The Promise of Stardust

by Priscille Sibley

  Jake stood and buttoned his jacket. “Your Honor. The advanced directive produced by Adam Cunningham is only a photocopy—not an original. Elle Beaulieu has had no substantive relationship with Cunningham other than their mutual association with NASA for the past five years. As far as we know, she could have torn up the original document when she moved out of the residence they once shared. Furthermore, in Texas, this AD would be automatically revoked during a pregnancy.”

  “Yes, but if you recall, we are not in Texas, Mr. Sutter,” the judge said.

  “Which is why I move to exclude the document,” Jake said.

  Judge Wheeler folded his hands and leaned forward. “What interests the court is what Elle would want done on her behalf if she were able to speak for herself,” the judge said. “I’d like to hear what Elle wrote on this 2003 document. We’re putting together a puzzle here. Mr. Klein, do you have any evidence to substantiate that this advanced directive is current?”

  “We do not have possession of the original at this time, Your Honor. We are trying to contact the attorney who drew up the document.”

  “Very well,” Wheeler said. “I’ll hear testimony concerning this advanced directive along with whatever other testimony each side is going to present. And since we were already scheduled to meet this morning, I’d like to hear your opening statements.”

  Jake wrote on the legal pad, “Grounds for Appeal.”

  “Just a note,” Wheeler continued, “because of the change in focus, from guardianship to the removal of the ward’s life support, Mrs. Linney Beaulieu is now the petitioner. Dr. Beaulieu is the respondent. Mr. Klein, are you prepared?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Klein took three steps toward the gallery and locked eyes with reporters representing CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, and the Boston Globe. Along with the journalists, Paige Cartwright sat off to the side with her glower homed on me. She was nothing but a small-town reporter with a big story in her backyard. She obviously wanted to make a name for herself in front of the networks. And when she baited me with her twisted take on the situation, I made an easy mark by jumping through her goddamned hoop. I groaned inwardly and forced my attention back to the front of the courtroom and my mother’s attorney.

  Over the next few minutes Klein summed up my mother’s position while he rolled an unsharpened yellow pencil back and forth between his palms. “Anytime the issue came up, whenever right-to-die issues were in the news, Elle clearly informed those around her she did not want to be kept alive if there was no hope of recovery.” He harped on the fact that Elle had come to these strongly held opinions through her experiences with her own mother’s prolonged death.

  With great clarity I could still see Alice on her deathbed. Watching her die beat down Elle’s indomitable spirit for a while. At the time I focused on Elle. It wasn’t until I was in med school that I realized Alice’s death had profoundly changed me, too. It made me cognizant of the quality of life and the impact illness made on an entire family.

  My family. There were other similarities besides the physical resemblance Elle bore to Alice. Two women, a mother and a daughter, each lost her voice and the ability to choose her destiny. And like Hank, I was fighting against immeasurable odds that a miracle would come. I didn’t appreciate the comparison even though I recognized its validity.

  My mother’s attorney had been articulating his case for seven or eight minutes when he said, “As a competent adult, Elle signed not one but two documents outlining that she didn’t want extreme measures to prolong her life. The law dictates that she has an inalienable right to self-determination. Her pregnancy in no way changes this. Texas law notwithstanding, she said she did not want to ever be put on life support of any kind. Please honor her wishes. Thank you, Your Honor.”

  Wheeler’s face showed no emotion. “The court will hear from you, Mr. Sutter.”

  Jake stood and glanced quickly at the press before addressing the judge. “Your Honor, Elle Beaulieu was a thoughtful woman, brilliant and complex, but she was never motivated by a single factor.” He spoke as if he understood Elle’s wishes, perhaps because he had pulled out phrases I had used to describe her intensity as well as her tender side. “The day before her terrible accident Elle and Matt discussed the possibility of trying to start a family. Tragically, neither knew she was already pregnant.” Jake paused with his gaze fixed on mine and nodded at me.

