Follow the Stars Home

by Luanne Rice

  “She’s going for tests,” he said.

  “It’s worse this time, isn’t it?” she asked. “It’s much worse. You’d tell me if it was, wouldn’t you? Is it? Is it, Alan?”

  “I don’t know,” Alan said. He tried to capture the professional calm that had gotten him through times like this before. He took a deep breath, looked around the familiar ER, reminded himself that he was a doctor. But this was Dianne, and the patient was Julia, and all his training went out the window. His eyes filled with tears. They spilled over as his arms went around Dianne and he began to sob. “I don’t know,” he said again.

  “If anything happens, it’s my fault,” Dianne cried. “I stopped on the stairs. I wished-it was just a second-but I wished for her to die!”

  “Anyone would wish that,” Alan said. “For a second. To watch her go through this …”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Dianne said.

  “I know.”

  They waited for hours. Alan sat with Dianne in the corner of the bright waiting room, his arm around her shoulders as they watched other people come and go. They watched people with lacerations, sprains, and chest pains. Alan diagnosed each one in his mind. He assessed the damaged, designed the treatment. But right now, when it came to Julia, he was a parent, not a doctor.

  “Alan?” Jim Wedstone called, beckoning him over to the desk. Jim was a neurologist of the old school. He preferred to speak doctor to doctor. Jim was the specialist, and Alan was the primary care physician in this case. Jim would tell Alan, and expected Alan to tell Dianne. But that wasn’t how Alan wanted it. Taking Dianne’s hand, he led her across the ER.

  “Jim, this is Dianne Robbins. She’s Julia’s mother.”

  “Um, how do you do,” Jim said. He seemed displeased or uncomfortable to have to talk to her, but Alan wasn’t giving him the choice.

  “How’s Julia?” Alan asked.

  “She’s breathing on her own again,” Jim said. “Her cardiologist will talk to you, but we feel there’s some difficulty in her getting enough oxygen right now. She’s not taking it in fast enough to circulate it to her brain, her organs….”

  “She’s grown,” Dianne said, her eyes big as she looked at Alan. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Partly,” Alan said. “Maybe.”

  “I’ve been afraid all summer,” Dianne said, shaking. “Her lungs can’t handle …is that why she had the seizure?”

  “Seizures can happen with these disorders,” Jim said, stating one of the many familiar mysteries of Julia’s life. Because Jim was a neurologist, seizures were his specialty. He set about explaining synapses and neurotransmitters to Dianne, and the speech sounded so comforting and reasonable; Alan watched her nodding eagerly, her eyes wide, hanging on every word.

  It was easier to listen than to think. Julia had grown. What they had feared was happening.

  “Come on,” Alan said, taking hold of Dianne’s arm.

  “Just a second,” she said, trying to smile, her lips dry. “Dr. Wedstone is just telling me—”

  Jim Wedstone could have continued all day, regaling Julia’s mother with theories about seizures in adolescent girls suffering various disorders, but Alan pried her away. He thanked Jim, then grabbed Dianne’s coat off her chair. Holding it, he helped her slip her arms into the sleeves, completely aware of the fact that she was miffed at him for the rude way in which he’d behaved to Jim.

  “He was just being nice,” Dianne said. “Explaining to me, helping me understand about Julia.”

  “I know,” Alan said, buttoning her top button. It was cold outside, with a sharp wind blowing off the harbor. “But let’s take a walk.”

  The harbor was gray and choppy. All Hawthorne’s pear trees were bare, their branches tossing in the wind. Dianne tucked her chin inside her coat collar, walking along with Alan. He had been right, encouraging her to come outside. The hospital was stuffy, and she always felt crazy until they let her sit beside Julia again.

  Snow flurries swirled down. They hit the pavement, rolling around in white eddies. Dianne could hardly believe winter was coming. Thanksgiving was next week, and then it would be December, then Christmas.

  “When can she come home?” she asked.

  “We’ll have to see,” Alan said. “As soon as she’s stable.”

  “A day,” Dianne said. “That’s how long it takes her. She’s fine, isn’t she? That part about not enough oxygen …you can fix that, can’t you?”

  “Let’s just walk,” Alan said.

  Feeling numb, Dianne let him take her arm. They walked briskly along the waterfront, past the boatyards and fishing docks. Most of the fleet was in, their halyards clanking in the wind. Glancing over her shoulder, she wondered how far they were going to walk from the hospital. Julia would be coming to soon, and she wanted to be there.

  Rounding the bend, they headed onto Water Street. The wind blew harder here, with no fish shacks or lobster boats to block it. It stung Dianne’s cheeks. Huddling closer to Alan, she felt his arm go around her shoulders. She was just about to say they should turn around, go back and see Julia, when he stopped in front of the house she liked.

  “Oh,” she said, looking through the gates. Although she didn’t have gloves on, she grabbed two of the iron fence posts, holding on with her bare hands.

