Light from Distant Stars

by Shawn Smucker

  “Everything okay, Thatcher?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think so.”

  “Is your mom around?”

  Thatcher shakes his head. “No, she still hasn’t come back.”

  “What’s she afraid of?”

  As if on cue, the banging sound of a dropped food tray comes from Thatcher’s grandfather’s room, followed by a string of profanity.

  “Dad’s still mad.”

  Cohen nods. “Want me to talk to him?”

  “No way!” he says, incredulous. “No. I wanted to see if you might help me look around for my mom. I think she’s here, in the hospital.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Thatcher looks over his shoulder. “Pretty sure I saw her leaving Grandpa’s room when I was coming up the hall.”

  “Did you go after her?”

  “I wasn’t sure if it was her. And she was far away, and she walked through that door really quick. I don’t want my dad to find her.”

  “Yeah. Sure. I’d be happy to help you look. Can we start in the cafeteria? I need a coffee.”

  The boy smiles, and Cohen is surprised at how happy he can look. He has a nice smile with straight, white teeth and shallow dimples.

  “You drink coffee?” Cohen asks.

  “Sure.”

  They go down the elevator to the main level and walk to the cafeteria. It’s quiet, and nurses walk by in soft shoes and doctors wander the halls staring at clipboards, their eyes ringed by dark circles. The kitchen in the cafeteria is not open yet, but there are canisters of coffee and one lone girl standing at a register. Beyond that, the cafeteria is empty except for one person: Ava.

  “Morning, mister.” The girl at the register punches a button, yawning.

  “Hi there. Two coffees.”

  She tells him the total and takes his money, gives him change.

  “How long has that woman been here?” he asks.

  “Oh, her? She came in maybe five minutes ago. You know her?” The girl sounds suspicious.

  “She’s a friend. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” She doesn’t look convinced. “Well, enjoy your coffee.”

  Cohen leads Thatcher back toward the small round table where Ava is sitting. She stares out the window, distracted, and her coffee sends up smoke signals.

  “Good morning,” he says, reluctant to bring her out of her reverie.

  She turns, and for a moment he isn’t sure she recognizes him. “Oh, Cohen! I’m sorry. I was . . . very far away.” She laughs and pats the table. “Join me?”

  “Sure, I was grabbing a cup of coffee when I saw you.”

  “And is this your nephew?” she asks.

  “No, no. This is my friend Thatcher. His grandfather is in the room next to my dad.”

  “Oh,” she says, concern slowing down her voice. “I’m sorry. Is he okay?”

  “No, ma’am,” Thatcher mumbles.

  “I’m very sorry.”

  They sit down, Cohen beside Ava and Thatcher on the other side of him. They sit quietly while the cafeteria wakes up around them. Three employees walk past, all the way to the entrance to the kitchen. One of them comes back out to take up a post at the other register. The shutter at the tray drop-off rises. Soon Cohen can smell bacon.

  “So, you two met in the hallway?” Ava asks with a gentle smile.

  Cohen returns her smile. “Something like that.”

  “How do you know each other?” Thatcher asks.

  Cohen looks at Ava and motions for her to answer.

  “Well, let’s see,” she replies. “Cohen and I went to school together for many years. We went to the same church for a short while. We played baseball together.”

  “Really?” Thatcher asks.

  “Yes, girls play baseball,” Ava says sarcastically.

  “I know that,” Thatcher protests.

  “I’m just giving you a hard time.”

  “She was very, very good. Best player on the team,” Cohen says, looking at Ava.

  She laughs. He likes the way she laughs. It’s the same laugh she had when she was a girl, the same smile she gave him from her spot at first base, the same grin she had when they sat on the sidewalk outside the funeral home, and it takes his mind off of everything.

  “Well, maybe. I don’t know about that. But I did love it.”

  “Now she’s a detective,” Cohen says. “So watch yourself.”

  “Seriously?” Thatcher asks, eyes wide.

  Ava nods, taking another sip from her coffee. “That’s right.”