  I swallowed hard. If only I had known about the baby, everything would have been different. She wouldn’t have gone up on that ladder. Maybe I would have stayed home that morning and we would have celebrated.

  “We are here to determine what Elle Beaulieu would have wanted done on her behalf.” Jake rubbed the nape of his neck. “She wanted to have children even at the peril of her own life.” He went on to outline his case with one notable exception. He said nothing about petitioning for fetal guardianship, but that omission felt deliberate.

  Jake’s gaze rolled over to me, and the judge’s eyes followed. “Your Honor, Elle married Matthew Beaulieu and they dreamed of building a family together. Let Elle fulfill her dream.” He came to the respondent’s table, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down.

  A court officer approached the bench and passed the judge a note.

  “Thank you, Counselors. I need a twenty-minute recess to attend to a different matter. Afterward, Mr. Klein, you may call your first witness.”

  While Jake spent the recess pulling together his notes, I read an entry Elle wrote fourteen years earlier.

  25

  Fourteen Years Before Elle’s Accident

  An Entry in Her First Composition Book

  March 12, 1994

  Dear Matt,

  I didn’t write last night. I felt too exhausted, too drained. Bereft. I can’t believe your dad died or that I had to deliver the terrible news to you.

  But your brother called me and said he didn’t want you to hear about Dennis’s heart attack alone. Could I pick you up? New York City is on the way to Maine from Princeton after all, he said. Not exactly. And I’ve never driven into New York City before. But apparently Mike has, and he gave me directions to your med school apartment. So delivering the brutal words fell to me. God, Matt. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to tell you.

  I have to stop trembling. I can’t write like this. And I have to sort out my feelings or I won’t be able to ever sleep again.

  For five years I have avoided you whenever we both happened to be home at the same time—I refused to talk to you. Linney says I have a passive-aggressive streak wider than the distance from the earth to the moon. But honestly, I just felt so completely humiliated. Back then, I believed you loved me as much as I loved you. And you broke my heart, Matt. You went away to college, and you promised we would always be together. Then you slept with that girl. And you came home and said you were sorry. You said you still loved me. But how could you have ever loved me and made love to someone else? It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. Not now. Dennis is dead.

  I loved your dad. My heart is simply breaking for your mom. And yesterday I had to bring you such wretched sadness. And I’m so sorry because I never wanted to hurt you. Not like this.

  When my mom was sick, you held my hand. Every day. You sat with Mommy and me all those afternoons. When my voice grew hoarse from hours of reading to her, you read to her for me. I needed you back then, and you were there. We loved each other. I know we did. I thought we did.

  I needed you. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped needing you. And yesterday I realized how petty I’ve been all this time. How I didn’t forgive you for, I don’t know, growing up? Moving on?

  You cried when I told you about your dad. You cried in my arms. And I wanted to take your grief away because you carried me through those dark days when my mom was sick, when we lost the baby. And I wanted to make love to you again. The way we used to when it wasn’t only about sex. I thought about it for a couple of seconds while you were in my arms—while I was holding you. I wanted to
kiss you. I wanted to be even closer, but too much time has passed. We were children then. But you are still such a part of who I am, a part of who I have become, and that realization crystallized last night on the drive home.

  On the radio, “I Want to Know What Love Is” popped on. I changed the station. I had to. It was playing the first time we made love. That night when the Perseid showers rained celestial dust around us.

  The baby, that’s what she was. Stardust. God, I need to focus.

  After a few minutes you said, “Peep, I’d offer to drive, but with exams, I haven’t slept in two days. I’d probably kill us both.”

  You called me Peep. No one has called me that in years. No one ever called me Peep but you. I almost started to cry. Because of your dad. Because of our baby. Because of every loss I ever experienced. But mostly because it was like someone recognized this girl inside me again. For the first time in forever I remembered who I was.

  And who you were.

  I have missed you. I have hidden from the ache of your absence.

