Follow the Stars Home

by Luanne Rice

  Dianne went to her desk. Turning her back on the girls, she dialed Alan’s office number. It was late, nearly six-thirty, but Martha answered.

  “Hi, Dianne,” he said a few moments later.

  “Hi,” she said. “Amy’s over here.”

  “Good,” he said. “How is she?”

  Dianne kept her voice low. She found it shaking, not in her control at all. “Someone hurt her, Alan,” Dianne said. “She says they didn’t, but they did—”

  “I’ll be right over,” he said abruptly.

  It’s a terrible thing to hope for marks, but that’s what Alan was wishing for on his way over to Dianne’s house. He had a Polaroid camera in his medical bag. As a pediatrician, he had seen many horrors, heard many lies. The malnourished children deprived of food. The cigarette burns said to have come from the radiator. The belt marks supposedly caused by falling.

  In those cases Alan took swift action. One call to the police, and Alan would oversee the caseworker driving the child to the foster home. No questions asked. Beating and burning your child is not allowed.

  But other cases were more subtle. The word abuse, incredibly enough, had shades of meaning. There were the cold parents who provided food and presents but withheld love. Never hugging or kissing their kids, never reassuring them with that all-powerful loving touch. Several shades more cruel were the parents who punished verbally, who took their own frustrations and limitations out on their children-called them stupid, ugly, wicked, slutty nobodies. Words the parents no doubt felt applied to themselves, but Alan wasn’t their psychiatrist and had no sympathy at all.

  Alan had special love for the children of depression. Children whose parents had once meant well, whose love was real and true; caring people who perhaps felt more pain than the rest of us, who couldn’t make that pain go away. Some, like Alan’s mother, turned to drink. Others, like Amy’s, pulled the covers over their head, filling their children with loneliness and despair.

  Buddy Slain wasn’t a parent, but he was part of Amy’s world. If Amy had marks on her body, Alan bet Buddy had put them there. And Alan would take her away from Tess Brooks, no matter how much she said she loved her daughter, before the sun went down.

  Amy’s heart was pounding. Sitting with Julia, she began to calm down though. Julia was doing her hand dance, casting good spells over Amy’s head. Sending all the bad thoughts away, far away. Julia’s hands were so gentle. Every so often, passing by Amy’s ear, they’d brush her skin, caress her hair. Julia’s voice was extra soft today, whispering “gleee, gleee” in a message of sweet peace.

  Amy had pretended to be resting while Dianne called Dr. McIntosh, but she’d heard every word. So she had to decide what to do.

  In one fantasy Dianne adopted her. She would become Amy’s mother. Julia would be her little sister, and they would all be so happy here on the marsh. Old Mrs. Robbins would be Amy’s grandmother. Amy would get first pick of all the library books, and she would have the most perfect grammar in seventh grade.

  This fantasy had merit. She continued on, making it more perfect. Why shouldn’t she and Julia have a father? Dr. McIntosh. He and Dianne could fall in love. They would be good parents, and everyone would be happy.

  Julia sighed as if she were having the same fantasy.

  Amy had always loved dreaming. Dreams took her out of herself, away from her fears and worries. She had pretended to be dogs, cats, dolphins, ants, bats. She had imagined Buddy dying and her father coming back to life. She had lulled herself to sleep picturing her and her mother swimming underwater on a coral reef, being pulled through crystal waters by beautiful dolphins, becoming those dolphins themselves, swimming their way back to her father. So many happy dreams …

  A tear rolled down the side of Amy’s nose. Right then she had to face reality. Dr. McIntosh was coming over. He was going to ask her about the bruise Dianne had seen, and Amy was going to have to lie. It was that simple. She knew the procedure. CWS—Child Welfare Services—had a file on her already. It wouldn’t take much for them to take her away from her home.

  And sometimes Amy wanted to go.

  That was the part that caused her grief. The desire, deep in her heart, to get away from her dark house. To leave the screaming and drinking, the fights and yelling, the drawn shades and Buddy’s beer bottles behind. There were families in the world like Dianne and Julia, places where life wasn’t perfect but the people loved one another anyway. Amy would only have to say the word, and Dr. McIntosh would put her in a family like that.