  “Maybe she can help us,” Thatcher says to Cohen in a quiet voice.

  Cohen shrugs.

  “With what?” Ava asks.

  “My mom is missing.”

  “Your mom is missing?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For how long?” Her voice becomes more businesslike with each question.

  “Maybe a day or two.”

  “Have you reported it?”

  “Dad doesn’t want to. Says she’ll be back when she’s good and ready.”

  Ava’s eyes go wide and she stares at Cohen as if to corroborate the story.

  Cohen grimaces and nods. “I know it doesn’t sound good, but it’s true.”

  “Are you serious? Why haven’t you reported this?”

  “He’s seen her around,” Cohen says, raising his hands defensively. “Or at least he thinks he did.”

  “You did?” she asks Thatcher.

  “I don’t know. I think so,” he says nervously. “I actually think she might be hiding in the hospital. I hope that won’t get her into any trouble. Maybe forget I told you that.”

  “What’s she hiding from?”

  Cohen sighs. “Okay, here’s the deal. Thatcher’s grandpa is dying. Thatcher’s dad is a rather violent man—sorry, Thatcher—who will take it out on anyone who’s within striking distance, and the doctor basically killed his grandfather by giving him the wrong medication. I think Thatcher’s mom still wants to sit with and take care of her father-in-law, so she’s holed up somewhere here in the hospital and comes out at night when her angry husband isn’t around. That’s my theory. But I’m no detective. Sound right?” He looks at Thatcher.

  “I’d say so.” Thatcher shrugs.

  “What do you want my help for?” Ava asks.

  “Maybe keep your eyes out for her?” Thatcher says. “I just want to know she’s okay.”

  “After we drink our coffee,” Ava suggests, “maybe we can take a wander around the hospital?”

  Thatcher seems relieved.

  “I’ll check in on my dad, and if everything’s okay I can join the search party. Speaking of my dad,” Cohen says, turning toward Ava, “they want Kaye and me to give them the okay to take him off life support.”

  “Oh, Cohen.” She stares into her coffee, then back up at him with sad eyes. “I’m sorry.” She pauses, glancing at Thatcher. “I really shouldn’t be talking about this with you, but I think you’re in the clear. There’s no evidence suggesting foul play or suicide. I’m pretty sure it’s going to go down as an accident. That’s all I’m saying. And you didn’t hear it from me.”

  Cohen nods. “Thanks.” He stands up, pushing his chair away from the table. He stops, stares at the windows, then looks back at Ava. “Thanks.”

  forty-two

  The Cave

  Than was outside the trailer waiting for them, but he wasn’t facing the trailer. He was looking up into the woods, and when he spoke, his words were flat.

  “We should go around back and make sure it’s dead.”

  Cohen shuddered at the thought and the cold and the dread of facing it again. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized he had picked up the gun again. He looked down at it the way a child looks at a fresh injury.

  Hippie led the way, starting for the other side of the trailer without a word, without waiting to see if the boys would follow her. The experience with the Beast in the doorway to the bedroom seemed not to have diminished or intim
idated her. If anything, she had grown somehow, become more fierce.

  Than followed her, looking first at the ground, then up at Cohen, and immediately Cohen could tell things had changed between them. Than’s look held respect, confidence, and a kind of equality Cohen hadn’t felt from him before. Than nodded, walked past, and followed Hippie around the corner. Cohen steeled himself and went after them, glancing over his shoulder, always feeling that something was coming up behind him.

  By the time Cohen came around to the back of the trailer, Than and Hippie were turning from the broken bedroom window—it was covered in the black pitch—and moved over to the brambles where it looked like someone had rolled a large boulder up the hill. The Beast had cleared a path, everything flattened, trampled, broken. Sporadically along the path were splotches of the shadow, thick and unmoving in the cold, clinging to rocks and thorns and low branches like thick mucus.

  “What next?” Than asked, and Cohen sensed the shifting of leadership. Something had changed. He couldn’t figure out why or how or even exactly what, but something had changed.