  Alan took her arm. At first she thought he wanted to keep walking, to stay warm, but she pulled away gently, wanting to stop for a minute. She stared at the big white house, the great lawn and scruffy meadow.

  “This place,” she said.

  Alan stood there, hands in his pockets, looking down at her. His face was red, his chin tucked into his collar. She knew he was freezing, but he was letting her have her fantasy. She needed it, to take her away from the reality down the road, what was happening to her daughter, to counteract the terrible thoughts that had gone through Dianne’s own mind on the stairs.

  “When I was little …” she began.

  “What did you picture?” he asked. “About this house?”

  “Oh, garden parties,” she said. Those thoughts were so long ago. “Ladies in white dresses. Little children playing on the grass. Being happy.”

  “That walk we took last summer,” Alan said. “When we stood here …”

  Dianne nodded. She remembered. They had held hands, walking along in the darkness, in the summer breeze. They had just danced, and kissed. The recollection made her smile. Tilting her head back, she looked into Alan’s hazel eyes. They looked so searching and earnest, she would have stood on her toes to kiss him if she weren’t in such turmoil.

  “I asked you if you thought the people who lived here were happy. You said you didn’t know,” he said.

  “What does it matter?” Dianne asked, feeling despair.

  “Come on,” he said. Taking her arm again, he began to lead her through the gates.

  “Alan,” she said, pulling back. She felt shocked that he would even think of trespassing. There were no cars in the driveway, but there was a pumpkin on the front steps.

  “They won’t mind,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she asked. “What if there’s someone inside? Just because there’s no car—”

  “I don’t think there is,” Alan said.

  Holding his hand, Dianne reluctantly followed him up the driveway. It was made of finely ground oyster shells that crunched under their feet. The flower beds had been mulched for winter; the yard had been raked. She had never been this close to the house before though, and she couldn’t help looking at every wonderful detail.

  It was just like the playhouse her father had made her: It had three chimneys, fine white clapboards, black shutters, stately fluted columns, and wide stone steps. As she got closer, she forgot how nervous she felt about walking up someone’s driveway. Now she felt excited. There were no curtains at the windows. Maybe she could look inside, just take a peek.

  Alan seemed to be looking through his pockets. Letting go of his arm, Dianne inched toward the house. Ne
at shrubs of boxwood and yew grew almost chin height; she had to crane her neck to see through the window, but when she did, she gasped.

  The house was empty.

  The white walls were empty, the wide floorboards bare. It upset Dianne to see this wonderful house so vacant: of furniture, paintings, and life. She wanted to see pictures on the walls and books on the shelves. Dianne felt so empty inside herself, so afraid of what was happening to her daughter, she wanted the rest of the world to be full.

  “Where are they?” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Alan couldn’t hear. He was standing by the door as if he expected someone to open it and invite them in. Dianne thought of her daughter, alone in a hospital room just down the road.

  Life could be such an empty house. The night before, Dianne had stood in the stairwell of her mother’s house and for one dark moment wished her daughter dead. She had no business being here. Whatever tests Julia was having would be done soon. Dianne had to rush back to her, make up for that awful moment.

  She turned her head to take one last look. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the room, except one. Dianne hadn’t noticed it before: one small chair facing the fireplace at the far end. It had arms and rockers, hand-painted pale pink with tendrils of ivy and blossoms of blue morning glories and red columbine twisting up the wood.

  The chair was little. The color pink made Dianne think it must belong to a young girl. What had caused her parents to leave? Suddenly, she wanted to turn and run. Real people lived here, with their own lives and problems, just like Dianne and Alan and Julia. “Alan, let’s go,” she begged, tugging on his arm.

  “Dianne,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “We have to leave,” she said. “It’s wrong to be here. And I have to get back to Julia.”

  “So do I,” he said. “I have to get back to her too. But we have something to do here.”

  He kissed her. Standing in the cold, in another family’s garden, he put his arms around her and gave her the sweetest kiss she could ever imagine. Dianne tried to pull away. Her heart was pounding. Something about that lonely little chair made her care about the family that lived there, made her want to slip away before they came back and caught them interrupting their privacy. Their pumpkin was on the steps, right at her and Alan’s feet.

  “People live here,” she begged.

  “I know,” he whispered, kissing her face, slipping something into her hand. It felt cold and hard.

  “What-” she began, looking down. It was a key.

  Alan didn’t wait for her to ask more. Taking her hand, he guided the key into the lock. He turned it, and it opened. Dianne stared up at him. She didn’t get it. His face was glistening, and the expression in his eyes was fierce.

  “Alan,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”

  “Welcome home,” he said, holding his hands out.

  She gazed into his eyes, which were full of tears. He put his hands on her shoulders, pushed her gently out the door, then picked her up. Dianne’s arms went around his neck, her face pressed against his. She regarded him with a questioning gaze. Tears were running down Dianne’s cheeks, and they couldn’t stop.