  But it would mean leaving her mother.

  At that thought Amy swallowed a sob. Amy loved her mother more than anything, more than the perfect girls loved their perfect mothers. The feeling shook her whole body from head to toe. She kept silent so Dianne wouldn’t hear and come over. But Julia heard. Or she sensed. Whichever, her hands stopped dancing. They settled onto Amy’s head.

  Amy just lay there, quietly crying. Julia’s hands rested steady, gently patting Amy’s hair. She breathed in her Julia way, the air rasping in and out, with no words but whole libraries of meaning. Amy knew the language of no talk. She spoke it herself in a thousand different ways-even then, to the cat on the shelf and the dog under the bed. She lay still, silently communicating with her friend and the animals.

  “Amy?” Dianne asked. “Can you talk to us?”

  “No,” Amy said calmly for the third time. “No one hit me. I just bumped my shoulder going into the cage.”

  “Amy,” Alan said, looking her straight in the eye.

  Children were born honest. They came into life knowing nothing but the truth: The bath was wet, the towel was dry, the milk stopped their hunger, their mother smelled like Mother. Some kids learned to lie as they got older, and it always got under Alan’s skin. He could almost always tell. Amy had been doing it for a while.

  “It’s true,” Amy said with the telltale sidelong glance.

  “Amy, you were so upset when I found you on the road,” Dianne said quietly. She was standing back, arms folded across her chest, seeming a little unsure of whether she belonged in this discussion or not. Alan moved over so she would step forward, stand by his side.

  “Yeah, Dianne says you were barefoot and you weren’t wearing a jacket.”

  “So’s she,” Amy said, pointing.

  Alan glanced down. It was true. There were Dianne’s bare feet sticking out of the bottoms of her jeans. Over the years he had seen her shoeless in her home more often than not.

  “I was wearing shoes in the car,” Dianne said. “And outside.”

  “Yes, but-” Amy began.

  “No getting off the track,” Alan said. “Shoes aren’t the point. That bruise on your shoulder is, Amy. I think by now you know I’m pretty worried about you. Why were you and the dog running away?”

  “The dog doesn’t like Buddy,” Amy said.

  “Buddy,” Alan said. “Did Buddy hit you?”

  “Buddy didn’t hit me,” she said finally. Alan noticed the sidelong glance again. He could read her mind. She knew if she reported Buddy, she’d be taken out of her home. She’d be separated from her mother.

  Alan could see the bed, covers pulled high over the sleeping woman’s head. Alan could see it as if it were yesterday. He knew about mothers, pain, and hiding.

  “Amy …” Dianne said. “We want to help you. No matter what.” She knelt before Amy, taking her hand. Dianne loved her own daughter all out, with vibrant and piercing devotion, and she thought that was how it should work with all mothers. She was new to this kind of conflict, she would think it was as simple for Amy as telling the truth.

  “Buddy hit the dog,” Amy whispered, staring at the same spot. “That’s all. He just hit the dog.”

  “Baaaaaaaa,” Julia wailed. Julia had been calm when Alan had first arrived. She cried now, and Dianne went to her. Alan could sense Dianne’s frustration. He sat there with Amy, watching her shut down. She would always do this after an incident at home: turn silent and secretive,
retreat into her own private world. Even now, sliding off the window seat, she crawled into one of Dianne’s half-finished playhouses.

  Alan checked the camera for film; he still wanted to get his picture.

  Dianne gazed at him across the room. Her eyes were curious and challenging. She wanted to see how he was going to handle this, help an abused child who was afraid to be helped. Alan thought of lies, how people told them because they were so afraid of truth.

  It was no coincidence that he had called Malachy, starting to track down Tim. Alan had to set things right with his brother, and he had to begin to tell the truth-all of it-to Dianne. The stress of lying for eleven years had taken its toll. He felt overwhelming love for her; but not wanting to push himself on her, he’d done his best to protect her from the fact. He had been lying, and he was going to stop.

