Follow the Stars Home

by Luanne Rice

  “Maybe not all of them,” Dianne said, nuzzling Julia’s chest.

  Amy had been gazing at Julia, but now she blinked, taking in Dianne and the way she was playing with her child. Lucinda watched Amy watch the mother and daughter, and she wondered what serious thoughts were going through her mind. Their time together had convinced Lucinda that Amy was sensitive, compassionate, and smart, and that she loved using her imagination. Lucinda would try to convince her to enter the library’s short-story contest in November.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Lucinda said. “All of you.”

  “Me?” Dianne asked. “I was just thinking I can’t wait to get the pictures developed. That it’s good to be home. And that Julia’s beautiful.”

  “Maaa,” Julia murmured.

  “School starts in a couple of days,” Amy said. “That’s what I’m thinking. I can go home. I want to and I don’t want to, all at the same time.”

  “That’s how I feel about you,” Dianne said, squeezing Amy. “I’m excited for you, going home, but I also want you to stay here with us.”

  “Let’s not talk about it tonight,” Amy whispered. “Let’s just have our homecoming and not think about being apart.”

  “How about you, Mom?” Dianne asked. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “I was just thinking,” Lucinda said, remembering their long drive, the endless beaches, the shooting stars, the thrill of seeing the Anne of Green Gables island home. “That I have the best girls in the world. All three of you.”

  “Gaaa,” Julia said, quietly singing along with the dolphins on the tape.

  The next day Amy was to go home. She woke up very early, when it was just getting light. Violet shadows covered the yard and marsh, and the sea beyond was a darkly glistening mirror. Standing in the window of Julia’s room, Amy listened to her friend’s crackly breathing and wished they could go out and play.

  Being away from home had made Amy even more independent than before. She padded downstairs, ate a Pop-Tart, and took Orion out for a walk. With bare feet she ran down the path to the marsh. The old dinghy was there, full of water from all the rainstorms. Bailing it out, she got Orion to jump in.

  The Hawthorne marshes smelled like nowhere else. They were full of sea life, warm and muddy, fresh and clean. Amy had learned a lot about confusion on her trip to Canada. The knowledge had sunken in that life could be more than one way at the same time, that a person could feel many emotions and not go crazy.

  Rowing across the dark water, she felt grown-up and ready for she-didn’t-know-what. Going home, she wasn’t sure what she would find. She wanted to get something from the beach, store it up inside herself, make her ready for anything. Pulling on the oars, she wound up the marsh toward the lighthouse.

  Beaching the rowboat on the lee shore, she wedged in the anchor as Dianne had done. Orion bounded across the dune, barking at the sun as it rose out of the Atlantic as if it were his own red ball. He whiskered through the beach grass, uncovering fish heads and driftwood. Amy walked along, picking up sea glass, whelk egg cases, and an old wine bottle.

  When she got to the lighthouse, she fell to her knees. The sand felt damp on her legs, and she began to dig. Glancing up, she made sure it was the right place. The high tide line was a good twenty feet away. The only reason the sand there was damp and hard was that runoff from the lighthouse had packed it down.

  “This one’s going to last,” she said to Orion.

  He barked.

  Amy had learned a lot about sand-castle building, watching Dianne and Lucinda. She wanted this one to be as sturdy as a fortress, as lasting as one of the playhouses Dianne made in her studio. It seemed magically symbolic to her: If she could build a sand castle that would survive, Julia would be healthy. Julia would live.

  Amy packed the sand extra hard. She made thick walls topped with careful crenellations. She strengthened the foundation with rocks. She fortified the walls with driftwood buttresses. Patting the sand, she thought of building a safe house. A place where no one could ever be hurt.

  In a few hours Amy would be going home. The thought made her a little afraid, but why? Her mother loved her; her mother was getting well. Amy’s fear was nothing compared to what Julia must be feeling. To have a seizure like that: to bite your tongue and twitch from head to toe without being able to stop. To get on a plane for your first time, go up in the air, zoom through the sky, not knowing if you were going to fall. To have words that no one understood, to have your voice get so weak, people could hardly hear.

  The castle was finished.

