All The Stars In Heaven

by Michele Paige Holmes

  “So then you got your act together?” Sarah asked.

  “Not right away,” Jay said. “I almost got kicked out of the program—would’ve gone straight to jail, too. But Jane spoke in my defense, and I was allowed to stay.” He watched Sarah’s expression change as the significance of this sunk in.

  “Your own mother betrayed you, but . . .”

  “But this woman whose career I’d just ruined stood up for me so I could get my life back.”

  “No wonder you loved her.”

  “No wonder,” Jay agreed. “But there’s love.” He reached across the table to lift Sarah’s chin so he could look into her eyes. “And then there’s love.”

  She turned aside. “I’d love it if you’d finish.”

  “Almost there,” Jay promised. “When I found out what Jane had done, I did get my act together and completed the program. I didn’t want to do anything to let her down. After I was done, I tried to contact her quite a few times, but she got a restraining order and put an end to that. Then, a couple of years later, I saw her again. I thought if I’d changed, was drug free, going to school, that sort of thing, she might be interested. I did everything from polishing my new shoes to getting a haircut in the hope of winning her affection.”

  Sarah was neither smiling or frowning. “Did you?”

  “It was too late. She got married during my first year of law school. But I was glad to see her again, and I was able to help her during a crisis. Afterward she told me something I’ve never forgotten. She said I was like the hero from her favorite movie, Casablanca, that I was brave and chivalrous. It was enough that she saw me that way instead of the junkie I used to be.”

  Sarah clasped her hands together in front of her. “So Jane turned you around.”

  “I turned me around,” Jay said. “But she helped. Last time I saw her was at her graduation. After my first year of law school, I went back to the center and spoke with both the director and the dean of psychology at the University of Washington. I defended her, told them what a difference she’d made in my life, convinced them to let her back into the program. Now she lives in Seattle with her husband and daughter.”

  “And you live in Cambridge and are about to graduate with a law degree.”

  “About meaning another six months,” Jay said.

  Sarah held her hands up. “I don’t know what to think or say.”

  That you haven’t left yet says a lot.

  “Let it digest awhile,” he suggested. “I’ve shared some ugly stuff. I imagine it will take some time to go down.” He picked up the three-dimensional menu standing by the salt and pepper, twirling it around with his fingers, willing to sit here all night and the next. He’d give her whatever time she needed.

  “When you told me you had a record, I never imagined . . .” Sarah said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” He stared out the window at the snowflakes falling fast and furious now. He thought of the other package in his coat pocket and wondered if he’d ever get the opportunity to give it to her.

  Not tonight, that’s for sure.

  He returned the menu to the table, looking at the side featuring desserts. “Why don’t we order something sweet? Maybe it will help wash down all that bitter.” Lame attempt at levity, Kendrich. He pointed to the Oreo pie. “How about chocolate? And since you’re overloaded now with information about me, is it all right if I ask the questions for a while?”

  * * *

  “You already know everything about me,” Sarah said. And I wish—oh, how I wish—you hadn’t told me everything about you.

  “I know about you and your dad and cousin,” Jay said. “But you’ve never told me anything about your mother. What was your family like before she died?”

  “I don’t remember much.” Sarah watched as a busboy cleared a nearby table. When the dishes were moved, one quick swipe with his filthy rag seemed his best effort. She looked down at their own table, remembering that the silverware had been resting directly on it when they first arrived. She’d put a fork in her mouth that had touched a table that probably wasn’t clean. What little of the hamburger she’d eaten earlier churned in her stomach. And a fork was nothing compared to—compared to the nauseating thought of Jay sticking a syringe full of cocaine into his arm.

  Sarah watched as he caught the waitress’s attention and ordered a dessert for them to share.

  “Could we have two new spoons to go with that?” Sarah asked as their server left to fill their order.

  “Something wrong with these?” Jay asked, picking up his own spoon.

  “Maybe.” Sarah glanced at the busboy still making his rounds.

  Jay followed her gaze. “Maybe you get this germ thing from your mom?”

  “No. I’m nothing like her—nothing at all.” Her voice was adamant. Nothing like her or you or anyone else messed up by drugs.

  “Sorry.” Jay held his hands up. “Want to tell me why the sudden animosity? I know you’re upset with me, and you have every right to be. But why transfer that to your mom?”

  “I’m disappointed,” Sarah said, meeting his gaze.

  “I didn’t want to disappoint you, but I also wanted to tell you the truth,” Jay said. Genuine regret reflected in his eyes.

  “I know.”

  “It was a long time ago. And I can’t change the past. No matter how much I want to.” He started to reach for her hands, then stopped as she grabbed her purse from the windowsill, holding the handle in a white-knuckled grip.

  “I don’t get the whole thing,” she said. “It seems like everyone I know has been messed up with drugs in some way. It destroys people and lives, ruins families and friendships.”