  “We need to get some rest,” Hippie said. “Then we come back here and follow the trail.”

  “Won’t it get away?” Cohen asked, surprised at the sound of his own morning voice, raspy and dim.

  Hippie shook her head.

  Than took a few steps into the trail the Beast had left behind. “Nah,” he said without further explanation.

  Cohen looked over at Hippie.

  “All of this?” she said, pointing at a nearby bramble covered from top to bottom with liquid shadow. “It’s dying. It’s going to run until it feels safe. We’ll let it get settled. It might even be dead by the time we find it.”

  “Because I shot it?”

  “We need to get some rest,” Hippie said again. “C’mon.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Hippie looked at him, and there was compassion in her eyes, and concern. “To where Than and I always go when we need to hide.”

  Cohen followed them. They went to the front of the trailer again and walked up the meandering trail through the brambles to the top of the hollow. He looked back at the trailer at the bottom, now distant and empty.

  When he turned back around, Than and Hippie were up the trail, and he hurried to catch them. The sky was icy blue without a single cloud, the previous days’ rain long gone. The air was still one minute, so still the trees looked frozen, and blustery the next, whipping branches and leaves at his face. When they got to the train tracks, Hippie turned and walked along them.

  “Where are we going?” Cohen asked again, pausing.

  Than looked over his shoulder for a brief moment, turned away, kept walking.

  Hippie walked back to Cohen. “We’re going to a place where we can rest. Someplace warm. Then we’ll come back here and track the Beast once it’s dark. It won’t be long now.”

  For a moment Cohen stood there on the tracks, weighing his options. He stared down at the gun still in his hand. He had held it for so long it felt like his old hand had fallen away and been replaced with a barrel, a hammer, a trigger, bullets. Lifting the gun, he nearly handed it to Hippie and walked straight back into the city, back to the funeral home and his own bed. They both looked down at the gun, and it stood between them like an offering.

  But it fell back to his side. He nodded. She reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, gave him the slightest of tugs, and without thinking anymore he followed her, walking along the train tracks.

  Hippie took the lead, and they walked for ten minutes, fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, like silent apparitions looking for a way out of the world. At an unmarked point, Hippie veered from the tracks and plunged into the thickest part of the forest, bent over, nearly crawling on all fours. Than followed her. Cohen copied them, too tired to ask any more questions.

  Soon the trail opened up and they could walk upright, but they were going up and down steep hills so that Cohen had to hold on to small trees to keep from sliding to the bottom. Hippie and Than vanished into a glade of evergreens with low, sleeping boughs, trees that lined a sort of cliff. Behind the green branches, nestled in among the soft needles, was a shallow cave in the rock.

  Cohen went in among the shadows. It was dark there despite the morning. He placed the gun on a ledge. Than had already gone to the back and lay on a flat slab covered in leaves. Hippie worked up a small fire in the middle of the cave, and the smoke rose, drifted out into the woods. She placed a few large logs on the fire, sat with her back against a wall, and closed her eyes.

  Cohen sat down beside her. He thought he would never be able to fall asleep, not there with his back against a hard wall, but the heat and the slowly rising smoke mesmerized him. He wondered what his dad was doing, if he had woken up yet, if he realized Cohen wasn’t at home. He wondered what his dad would do if he realized he was missing, if he would care.

  He fell asleep.

  forty-three

  The Nurse

  “So, what can you tell me about your mother?” Ava asks Thatcher as the elevator rises through the center of the hospital. “Where would you be if you were her?”

  “I don’t know,” Thatcher says, shrugging.

  “Didn’t you tell me she’s a nurse?” Cohen asks.

  The boy shrugs again, nods. His eyes are bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his baseball cap lists farther and farther to the side as the morning goes on.

  “So, what you’re saying is, we’re looking for a missing woman who’s a nurse and she’s hiding in a hospital?” Ava asks.

  Cohen smiles.

  Ava looks at him, then at Thatcher. “Does the term ‘needle in a haystack’ mean anything to you two?”

