From a Distant Star

by McQuestion, Karen

  He opened his mouth and sang, “Hate to leave you, Emily.” It wasn’t Lucas quality, but it wasn’t terrible either.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now we begin.”

  I tapped out the first few notes on the steering wheel. “I’ll sing the beginning and when I point to you, you sing your part. Okay?”

  Scout looked a little nervous, but he nodded. Honestly, he was taking this way too seriously. I knew this song backward and forward. It was an old 80s tune that my mom always turned up when it came on the radio in the car. When I was little, I thought the “Emily” referred to me, Emma Leigh Garson. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the name in the song was actually “Emily,’” not “Emma Leigh.” A little disappointing at the time. Now I belted out the lyrics, not caring that Scout was looking at me with open-mouthed wonder, and when his part came, I bounced in my seat and pointed, no small thing considering a semi zoomed past us at the same time. He sang, “Hate to leave you, Emily,” and looked pretty pleased when his words matched the recording.

  We got all the way through the song, him singing the one line and me doing the rest. When it finished, I took it back to the beginning.

  “We’re going to do it again and add some moves,” I told him. Lucas and I had perfected synchronizing our hand movements, pointing out the front window during a climactic moment, pumping our fists in the air, or doing the hand jive in rhythm with the chorus. I knew we looked incredibly stupid, especially when we pulled up to a stoplight and other people could see, but we didn’t care. If anyone frowned at us from another car, I figured they were jealous that we were young and happy and in love. When Lucas was sick, I missed these times, the times when we didn’t have to think about treatments and pain and death. When we could just be in the here and now, living life together, being carefree.

  I knew Scout was just standing in for Lucas, but for a few minutes, it was like old times. I restarted the song and we ran through it again. He loosened up after the first time, enthusiastically belting out his line and trying to copy my moves. I was a little proud, like I’d volunteered for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters organization and introduced my kid to something he wouldn’t have experienced otherwise.

  “Sing it, Scout,” I called out, right before his part.

  By the time we finished, both of us were giddy, something I hadn’t experienced for a long time. “That was fun,” I said, catching my breath.

  “That’s what fun is?” he asked.

  “Pretty much. Fun is doing something just because it makes you happy.”

  “You and Lucas had fun?”

  “All the time. How about you and your Emma?”

  He shook his head. “There is nothing compared to fun where I come from. We are happy and we are content. We celebrate big occasions, but we don’t do fun for no reason.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Finally, I’d found one thing we did better.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Scout sometimes had trouble processing the intensity of the emotions on this planet. The inhabitants had so many feelings, and they swung back and forth so quickly. Anything—bad news, the weather, music—could affect their moods. A rain shower made one human happy and another sad. A certain song could move one human to tears while another barely noticed it. And none of it was predictable, as far as he could tell.

  It was only midday and already Emma had been worried, excited, compassionate, and now, with the car dancing, happy. More than happy. He puzzled over her feelings and decided she was “jubilant.” Overflowing with joy. And he wasn’t sure why. He had tried to figure out the point of the car dancing and decided there was no point. It was, as she said, just for fun. How odd it was that these people did things that didn’t contribute to something else. Not for the greater good, anyway. The people just did things to make themselves feel good. So primitive, and yet, he liked it.

  He tried to think of how he could explain this concept to Regina, but he knew she’d have trouble understanding. She took charge and was a doer, always setting goals and accomplishing them in short order. Regina would probably make the point that the selfishness of the individuals on Earth was the reason the planet was so backward. Still, he wanted to try sharing this idea with her, to show her how each inhabitant could find happiness from within and share it with others. It was too good a feeling not to want to recreate on his home planet.

  Yes, if he ever made it home, that is what he would do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Many songs later, daylight broke and I didn’t need headlights to see the road anymore. Around the same time the sun made its full entrance, my stomach started to growl. The cup of coffee and granola bar I’d had right before heading out the door didn’t have the lasting power I’d hoped for. When I noticed a sign for a pancake house at an upcoming exit, I asked Scout, “Are you hungry? I’m thinking we should stop for breakfast.”

  “I could eat something,” he said. I recognized the words and intonation. That was exactly how Eric always answered that very same question. No wonder Mrs. Walker didn’t see anything wrong with her older son. Scout had borrowed expressions from close to home. Even though his speech was awkward, the words were familiar.

  Two exits later, I got off the expressway and spotted the restaurant from the end of the ramp. In a few minutes, we were sitting in a booth, looking at a glossy menu. Our waitress took our drink order as she escorted us to our table. Apparently, it was a very efficient pancake house. Scout scanned the menu and something else occurred to me. “Can you read?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. It was easy to match the sounds to the symbols.”

  Impressive that he taught himself. Maybe he had a right to feel superior after all. “Okay, well, if you need any help, let me know.”

  “I do not think that will be necessary,” Scout said, tapping a finger on a photo.