  Jay rubbed the back of his neck. “I agree. But I don’t agree that it has to destroy this friendship. Drugs are part of my past—not my present or future. I’m not going to do anything to hurt you, to hurt myself. I wish you could bel—”

  “Believe you?” Sarah finished, her voice wavering. “Well, I can’t. Everyone I want to trust, I should be able to trust, lets me down.” She brought a hand to her face, covering her eyes. “It’s been that way my whole life—since I was a little girl and my mom killed herself overdosing.”

  * * *

  Jay watched as the ice-cream filling in their Oreo pie slowly melted. He hadn’t taken a bite—had lost his appetite after Sarah’s startling revelation just before she fled to the restroom. At least he hoped that was where she’d fled. Her coat still hung on the back of her chair. He took it as a hopeful sign that she hadn’t snuck out the back entrance, eager to be away from him forever.

  He was the one digesting now, internalizing the fact that Sarah’s mother had died the same way his mother had. What are the odds? he wondered as a chill swept through him. He glanced toward the door, but it was shut tight. The feeling seeping through him had nothing to do with the temperature.

  And everything to do with fate.

  Sarah had once asked him what his religious beliefs were. He honestly didn’t know. But he did believe there was some higher power directing all things. He’d always believed in destiny. Somehow it was fated that he, Jay Kendrich, was to do certain things and meet certain people during his life.

  Sarah Morgan was one of them.

  In his mind Jay traveled across the country to his storage unit in Seattle, where he had centuries of Kendrich records stored. Those records were filled with stories he sometimes had difficulty comprehending—weird twists of fate that brought people together, coincidences too rare to really be such. He’d found those stories fascinating. He’d believed in them, but never more so than at this very minute when he found himself living one, looking at the woman he knew he was destined to be with, as she walked toward him.

  Sarah’s eyes were red-rimmed, her face blotchy. Wordlessly, she slid into her seat.

  You came back. “New spoons.” Jay held up the silverware he’d kept tight in his grasp since the waitress delivered it.

  “I’m not hungry.”


  “Me either.” Jay stuck the spoons in the pie and pushed it aside. He reached across the table and took Sarah’s hands. “Look at me,” he begged.

  She raised tear-filled eyes. “Jay, I’m scared. I want to trust you, but . . .”

  “You don’t have to trust yet. Just listen—please.”

  She nodded. “Five minutes. I called Christa.”

  He sucked in his breath and started. “When I first heard you play the piano, I wanted to meet you. I knew—just from listening to you play—that we’d have a lot in common, that you felt as passionately about music as I do.”

  “I like classical. You like rock,” Sarah countered.

  “We were both raised by single fathers.”

  “But I’m from the East Coast,” she said. “You were born and raised in the West.”

  Jay ignored her argument. “What really makes us who we are, the things that really matter, are the same.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “I do.” Jay looked into her eyes. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that both our mothers died of an overdose?”

  “It strikes me as sad.” She pressed her lips together, and he could tell she was trying not to cry. “But I’ve never used drugs. And I never will.”

  “Neither will I, again,” Jay promised.

  “My mother died alone,” Sarah said. “What she did, she did to herself. I know it’s the same with your mother, but knowing you were there—that you were the one who gave it to her, and then you took it yourself . . .”

  She isn’t going to be able to get past this. “I regret that every day of my life,” he whispered. I shouldn’t have told her. I had to. “I live with it every day. That in itself is enough that I’d never do it again.” Believe me—please. “I’ll never hurt you, Sarah.”

  She broke their gaze, looking away. “You already have.”

  Her words cut to his heart, and he felt her loss already as if she were gone. But she’s not gone yet.

  “Dance with me,” he said, nodding toward the floor where several couples swayed to the music. “Just once. Then you can go with Christa, and I won’t bother you again.” You’ll never have to see me again. What seemed like a lifetime ago, he’d said that to Jane. It was a painful reminder of what he stood to lose.

  “I don’t dance.”

  Of course not. Jay got up and walked around to her side of the table. “Then let me share one more first with you.” He held out his hand.

  Lips pressed together again, her gaze went past him to the dance floor. Seconds ticked by. He felt her slipping further away, and there was nothing he could do to pull her back. He was about to sit down again when she placed her hand in his.

  His heart, nearly crushed with the weight of his sorrow and regret, beat a little stronger.

  Jay led her to the floor, turned to face her, put his arms around her waist, and pulled her close. He couldn’t have been more surprised when she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head against his shoulder. Feet alternating side by side, they began to sway as the music faded away. He kept his embrace. He could have sworn hers tightened.

  The song ended. A new one started. Familiar guitar strums drifted from overhead speakers as Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” began. Jay closed his eyes, cherishing every second of this, his lips close to her skin, her head near his heart.

  The lyrics were poignantly appropriate. Sarah probably had loved her mother, had probably yearned for her over the years. How must she feel, Jay tried to imagine, knowing the part I played in my mother’s death?

  As the song said, he was the bad boy, breaking her heart. He’d never felt worse, never regretted his actions so much. It was going to cost him not only his mother’s life, but Sarah’s love as well.

  Free falling . . .