  She finally gets a smile out of the boy.

  “What kind of a nurse is she?” Ava asks.

  “I don’t know. A regular old nurse, I guess.”

  “If I were a nurse, where in a hospital would I hide?”

  “Maybe where there are a lot of nurses, so you could blend in?” Thatcher asks.

  Ava looks over at Cohen playfully. “Why didn’t I think of that before?” she says. “This boy’s going to be a detective someday.”

  Thatcher tries not to smile, scratches the back of his neck, and yawns without covering his mouth, a long, exaggerated yawn that makes Cohen rub his own eyes and wish for a few hours of sleep. The elevator arrives at their floor and they walk out. The hospital is awake now, with nurses walking here and there, orderlies serving breakfast, doctors going from room to room.

  Thatcher looks at Cohen. “I’ll catch up with you soon.”

  “Okay,” Ava says. “Well, Thatcher, should we go floor by floor?”

  “There are a lot of floors,” he says, sounding hesitant.

  “We’ll do one at a time, and you can check in with your father in an hour or two to see how your grandfather’s doing. I’ll stop by later, Cohen.”

  “Thanks, Ava,” he says, glancing at Thatcher. “Hang in there.”

  Cohen watches as they walk away and stop to talk to a few nurses, Ava asking questions. They glance into a few rooms, open the door to a storage closet, and are confronted by a nurse. Cohen smiles. He walks into his father’s room.

  Calvin is in his bed, looking exactly the same. Cohen’s mother stands at the foot of the bed like an ancient stone statue. His sister sits in the same chair she always sits in, both hands on her stomach, eyes glued to their father. Dr. Stevens is there.

  “Ah, Cohen, I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been talking with your sister and your mother.”

  “Hi.”

  “Yes. Well. Can we talk?” He takes a few steps to the back of the room, beside the window. The sun is already well above the buildings, and the sky is an enchanted, oil-painting blue.

  Cohen follows the doctor. Kaye rises up out of the chair with a groan, a hand on her back. Their mother never moves, never blinks.

  “Your babies have dropped since yesterday,” the doctor says to Kaye, smiling.


  “Yeah,” she replies with a grimace. “I feel like they’re ready to fall out.”

  “Are these your first?”

  “No, I have a son.”

  “Okay. Wanted to make sure you knew the signs of impending labor. Do you have a C-section scheduled?”

  Kaye nods.

  “Good.” He pauses as if searching for a good transition. When nothing seems to come to mind, he beckons for them to move a little closer. He gives a sad smile, lays his clipboard down on the windowsill, crosses his arms, and leans back against the glass. “I’m sorry to say there’s nothing more we can do. Your father is no longer responding. There’s no reason to expect he’ll recover.”

  Cohen looks over at Kaye, and she does not respond the way he expects—no hand to the face, no tiny whimpering sounds. In fact, she barely responds at all. Her eyes glaze over, her lips remain slightly apart, shallow breaths coming and going. She licks her lips. She swallows. That’s all.

  “I am recommending that we remove your father from life support.”

  Cohen does not take his gaze off Kaye. She nods, and now her eyes are moving from one thing to another—from the window to the doctor’s face to her mother to her father and back to the window.

  “Kaye?” Cohen asks.

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “No,” she says. One word.

  “I’m sorry?” Dr. Stevens asks.

  “I said, ‘No.’”

  “We need to talk about this, Kaye.” Cohen’s voice comes out quiet, gentle.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  Cohen looks at the doctor, who does not look surprised.

  “Take your time,” Dr. Stevens says. “I think it would be good if the two of you spend some time talking together. I’ll be back this afternoon. If you have any questions, please let me know.”

  “Thank you,” Cohen says. “We’ll . . . yes. Thank you.”

  Kaye has gone back inside herself, staring at Cohen through empty eyes.

  The doctor walks past their mother and through the door. She watches him walk out, takes a deep breath, and comes over to the window. “Kaye,” she says, as if calling her out of some deep place.