  I looked around the restaurant, glad to see it was about half full. We weren’t doing anything wrong, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were desperadoes, the equivalent of bank robbers on the run. I didn’t want to stand out too much. Our waitress came with our drinks: orange juice for Scout, coffee for me. She looked to be in her early thirties, with cropped brown hair tucked behind her ears. Earlier that morning, I’d looked in the mirror and thought I’d looked tired, but compared to this woman (Amy, according to her name tag) I had nothing to worry about. Her eyes were etched with exhaustion and she seemed preoccupied, darting a look back at the counter even as she set down our drinks. I followed her gaze to see a little girl about six years old, coloring on a paper placemat. She was by herself, and had a scarf wrapped around her head. Almost as if she felt me looking at her, the girl turned her head and smiled, and my heart instantly melted right before breaking into a million pieces. I knew this girl. Well, I didn’t know her exactly, but I’d seen her before in the faces of all the kids in the pediatric oncology unit when I was visiting Lucas. And then I realized she wasn’t smiling at me, but at the waitress, Amy. The girl held up her picture and called out, “Look, Mommy, I made this for you.”

  Amy turned and said, “That’s beautiful, baby. I’ll be right there after I take this order.” She pulled a pad and pen out of her pocket and addressed her next words to us: “The babysitter was sick.” She shrugged like, what are you gonna do? “Are you ready to order?”

  I wanted to cry, but instead I ordered a number six with a side of hash browns. Scout said, “I will have the same thing.”

  After the waitress gathered up the menus and walked away, I leaned across the table and whispered, “I think her daughter has cancer like Lucas had. So sad.”

  Scout took a sip of his orange juice. Lucas was never real big on fruits and vegetables, but I’d noticed that Scout gravitated toward them. He said, “The cancer is in her blood and the middle of her bones.”

  I asked, “How do you know that?”

  “We went past her when we walked in.” He said it nonchalantly as if this explained everything.

  “Wait a min
ute,” I said, lowering my voice again. “You can tell what kind of cancer she has just by being near her?”

  “Well, yes,” he said, a puzzled look on his face. “Is that unusual?”

  “Hell, yeah.” It had taken the doctors a million tests to narrow down exactly what Lucas had. “How can you do that?”

  Scout said, “Cell empathy.”

  “What’s that?” I glanced over at the little girl, her legs dangling off the edge of the stool. At this age, she shouldn’t have a care in the world and here she had cancer. So unfair.

  “I can tell the health of her cells.”

  “How?”

  He shrugged. “How can you see colors or taste food? You just can. You have that ability because it’s how you are made.”

  “But you’re inside Lucas’s body,” I pointed out. “And Lucas could never do that.”

  “My essence is what is driving the body. And so I have retained many of my own abilities.” He spoke the words slowly, reminding me once again that English wasn’t his first language.

  “Like, what else? What other abilities?”

  “Just other abilities.” He took the wrapper off his straw and stuck it in the juice, then stirred the pulp around.

  His answer seemed cagey to me. Why wouldn’t he say? “Wait a minute. Can you read people’s minds? Do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “Not exactly.” He had that look on his face again, the guilty look, like he knew he was in trouble. “The little girl’s name is Chloe,” he said brightly.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I heard her mother say her name.”

  It did not escape me that he hadn’t answered my question about mind reading. How disturbing would it be if he’d known everything I’d been thinking this whole time? His head was down now, his attention back to stirring his juice. If he thought I was going to let this go, he had another thing coming. In my mind, I yelled, Scout, look at me. Right now! Lift your head and look at me! Startled, he let go of the straw and met my eyes. A chill rose up my spine. He’d reacted as if I’d shouted at him. He’d heard what I was thinking.

  “You can read my mind,” I said, frowning. “That is incredibly creepy.”

  “I cannot do it all the time,” he said. “And it is easier with some people than for others. You are the easiest one of all.”

  “So this whole time, you’ve known everything I was thinking?”

  He nodded. “And feeling.” He sipped at the juice again. When he was done, he looked up and said, “That is how I knew I could tell you and Eric the truth, and you would try to help me and not tell the federal agents.”

  And that’s when my eyes began to tear up. Between Chloe having cancer and Scout putting his trust in me and Eric, and me missing Lucas more than ever, my emotions got the best of me. I dabbed at my eyes with the cheap paper napkin and tried to hold back the flood. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”

  “I know,” Scout said.

  My phone pinged and I pulled it out and took a look. I grimaced when I saw the text. I said, “It’s from your brother. I mean, it’s Eric.”

  “His parents found the note and are not happy.”

  “You picked up on that from there?” I said, astounded.

  He shook his head. “That is what Eric predicted would happen.”

  “Well, he was right.” I read off the screen, “Mom and Dad furious. Blaming you. Want to call cops.” As I read, a second text came in. “I’m doing damage control.” I set the phone in the middle of the table and said, “Thank God we’re so far away.”