  Lucinda Robbins had bought Cornish game hens as a treat for her and Dianne, but when she found out about Alan and Amy staying for dinner, she just hacked the birds in half and made extra rice. The party was starting off slow-what could you expect, considering the child welfare people had just spent a solid hour interviewing all concerned?

  “Amy, do you like to cook?” Lucinda asked.

  “Cook?” Amy asked as if she had never heard the word.

  “The reason I ask,” Lucinda said, “is that I have some new cookbooks for teenagers at the library. I haven’t even put them on the shelves yet, I was so intrigued reading about Marshmallow Fizz and Chocolate-Raspberry Shebang.”

  “Amy’s a good cook,” Alan said, sitting between Amy and Julia. They were both staring at him as if he were their father.

  “Gaaa,” Julia said.

  “You’d like her cooking,” Alan said, holding Julia’s straw close to her mouth. “She makes excellent milk shakes.”

  “You remember?” Amy asked, looking as if she were about to drown in heartbreak. She had dark crescents under her eyes, and her lids were puffy from crying.

  “How could I forget?” Alan said. “You came over before the fireworks last Fourth of July and made me the best picnic I ever had.”

  “You two have been friends a long time?” Dianne asked.

  Amy nodded. “Since I was little.”

  “You know that wall in my office?” Alan asked. “The one with all the cute kids on it? Four pictures of this one here-” He pointed at Amy.

  “Wow,” Dianne said, cutting a piece of hen.

  Lucinda gazed at Amy Brooks hard. There weren’t many kids in town she didn’t know from the library, but Amy was one. Lucinda knew that when a child didn’t use the library, it wasn’t his or her fault: It was the parents’.

  Lucinda had watched two and a half generations of readers, and the odd thing was, she would have expected Tess Brooks to have done better for Amy. Tess had read a lot when she was younger. A child without library books was like a plant without water: withered, stunted, and rootless. If only Julia were able to read. She looked from Dianne to Julia, feeling her chest tighten.

  “What is this bird?” Amy asked, prodding her hen with a fork.

  “A Cornish game hen,” Dianne said.

  “It’s so little,” Amy said, looking doubtful.

  “You don’t have to eat it,” Dianne said.

  “I will,” Amy said, working away with her fork. “I just can’t cut it right.”

  Dianne reached across the table to help her. Lucinda watched Dianne set Amy’s knife and fork correctly. Such a little thing, teaching a child how to cut her food properly. She gazed at Julia, in her high chair and bib, eyes drifting around the table, and Lucinda gave her a long smile.

  Julia and Amy, Lucinda thought. It was almost impossible to believe they were nearly the same age. Two darling girls in terrible need: There wasn’t a thing Lucinda, Dianne, and Alan wouldn’t give them if they could. Lucinda could see that Amy was like a sponge, soaking up the healthy love around the table. More startling to Lucinda was the way Dianne seemed to be absorbing love too. Helping that child, Dianne was glowing, something Lucinda didn’t see every day.

  Twelve years ago Dianne had sat at this table holding hands with Tim, telling Lucinda their incredible news. They were going to have a baby! Dianne had been radiant, happier than Lucinda had ever seen her. Almost shyly, as if Dianne couldn’t believe she had life inside of her, she had kept her right hand on her flat belly the whole time. She had wanted children her whole life.

  “What’s this?” Amy asked, finding a currant in her rice. There were also shallots, walnuts, and snippets of chive.

  “A currant,” Dianne said. “Kind of like a raisin.”

  “In the rice?” Amy asked, doubtfully but with an open mind.

  “When rice has stuff in it, it’s pilaf,” Alan said.

  “I like to jazz things up when I cook,” Lucinda said.

  “You jazz good, Lucinda,” Alan said. He had eaten every bite on his plate, and Lucinda couldn’t help beaming.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’ll have to break bread with us more often.”

  “Bread?” Amy asked, frowning as she looked around the table for an explanation.

  “Just an expression,” Dianne said. “She means he should eat over more.”

  “Expressions …” Amy said glumly, as if she would never learn them all.