  Orion barked, running in joyous circles. Amy’s legs were cramped from kneeling, so she began to run after the dog. All her pent-up energy came out, and she whooped like a puppy, saying things no human being could ever understand. The red sun balanced on the waves, sending rose and lilac ripples into the beach.

  The castle was strong. It wasn’t beautiful like the ones they had all built on Prince Edward Island. It wasn’t delicate and enchanted like some fairy-tale castle high in the mountains, deep in the forest. It wasn’t like the castles Amy had seen in movies, the ice-cream-like castle that stood in the middle of Disney World.

  It was Julia’s castle. It was strong and sturdy and full of hope. Amy had lain awake, worrying that the castles they had made in Canada might have washed away, leaving nothing of them behind. That wouldn’t happen here. For extra measure she pulled a postcard and pen out of her jacket pocket and wrote a note. Jamming the card into the bottle Orion had found, Amy walked to the water’s edge.

  Arm back, she flung the bottle out as far as it would go. The bottle bobbled on the waves, but Amy hadn’t stuck a cork in it, so it started to sink. She wanted it to. Staring at the waves, she remembered Dianne teaching her to bodysurf at this very spot. It was the perfect place to build her castle, send her note.

  Dear Daddy,

  I love you. When I hear the dolphins singing, I wonder if you can hear. I believe you can. Most of all, I want to know you can hear this. Help us, Daddy. Help Mommy be better, help me be good, help Julia get well. She’s my friend. If a sand castle can last, so can a girl. I love you. I heard you in the dolphins.

  Love, your daughter forever, Amy Brooks

  The bottle sank. The sun rose a little higher, baking the walls of Amy’s sand castle even harder. Orion headed back to the dinghy, lay down on the shady side of the dune. Amy knew she was ready to see her mother again, to return home. Pulling on the oars, she rowed across the marsh.

  Dianne stood on the bank, watching Amy row across the marsh. She had left Julia inside with Lucinda, wanting a few minutes alone with Amy. She had watched the young girl leave earlier, heard the oars as she slipped away. The water was glass calm. Wisps of mist rose from the surface.

  Grabbing the bow, Dianne helped Amy tie up the boat. The dinghy floated with Amy still inside. Dianne gazed down at her. Birds made the only sound. Dianne wanted to say something philosophical and wise, something that would sum up their summer together. But she couldn’t speak. She and Amy stared at each other, knowing that this was good-bye.

  Dianne climbed into the boat.

  Amy sat across from her, her elbows resting on the oars. She sighed. Dianne sighed. They both had tears in their eyes, but they both smiled.

  “What a summer,” Dianne said.

  “I know,” Amy nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands.

  “And now you’re going home.”

  “Yep.”

  “Your mother’s so happy,” Dianne said. “She told me on the phone last night.”

  “Buddy’s gone for good.”

  “And school’s starting….”

  “I’m going to do good this year.”

  “Well,” Dianne said. “Do well.” She felt bad, correcting Amy, but she knew if it were her daughter, if it were Julia making the mistake, she’d want to tell her the right way. She glanced over to make sure she hadn’t hurt Amy’s feelings.

  Amy nodded. She looked down at her knee
s, then up at Dianne.

  “Thanks,” Amy said.

  A school of minnows darted past the boat, speckling the water silver. A blue crab emerged from the mud, waved its claws, resettled in the bottom.

  “I mean thanks,” Amy said, “for everything. Every single thing. You didn’t have to do it all.”

  “Oh, I wanted to,” Dianne said, her chest aching. She thought of everything they had done together, of how much joy she had felt because of Amy. Amy had brought Julia out of herself in ways Dianne had never imagined, she had helped Dianne to see her own daughter as a different kind of girl, a real eleven-year-old girl, not just a sick child.

  “You did?”

  “Yes,” Dianne said. “You’ve given me more than I’ve given you.”

  Amy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Much more,” Dianne said. She looked across the seat at Amy’s freckled face. She saw a girl with warmth, humor, and deep intelligence, and she knew Amy would be a wonderful woman.

  “When I go,” Amy said, her green eyes wide open, “can I come back?”