  The words were no sooner out of my mouth when Scout’s phone rang. He picked it up and answered before I could stop him. “Hello?” he said, his face showing signs of intense concentration. “Mom, you don’t need to worry. Yes, I’m with Emma and we are fine. I am safe.” Even though it was up to his ear, I could hear the torrent of anger coming from his mother. I wasn’t her favorite person before and she was really going to despise me now. “Mom, Mom, Mom!” he said, cutting in, and for a second, he sounded just like Lucas. “Don’t blame Emma. This was my idea. She didn’t want to do it, but I talked her into it. We’re driving up to where we used to camp—remember, when Eric and I were little? I wanted to show Emma the lake and all the places you used to take us.” He listened for a bit and I could hear her tone changing just slightly. “I’ve had a tough year, and I just needed a day away. Just one day. I’m eighteen and soon I’ll be back in school trying to get caught up, so I thought I should do it now before I got too busy.”

  The waitress came with our food and silently placed the plates in front of us. “Thank you,” I said.

  “Mom, I have to go now,” Scout said. “I love you. I’ll see you tonight, okay?” And then she said something I couldn’t catch before he said good-bye and hung up.

  “Wow, you handled that really well,” I said, picking up my fork. Really well. I hadn’t heard him speak that much ever.

  “Eric and I practiced many times,” he said. “The mother said she will call every hour to check on us.”

  That figured. “Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. I poured syrup over my short stack, then handed the pitcher to Scout, who followed my example. We ate in silence, me trying not to think anything weird or personal, which of course led to me only being able to think of weird and personal things. Like wondering if he could somehow see through my clothes, which would have seemed impossible earlier in the day, but now seemed within the realm of feasibility. After the waitress checked to see if we were enjoying the food, Scout watched her walk away and whispered, “Amy just got bad news about her daughter’s cancer. She’d like to go home, but the boss won’t let her.”

  “What kind of bad news?”

  “I don’t know. A phone call about some test results.”

  Amy paused to cup Chloe’s chin on her way back to the kitchen and then she leaned over and touched noses with her daughter. When she pulled away, her mouth stretched into a smile, but behind the smile, I glimpsed sadness. It was the way everyone had been around Lucas—all of us pretending to be upbeat and cheerful when inside we were dying a little bit more each day, his cancer threatening to consume us all.

  I felt a sudden need for reassurance. I reached across the table and grasped Scout’s hand as he was sticking his fork into a piece of pancake. He looked up, startled. I said, “I have something I need to ask you, but you have to promise to answer truthfully.”

  “I will answer truthfully,” he said, nodding.

  “Is Lucas really still in there, deep inside?”

  “Of course.”

  I let go and he lifted the fork to his mouth. “So,” I said, “he’s not dead? Once you go out of his body, he’ll be the same as always?”

  He nodded. “Yes, of course.” Right behind him, two ladies were talking loudly about scrapbooking, oblivious to the alien presence one booth over.

  “How do you know for sure?”

  He shrugged. “I was inside Mack for a time and he survived the experience and is now fine.”

  Strangely enough, that did make me feel better. “Will Lucas remember what happened while you occupied his body? Will he remember today, for instance?”

  “I don’t think so. It is like he is sleeping,” Scout said. “Or like he is in a coma. I have taken over. Lucas is not driving anymore.”

  Lucas wasn’t driving anymore. An interesting way to put it, especially since I was now forced to be the driver on this trip. When we finished eating, I paid the check, leaving a tip equal to the amount of the bill. It wouldn’t make Amy’s day any better, but it might help it to suck a little less. We scooted out of the booth and headed for the door, me in the lead. After the outside door slammed behind me and I was almost to the car, I realized that Scout wasn’t right behind me as I’d thought. I sighed in exasperation. It was like traveling with a little kid, constantly having to watch him and explain everything. I looked at the door for half a minute, thinking he was just wal
king slowly and would catch up, but when he didn’t show up, I went back in, and found him standing at the counter, talking to the little girl, Chloe. When I got closer, I heard her excitedly say, “Really? Can I feel it?” Scout said yes, and leaned over to let her rub his head. I made it to his side at the same time as her mother came out of the kitchen to witness the same scene. Amy froze for a second before rushing over in alarm.

  “Chloe! What’s going on here?” Amy’s mouth turned down in disapproval and a look of fear came over her face, something I understood completely. All I could think was of all the times kids were told about stranger danger, especially with men, and here her daughter was touching Scout in public and he was encouraging it.

  “He’s harmless, really,” I said. The next words out of my mouth were going to explain that he was mentally challenged, a lie that would hopefully help the situation, but Chloe interrupted before I got that far.

  “Mommy!” she said excitedly. “He had stage four cancer too, and they didn’t think he would live and he did. He did! He’s all better now and his hair grew in and everything.”

  “Oh.” Amy seemed taken aback, but she pulled it together very quickly. “Well, I’m very happy for you, sir, but I don’t usually let my daughter talk to strangers, especially about our family business.”

  “We were just going,” I said, grabbing hold of his T-shirt. “Have a good day.”

  “Good-bye, Scout,” Chloe said, with a small wave.

  “Good-bye, Chloe,” he said, letting me guide him out of the restaurant.

  The sun had climbed higher in the sky while we were inside eating, and heat radiated off the asphalt parking lot. We walked to the car, me pulling his arm. “You can’t talk to children,” I said. “And you especially can’t touch them or let them touch you.” I shook my head. “You could have gotten us in a lot of trouble back there. In the future, just stick by me, okay?”