  He was beyond falling, knew he had already fallen hard for this woman in his arms. He adored everything about her—from the way the hair fell across her face to her passion about music to her convictions about life. Her heart, so bruised and tender from past abuses. Their strangely parallel pasts. Even her obsession with germs. He wanted it all, every part of her.

  And she couldn’t trust him.

  Part Two

  Holding Tight

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sarah’s back was rigid, her hands clasped tight around the single flower in her lap as she sat in her seat on the T. Remembering her last trip to Boston—when she’d come to the city with Jay—was a painful reminder of the happiness she’d felt that day and in the days that followed, and the friendship she’d lost. But she thought of it, of him, anyway. Almost constantly it seemed. And she wondered how she’d ever survived almost twenty-four years without him—how she was going to survive now. Her heart physically hurt, as if a piece had been ripped out and she was no longer whole.

  But today’s quest was an attempt to repair at least a part of her. It had been Jay’s suggestion—there he was in her thoughts again—that she find and visit her mother’s grave. He’d been right, of course, and a little research had given her a location. Sarah wasn’t sure what she was going to accomplish with this visit but knew she had to make peace with her past before she could hope to find happiness in her future. She would never understand what her mother had done, but she needed to be able to forgive her.

  Arriving at her stop, Sarah left the train and walked up cobbled streets through the unfamiliar neighborhood. Older apartment complexes towered above the sidewalk, and Sarah wondered if she had ever lived in any of them. She had no recollection of the apartment she’d shared with her mother beyond the bedroom that had been hers—filled with pale yellow sunshine in the mornings and the lights of the city at night.

  After several blocks she reached the cemetery and entered its tall, iron gates. She followed the drive as it curved around toward the first row of headstones. Fishing a paper from her pocket, she studied the cemetery layout and read the plot number of her mother’s grave. The paper shook in her hands as she turned down the third row and began walking past dozens of headstones. She scanned the names on every one, and, midway across, she found her mother’s.

  The narrow stone pressed flat into the earth was barely visible. Sarah dropped to the ground—the paper and flowers forgotten as she reached to push the frozen blades of grass aside.

  Rachel Sarah Phillips Morgan

  June 11, 1958–December 6, 1986

  Beloved Daughter, Wife, and Mother

  Sarah’s breath caught as she read the words a second time. Sarah? I have her middle name? She reached for the cemetery map and looked at it closely. The record was for Rachel Phillips Morgan. Sarah wasn’t included. Why? Why didn’t Dad ever tell me?

  She pushed back the grass again and started ripping it away. She worked at it for several minutes until her fingers were raw with cold but the stone was clear.

  Beloved. Daughter and mother, yes. But beloved wife? Sarah knew her parents had been separated at the time of her mother’s death. She’d always assumed it was her mother’s drug problem that drove them apart, yet that didn’t entirely make sense. If one parent was a police officer and the other a drug addict, why would the addict be given custody of their child? Sarah searched her memory for any detail about life with her mother but could find none other than an intangible sense that she’d been happy.

  And her mother . . . Had she been happy? Or did she feel as alone as I do?

  Beloved daughter . . . Her father had said all of her grandparents were dead. But what if that wasn’t true?

  Sudden doubt filled her mind, and with a sense of urgency, Sarah rose from her knees and hurried to the grave beside her mother’s, searching for another stone with the Phillips name.

  Instead, she found another Morgan. The stone was even smaller than her mother’s.

  Emily Anne Morgan

  May 17–May 20, 1984

  Precious and Dearly Loved

  Daughter of Grant and Rachel Morgan

  I had a little sister? Sarah’s hands went to h
er chest, where her heart beat erratically. She knelt again, fingers tracing the name as tears stung and blurred her eyes. What happened? Why didn’t you ever tell me? She calculated the months between her own birthday and the dates on the stone and realized she would have been just two and a half when Emily was born—and died. Just four days . . . Sarah imagined a tiny infant laid out in a miniature casket and felt a new hurt, a longing for something lost she hadn’t even known she had.

  She reached across the grave for her discarded purse. After pulling a pen out, she copied the name and dates from her sister’s stone onto the back of her mother’s burial record. Questions and possibilities filled her mind. She wished she could talk to her father and ask him what had happened, but she knew that even if she did, he probably wouldn’t tell her. Never once had he mentioned a sister, and only rarely did he say anything about her mother—other than to bring up her terrible and tragic mistake.

  Sarah wished Jay were here with her. He’d know what to do next, where to search for answers. He’d listen and share her joy and sorrow at having discovered she’d had a sibling. He would understand why she both loved and hated her mother. She realized Jay was right—they were alike in the ways that really mattered, their lives and losses similar.

  But the revelation that her mother had suffered the devastating loss of a child was already changing the feelings of anger Sarah had felt for so long.

  Oblivious to the cold, she sat between the two stones, trying to imagine the people they represented. She didn’t know what it was like to have a child die, but she knew what it was like to grow up motherless. There were times her own pain and loneliness had been so great that she might have chosen to turn to something for escape—had her father not been there to keep her away from such paths.