  “It’s raining cats and dogs,” Dianne said. “There’s an expression. In for a penny, in for a pound. Take the money and run….”

  “I’m kind of hung up on Lucinda saying I should break bread here more often,” Alan said.

  “Anytime,” Lucinda said.

  “It’s nice,” Amy said, her voice small and thin. “The way you just invite people. You didn’t even know we were coming, and you have all this pilaf. …”

  “Pilaf’s a cinch,” Lucinda said.

  “We’ll teach you,” Dianne said so fast she gave herself away. Lucinda almost couldn’t bear to see the joy in her eyes. Dianne had energy for giving, but Julia had such limited capacity for taking. There would be no cooking classes for Julia, no schooling in the expressions of life. In some ways Lucinda saw Amy as a godsend, but in others she felt scared to death: that Dianne would grow more attached to her and she would leave.

  “Daaaa,” Julia said.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Dianne said.

  “She wants more milk,” Amy said.

  Alan offered Julia the straw, and she took it in her mouth, sipping noisily.

  “Where’s her father?” Amy asked suddenly, watching intently.

  “What?” Alan asked.

  “Your brother. Julia’s father,” Amy asked. She seemed rattled and upset, and the question seemed to have deep meaning for her.

  “Gone,” Dianne said.

  “He’s at sea,” Alan said, unable to keep the roughness out of his voice.

  “Like my father,” Amy said, her voice cracking. “Only still alive. He should be giving Julia her milk, not you. Oh, I wish Julia could have him….”

  “He’s not like your father,” Dianne said.

  “Just because things aren’t perfect,” Amy said, “doesn’t mean the family don’t love each other.”

  “Or should,” Alan said.

  “You love your brother?” Amy asked.

  “That’s a tough one,” Alan said, clenching his jaw. “But yes. He’s my brother. I do love him.” Dianne looked away. Lucinda’s throat closed up; she felt like crying for all her sad, troubled children.

  “You should rent a Winnebago,” Amy said. “And go find him. Drive to every fishing harbor and put up signs. Get him home for Julia before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?” Dianne asked as if Amy were an oracle and knew something she didn’t.

  “His boat could sink, like my father’s. He could drown. He’d never get to know Julia at all. Never, never. There would never be another chance,” Amy said, tears streaming down her face. “I feel so sorry for them….”

  “For who?” Dianne whispered, holding Amy’s hand.

  “All of them,�
�� Amy sobbed. “All the parents who lose their kids, and all the kids who lose parents. I love my mommy! I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Oh, Amy,” Dianne cried.

  Alan was staring at Dianne with such wild intensity, Lucinda lost her breath. His emotions were right there in his eyes, in the tension in his neck and shoulders, as if he were oppressed beyond bearing with love for Dianne. He was swallowed up with it. Watching Dianne sob as she held Amy, Alan could barely hold himself back. Lucinda could see the strain in his whole being.

  “She needs me,” Amy cried. “Don’t let anyone take me away from her.”

  “We all need each other,” Lucinda whispered, watching Alan stare at Dianne.

  Amy was to stay with the Robbinses for a few days. Dianne made up the twin bed in Julia’s room. Amy didn’t sleep at all the first night. She climbed in and out of bed, wandering around the room, kneeling by the window and looking out, as if she hoped her mother would come to get her. Dianne couldn’t sleep either. She wanted to call Alan and ask him to come over and be with them. When she saw Amy crying, she went in.

  “You’ll go home,” Dianne said.

  “She can’t get on without me,” Amy said.

  “I’m sure she misses you,” Dianne said.

  “She forgets to take her vitamins,” Amy sobbed. “Without me there, Buddy’ll hurt her. He holds himself back when I’m around.”

  Children aren’t supposed to protect their parents, Dianne wanted to say. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Julia slept fitfully, her breath rumbling like distant thunder. Kneeling by the window, Amy stared in the direction of her own house. Whippoorwills called in the marsh. The night was so dark, every constellation showed: Draco, Cepheus, Cassiopeia. The Milky Way was a wide river of stars.

  “She’d want you to sleep,” Dianne said, her hand on Amy’s shoulder.