  “Anytime you want,” Dianne said.

  “I knew you’d say that,” Amy said, nodding.

  “I don’t know if it’s possible for one person to have two homes,” Dianne said. “But if it is, I want you to feel that this is one of yours.”

  “I do already,” Amy whispered.

  Rummaging through the back of her truck for two quarts of white paint, Dianne found the old birdhouse. She had taken it from Alan’s house the day she’d brought him soup, thrown it into the truck bed, and forgotten about it. Now she carried it inside her studio. Propping the birdhouse against her desk, she stirred the paint and put one coat on a little gazebo she had built for a young girl in Noank.

  Julia sat in her chair, dozing. Her body curled inward, her knees drawn up, her hands pulled into fists and held close to her heart. Stella rested on Julia’s tray, with Julia’s forehead pressed into the cat’s back. Orion lay with his chin on his paws. Dianne had music on, singing along. While the paint was drying, she decided to look at the birdhouse.

  It was a bluebird house. Dianne had made it for Alan twelve years earlier. She remembered taking measurements from a bird book, using a one-inch bore to cut out the hole. The wood had weathered to silver. The nail holes, where it had been attached to the tree, were dark red with rust. The perch had broken off, and the entrance hole had been pecked and widened by bird beaks.

  Undoing the hardware that held the roof down, Dianne broke the hook and eye. She looked inside and found a nest filled with three speckled eggs. The nest was coarsely woven of twigs and brown grass, lined with downy feathers and strands of hair. Very carefully Dianne reached in to remove the nest.

  “Maaa,” Julia said, waking up.

  “Look, honey,” Dianne said, walking over to show her the nest.

  Julia blinked her eyes. Her skin looked as drawn as wax. Her head swayed only slightly, not with the same verve and passion as before. Her hands seemed tired; they clasped and unclasped as if Julia didn’t want them to be seen. Stella stretched, slid off the tray, and climbed up into her basket.

  “It’s a bird’s nest, Julia,” Dianne said.

  “Baaa,” Julia squeaked.

  “Birds live in here, just like we live in our house.” Taking Julia’s hand, she ran her fingers over the rough twigs.

  “Dleee,” Julia said.

  Cupping one of Julia’s hands, Dianne placed one of the eggs on her palm. The egg was small, no bigger than a large acorn. It was cream-colored, speckled with brown and gold. Julia’s fingers closed around it loosely, as if she wanted to make a protective cage.

  “A baby bird lives in there,” Dianne said.

  “Maa …”

  “A chick,” Dianne said, remembering the ride she, Julia, and Amy had taken during the summer. “A feathery, peepy little thing.”

  Julia tilted her head. She supported the egg, her hand in the air. Dianne gazed at her chick, holding an egg that would never hatch. She wondered how many birds had made their nests in that birdhouse she had built Alan, how many bird families he had watched fly in and out.

  “Maa,” Julia said, lowering her hand. She was tired. Her head sank down, chin resting against her chest. Gently Dianne removed the egg from her hand. She placed it back in the nest and then moved the nest to her desk. Alan’s birdhouse needed a few repairs, and while the paint on her other job was drying, Dianne set about to make them.

  Amy and her mother had to get used to each other all over again. Amy got off her school bus the first day and felt the familiar tightness in her stomach as she climbed the steps. Her house looked the same. The siding was peeling off at the corners, the same broken flowerpots lay under the front bushes, the grass was a little too long. But Buddy’s car was definitely gone, and that gave her hope.

  When she walked inside, she found her mother sitting in the living room, smoking a cigarette. But she smiled at the sight of Amy, leaving her cigarette in the ashtray as she stood up.

  “Hi, Mom,” Amy said.

  “How was your day?” her mother asked.

  “Good,” Amy said. “I like my English teacher.”

  “English was my favorite subject.”

  “We’re reading myths,” Amy said. For some reason, she felt nervous, as if she were making small talk with a shopkeeper. Her mother had set a box of Twinkies out on the table. Her eyes kept darting to them, as if hoping Amy would just rip into them. But Amy’s stomach was turning over too much to feel hungry.

  “What’s your favorite myth?” her mother asked.