  And then I met your eyes for a driver’s moment, and my heart pounded so hard I thought you could probably hear inside my soul, and that scared me, too. So like a coward, I turned back to study the yellow line running down the highway and told you to sleep.

  I suppose that is the sum of the last two days. I loved you. And finally, I believe you loved me once upon a long time ago. Isn’t it tragic that sometimes it takes grief to understand what we have held so dear?

  Love, Peep

  26

  Fourteen Years Before the Accident

  Even all these years later, I remember that drive home and the nightmares I had. I sank into oblivion and dreamed of dismembered torsos, which probably wasn’t surprising since I’d spent the previous week hovering over cadavers in the anatomy and physiology lab. Except, in my sleep, half bore my father’s tattoo, a tree with my mother’s name on the trunk, and each branch had the name of one of my brothers. And my name—even my name. The leaves were a fetus cupped in a girl’s hands, Elle’s hands, an opal ring I’d given her on her left. Then her hands melted like wax. Like tears rolling down over Celina, our tiny, tiny baby girl.

  Elle’s voice, real or imagined, said, “It’s okay, Matt. It’s okay.”

  I startled awake as we pulled down the street where we grew up.

  “We’re here.” She took my hand. “Your mom won’t expect you to be strong for her. Linney doesn’t need that. She just needs you to be close. Let her cry, but if you need to cry, let her hold you while that happens.”

  Elle sounded so certain, like an arrogant sage.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what she told me when my mom died.”

  Inside, the fluorescent light over the sink flickered, setting the mood with cold and hard shadows. Elle followed me into the kitchen, took the kettle off the stove, and filled it from the tap. “You want a cup of tea?”

  I nodded. “Mom must have gone to bed. I wonder if I should wake her.”

  On cue, my mother padded down the creaking stairs. We didn’t say a word. She wrapped her arms around me, then beckoned Elle over and hugged her, too.

  Mom insisted Dad’s funeral would not be morbid. Word went around that we were each to come up with five stories to tell about Dad—or else. Funny stories were best, but any reasonably non-sappy tale would do. I found out more things about my father in those two days than I’d known in my lifetime. For six months, when he was in elementary school, he ate nothing but peanut-butter sandwiches. In high school, he and his father helped build a house for a family who lost everything after their furnace exploded. The reason my mother, a self-confessed cat lover, never owned a cat was that they terrified Dad. Everyone insisted it was true. I found myself wondering: Why is it we know so little about the people we love until they are gone?

  I stared across the funeral parlor at Elle. I didn’t know she could be so vengeful that she could hold angry silence over me. And I didn’t know I was capable of hurting her so thoroughly that she would change. But then she strolled up to my side. “Do you know what I’ll always remember about your dad?”

  Nor did I know she could transform herself back into the friend I’d known. “What?”

  “That summer when you were trying out for pitcher for the middle school team. He took me aside, and said—” Elle lowered the timbre of her voice, impersonating my father. “‘You watch him, Elle. Matt isn’t the most talented kid in baseball, but he works harder than anyone else.’ He was so proud of you. And then you struck out the next three players. And your dad was on his feet, clapping so hard. Then he turned to me and said, ‘Well, he’s got some talent, too.’ God, I miss him, already.” She squeezed my elbow and slipped away. “And I’ve missed you, too, Matt.”

  After the graveside service, relatives filled the kitchen while my mother busied herself, packing away casseroles into individual-size portions. She couldn’t sit still or put up with more condolences, and I couldn’t sit still, so I paced. I should have stowed away in my room and buried my nose in my pharmacology textbook, but I couldn’t study. With the upcoming test, I figured I’d fall from the top 5 percent of my class to the fucking bottom. One test. If I could even afford the next semester’s tuition.

  Everything was slipping away. Elle left after the funeral, and I wanted another chance to talk with her. I stepped onto the back porch and into the cold night air. Across the driveway she was probably packing to return to Princeton. Floodlights hit the snow and broke the darkness as I climbed the McClures’ front steps.

