hair, deep lines around his mouth and eyes. He slept with his arms crossed across his body, in a position of self-protection and defense.

Sitting down beside him, Alan gazed at the ICU door. Everything worth knowing was happening in that room. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, staring as hard as he could. He pushed his glasses up, he took them off, he put them back on.

“I used to think they were magic,” Tim said gruffly.

Alan glanced over.

His brother was awake, but he didn't look too alert. Arms still crossed, legs extended, he disguised a yawn.

“What were magic?” Alan asked.

“Your glasses. When we were kids and you had to
wear them, I used to think you had special powers. They made you smarter, faster, stronger.”

“Dorothea used to say I ruined my eyes from reading in the dark. That's about it. The rest was just me being your older brother.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you ruled the world.”

“I tried,” Alan said. “More being the older brother, I guess. Life on a pedestal seemed like a good idea.”

“I sure liked knocking you off,” Tim said.

“Hmm,” Alan said, staring at the ICU door.

“She's not just your sister-in-law anymore, is she?” Tim asked.

“She never was,” Alan said, “just that.”

“You've gotten involved with her again?”

“I'm going to marry her.”

Tim was silent for a long time, but he was definitely awake. He sat up straight, shook his head as if to clear his mind.

“I've loved her all along,” Alan said.

“What about my daughter?”

“Julia,” Alan said. It felt strange to hear his brother, this other man, call her “my daughter.” That was how Alan saw her. Coming from Tim, he knew they were just words, but they tightened up his stomach anyway. “I'm adopting her.”

“I could fight that,” Tim said, staring at the lighting fixtures. “I wouldn't, but I could.”

“I appreciate that you wouldn't,” Alan said.

“Eleven years old,” Tim said. “Julia's eleven years old.”

“She is.”

“I was on my way when you got here,” Tim said. “On my way back to the boat.”

“You said you were leaving,” Alan said carefully.
He didn't know what had gone on between Tim and Dianne, and he was almost afraid to find out. The old jealousy was strong and deep, and it came back fast. “I appreciate that you stayed.”

“Yeah, well,” Tim said.

“Well,” Alan said.

“You want to have it out with me?” Tim asked. “About what a scumbag I am?”

“Malachy told me about you being in Lunenburg,” Alan said sharply.

“Told you and told Dianne, I guess,” Tim said. “She hates my guts.”

“She said that?”

“She said she forgives me,” Tim said, leaving out the rest of what she said.

Alan closed his eyes. His throat ached. Dr. Bella-vista was in with Dianne. The ICU door had neither opened nor closed in quite a long time. Alan burned to know what was going on in there. Sitting out here, talking to Tim, felt strange and upsetting, as he thought of everything they had once been to each other back in their Cape Cod youth. He thought about how they both loved the same woman, how Alan was about to legally adopt his brother's child, how Dianne had looked at him with hate in her eyes.

“What's she like?” Tim asked.

“Excuse me?” Alan asked, lost in thought.

“Julia,” Tim said, his voice catching. “What's she like?”

Alan took out his wallet. He had her baby picture inside, and he took it out. Handing it to Tim, he watched his brother close his eyes, gather his strength, and look. Alan had sent him Julia's baby picture a month after her birth, but he could tell that Tim had never seen it before.

“Oh, God,” Tim said, starting to cry.

“What's wrong with you?” Alan asked. “She's beautiful.”

“She's deformed.” Tim wept, holding the picture right up to his face.

Alan stared back at the door. Dianne was inside, and it didn't take much for him to spin back in time to the night of Julia's birth at Hawthorne Cottage Hospital. Tim had sailed away, and Dianne was still lost in shock and disbelief. Lucinda was in the waiting room, a team of doctors was on board. Everyone knew the baby had problems, but they didn't yet know the extent.

Dianne lay on the delivery table. Alan was her partner, her birth coach. He was a pediatrician, and he believed he would be ready for anything. Dianne had lain there, going through labor, doing everything she was supposed to to deliver a healthy baby. Breathe, the obstetrician had told her. Push. Breathe. Don't push.

Alan had held her hand. She had the most amazing grip. Clutching his fingers, he wished she might never let go. Her hair flowed down her face, sweat ran from her neck and body. During the early stages she had continually glanced at the delivery room door as if Tim had changed his mind and might come charging in.

The time had come to get the baby out. The doctors gathered around. Sitting by Dianne's head, Alan had held her shoulders. “Way to go, Dianne,” he said like someone coaching a baseball team. “You're doing great, you can do it, that's a girl.”

She had grabbed his chin. “Tell me,” she begged, “that I've done the right thing.”

The baby wasn't born yet, they had no way of knowing what her future would be. But Dianne had lost her husband, had signed on for a lifetime of duty
for a baby who would never be all right. Alan had no idea, but his answer had come from his heart and soul.

“Yes, Dianne,” he had whispered. “You have done the right thing.”

“Oh,” she had cried. “I hope I have….”

“I promise I'll be there,” Alan had said. “For her whole life, for as much as you need me.”

“Thank you,” Dianne had said, pushing, working, getting her baby born. The room sizzled with anticipation and excitement, every doctor knowing that his or her specialty was about to be put to use. Dianne threw back her head, her skin glistening, hair streaming, the cords of her neck taut as wire. Alan witnessed birth in medical school, but never like this, never when he knew the mother.

“She's coming,” the doctor said. “Here we go, another push, Dianne, we have it, let's go, come on….”

The room fell silent.

Dianne was screaming, the joy and relief of having delivered her child, the way every mother sounded when she's just given life, and Alan had expected the room to join in-that collective raising of voices, that choir of those present at a birth. But there was nothing. Every person in the room drew a breath and held it.

“Please,” Dianne cried. “Give her to me.”

The neonatologist had the baby on the way to her incubator. Nurses blocked Dianne's view. Dianne was weeping, reaching out, holding her empty arms toward the doctors. No one wanted Dianne to see. The baby was defective. Horribly misshapen, her spine in a sac at the top of her back, her limbs akimbo, her body the mismatching planes of a cubist painting.

Alan rose. Walking across the room, leaving his
sister-in-law screaming for him to come back and bring her baby, he gazed for the first time at his niece. He was a pediatrician. He had attended Harvard Medical School, and he had trained at Mass General and Yale. But nothing had ever prepared him for the emotions he felt as he stared into the eyes of that little girl.

“Give her to me,” he said.

“She needs—”

Alan was well aware of what she needed. Taking her into his arms, he carried her across the room. Dianne was crying, nodding. She was only in a hospital gown and beautiful. The baby was no bigger than a kitten. Dianne sobbed. As she looked at the baby, her sobs stopped suddenly on one sharp intake of breath.

Alan would never forget what she did next.

With all the pain she must have been feeling from childbirth, from having been abandoned by her husband, and from the anxiety of bearing a damaged child, she put all of those feelings aside. She looked at her baby. And she nodded. She was trembling, it would be hard and there would be setbacks, but she was ready to try.

“Give her to me,” she said, her voice shaking.

Alan placed the baby in Dianne's arms.

“Sweet baby,” Dianne whispered. “Little girl …I love you. I love you. I love you. And I'll never leave you. Never.”

Now, sitting outside the ICU, Alan watched his brother Tim cry as he stared at that baby's picture. Alan waited while Tim pulled himself together. For a few seconds Alan considered telling his brother the account of his daughter's birth, but he held himself back. That story belonged to him and Dianne.

“Dianne kept her at home?” Tim asked.