  “Well, the one about Orion …” Saying the name, Amy got choked up. She had left the dog at Dianne’s. Not because she didn’t love him, didn’t want him with her. But she knew the memory of her house would be too awful, too Buddy-filled, for the puppy to bear. The dog was sensitive as it was, and life in a cage or under the bed was only a few weeks old.

  “Tell me about Orion,” her mother said.

  “He was a Greek hunter,” Amy said. “Of great charm and handsomeness, beloved by Artemis. She accidentally killed him. Her sorrow was so horrible, so huge, that she placed him in the sky, along with his dog, Sirius.”

  “Would you like a Twinkie?” her mother asked.

  Amy hesitated. Here she was, in the middle of telling her mother about her favorite myth, which also happened to be her favorite constellation. In science they were studying astronomy, and she had learned that two of the sky’s brightest stars, Rigel and Betelgeuse, were in Orion. Amy had never loved school like she did this year, she wanted to talk all about it, and her mother was offering her Twinkies. Dianne and Lucinda would be listening for all they were worth.

  “I wanted to tell you about Orion,” Amy said quietly.

  “I heard you, Amy,” her mother said. As she lifted her cigarette, her hand seemed to be trembling. The curtains were open, and light flooded their shabby living room. Amy’s mother was wearing clean jeans and a sweatshirt, and there were deep lines of worry and sadness in her face.

  “Can you imagine how terrible she felt?” Amy asked, wanting her mother to get it. “Artemis? Killing the person she loved most in the world?”

  Her mother nodded. She brought her cigarette to her lips, took a long drag, and blew out a cloud of smoke. Amy’s chest filled with rage. She wanted to talk about stars and myths, the love of a woman who had sent her husband to the sky, and all her mother cared about was Twinkies and smoking.

  “Mom, it’s important,” Amy said. “It’s tragic, what happened to them, how Artemis felt—”

  “Oh, I know how she felt,” Tess said.

  Amy stopped.

  “Killing the person she loved most …” her mother said. “I know about that.”

  “What do you mean?” Amy asked.

  Her mother reached out her hand. It was a small hand, and with it hovering in the air, Amy could see that her mother had put her wedding and engagement rings back on. She had stuck them in a
drawer during the years with Buddy. Her mother’s hand was waiting for Amy to take it, and slowly Amy did.

  “What do you mean?” Amy asked.

  “There are so many ways of killing,” her mother said. “You can kill a person’s spirit without even trying. Was I doing that to you? That’s what I talk about with my doctor sometimes. I’m so afraid …I’m sorry, Amy.”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” Amy said. “You hurt only yourself.”

  “I want to believe that,” Tess said. “It’s not really true though. What one person does in a family affects everyone else.”

  “I’m alive,” Amy said.

  “And wonderful,” her mother said. “I’m so glad you like school this year.”

  “I do,” Amy said. “I want to get A’s this year. I want to write stories in English. I want to learn every myth.” She didn’t want her life to be like the myths though. She didn’t want her mother to be like Artemis.

  “I’m glad you’re home with me.”

  “Me too,” Amy said, feeling guilty because it was both the truth and a lie.

  “You are?” her mother asked, the worry line between her eyebrows sharp and deep. “You’re glad to be here?”

  Amy took a deep breath. She thought of her other home, the one with Dianne and Julia, and her throat ached. She was glad to know she could go there anytime she wanted, but she belonged here. This was where she wanted to be.

  “Yes. And I’m glad the curtains are open,” Amy said.

  One evening in early October, when the leaves had started to turn yellow and russet, Dianne asked her mother to look after Julia. She put on brown velvet pants and a rust silk shirt and walked out to her truck. A half moon hung in the sky behind mountains of purple clouds. The wind blew, and the cloud mountains were tinged with gold fire.

  Driving into Hawthorne, Dianne felt calm. She took her time, noticing everything. Because it was chilly, she was wearing a thick velvet shawl, but she had the truck windows open. She heard the marsh grasses rubbing together, the waves cresting on Landsdowne Shoal. The world seemed sensual and mysterious, and tonight Dianne felt like part of it.