  Christopher came to the door. He’d become such a gangly-looking mutt, with the beginnings of acne, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a little hair shadowed his upper lip. “You want to come in, Matt?”

  I entered, not so covertly scanning for Elle. “Is she around?” I asked.

  “Nope. She doesn’t usually stay here when she’s up from school.”

  “She doesn’t? Where does she stay?”

  “Gramps’s. It works out better, you know, with Dad.”

  “They don’t get along anymore?”

  “Elle and Dad?” Christopher’s incredulous expression said more than any explanation. Apparently not. Then he offered a teenage shrug as if it could not be less important.

  Completely sober for a few years, Hank strolled in from the kitchen, still wearing his neatly pressed suit and carrying a coffee mug. His eyebrows rose. “Matt, how are you holding up?”

  “Okay. How about you?’

  “I lost my best friend a couple of days ago. Life sucks. I imagine you’re not all that okay either.”

  My composure stumbled, and I fought hard to avoid breaking down.

  “I didn’t mean to take off without saying good-bye,” he said. “But I needed a few minutes with Elle before she headed out. When are you going back to New York?”

  “I have a six A.M. flight. I wanted to thank you for everything, helping with the arrangements. The eulogy. Um, about Elle, will she be back tonight?” I studied him for any indication of the rift Christopher implied, but Hank didn’t elaborate.

  “Unlikely. If you need anything, let me know. Do you have enough money to finish the school term?”

  “Yeah.” I was working night shift as an orderly. I made enough to pay the rent. But tuition, that would be another matter, one I would have to address with the financial aid office.

  “Your dad had life insurance. Your mom will be all right. You know your dad made me the executor of his will?”

  I shrugged, a little surprised that my mother would have to rely on Hank to distribute my father’s life insurance and pension.

  “It’s not important that we discuss it yet. I mean, I’ll have to evaluate all your father’s assets, but covering your tuition could be a little tougher.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “I’ve been taking out loans, anyway.”

  “Your dad was helping some?”

  I nodded.

  “He was so proud of yo
u getting into med school, an Ivy League one at that. He’d want you to finish. What I’m trying to say is, I’ll help out if you need it.” He sat on the arm of the leather chair.

  “I can’t take your money, Hank,” I said.

  “Why not? Elle’s schooling is done, or at least my financial contribution to it is. Chris is a great kid, but he’s no scholar. He’ll plod through a state school. Maybe, if he’s persistent, he’ll eventually get an MBA so he can run McClure Realty. I can afford to help you. If your pride pesters you, pay me back when you’re a wealthy surgeon. Or better yet, do the same thing for some deserving kid who happens across your path.”

  My mind was spinning. Admittedly, I’d already run a couple of scenarios, but I hadn’t considered one where I would be unable to finish med school at all.

  Hank walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “What I’m saying is I will see you through this, and I don’t want you to worry. Dennis and Linney saved my family when I was drinking. And I’d like to help yours.”

  I nodded again.

  “Good,” he said. “Be a doctor. In honor of Alice. To honor your dad.”

  I wondered if I could really make a difference. Dad was still dead. Alice was still dead. Medicine didn’t seem as miraculous as it once had. Not like when my mother saved Mike after he almost drowned. And if I could not save the people I cared about most, what point was there? “I’ll try,” I said. “I, uh, I have to get back.”

  “Okay, son. You take care. I’ll keep in touch.”

  When I returned home, Mom was sitting in the dining room with Aunt Beth, drinking coffee, looking weary. “Can you take the dog out for a walk?”

  Lucky, our Irish setter, was curled up by the living room hearth. He raised his head when he heard “dog.” “You want to go out, boy?”

  Five minutes later, in sweats and running shoes, I jogged down Bow Street with Lucky at my side. The subzero air dug into my lungs, but it didn’t matter that it was cold. It didn’t matter that I should be studying. I wanted to see Elle, and she was only a few miles away. She’d said she missed me.