  He carried her across the threshold. She was gulping, sobbing, trying to understand what was happening. Her life was falling apart at the hospital, her baby was losing her terrible fight, and Alan was carrying her into the house she’d loved her entire life.

  They walked across the empty room, his footsteps echoing, toward the marble fireplace and the little chair. Now that they were closer, Dianne could see that painted across the chair back, across the narrow bar of warm pink wood, was a name:

  JULIA

  The letters were green stems, and flowers grew off them. The flowers were white, like apple and pear blossoms, and blue, like morning glories. Apples lay at the letters’ base as if from wonderful gardens that could produce flowers and fruit at the same time.

  “The people have a little girl named Julia,” Dianne whispered, stunned.

  “They do,” Alan said, both arms around Dianne as he lowered her and they stood looking down at the chair.

  “Where are they?” she asked.

  “They’re right here,” Alan said.

  “Us?” Dianne asked, the word so small and quiet, she could hardly believe she’d said it.

  “Us, sweetheart,” Alan said.

  She looked up into his warm green-gold eyes. His glasses had steamed up, coming in from the cold, and he took them off and tried to stick them in his pocket. His hand seemed to be shaking, so Dianne reached for his glasses and held them in her hand.

  “This house …?” Dianne asked, her hands shaking too.

  “I bought it for you. For us.”

  “The chair!” Dianne said, beginning to understand.

  “I had it made for Julia,” he said.

  Dianne wept.

  “I want to adopt her,” Alan said. “As soon as possible. I want her to be my daughter, Dianne.”

  “Oh, Alan.”

  “I want her to be my daughter, and you to be my wife, and I want us to live right here, in this house you’ve always loved.”

  “I have,” Dianne said. “I’ve loved it forever.”

  “I want us to have time together,” Alan said. “All of us, as a family. I want us to be here this Christmas, and I want to see Julia sit in her chair by the fire.”

  “She’ll be warm,” Dianne said, closing her eyes as she thought of how cold Julia’s hands could get. Her daughter had poor circulation, and her fingers and toes were never warm enough. That was why she’d loved the black sand beach, the way that dark sand soaked up the sun. Alan had gotten her a chair by the fire, so Julia could have warmth all year round.

  “So, Dianne,” Alan said. He took her hand, and she opened her eyes. He looked hesitant, and she reached up to hold him, to let him know he had made her so happy, in some incredible, eternal way, beyond the fears that had gripped her for twelve years, to let him know all those things, but because she couldn’t speak, she just held him in her arms.

  “Dianne,” he said, and now his voice was strong. “Dianne, will you marry me?”

  She smiled. Her hand went straight to her mouth, amazed that this was happening. She stared at him, her grin widening. Her eyes twinkled with joyful tears.

  “Yes,” she said when she could take her hand down and clasp her fingers with his. “Yes, Alan!”

  “I love you,” Alan said.

  “I love you,” Dianne said.

  The little chair was between them, and it seemed to Dianne to serve as a standin for the child herself. If Julia were there, she would be overjoyed. Dr. McIntosh, her uncle Alan, the man who had loved her since the day she was born.

  “Julia should be here,” Dianne said, staring at the chair. Thinking of how loving, how thoughtful, a man would have to be to have such a thing made.

  “She will be,” Alan said.

  “It’s time to go back,” Dianne said. She could have stayed there in the house forever, but she had to be with Julia. She’d be stirring now, not quite waking up, but sensing that her mother wasn’t there. They had to go.

  “I know,” he said. “Just—”

  “I want to tell her,” Dianne said, “that you’re going to be her father.”

  Alan nodded. He seemed about to speak. He opened his mouth, stopped himself again. Dianne stared at him, afraid he was going to say something about Tim. She didn’t know why, it was just a flash of intuition, but she hoped he wouldn’t. She prayed Alan wouldn’t say one word about Tim, bring his brother into this blessed and amazing house.

  He didn’t. Holding Dianne’s hands, looking into her eyes, he smiled. “Julia knows,” he said. “She knows I was going to ask you—”

  “Julia …knows?”

  Alan nodded. “I told her that I bought the house, that I want to marry you. I asked her, back in the hospital, when I knew we’d be walking over …I asked her for your hand, Dianne.”

  “What did she-” D
ianne asked, looking up at him, “what’d she say?”

  “Well, she said yes,” Alan said.

  Dianne nodded, her eyes bright.

  “I told her I want to be her father too,” he said. “But you know, she’s heard that before.”

  “She has?”

  “Many times,” Alan said. “Many, many times. Every time you went out of the room since the day she was born. I’ve told Julia that I want to be her father.”

  “You are,” Dianne said, pressing her head against Alan’s chest. “You already are.”

  He wanted to show her something before they left to go back to Julia. He led her straight through the downstairs, through a solarium where Julia could sit and watch the boats in the harbor, into the fanciest kitchen Dianne had ever seen, down a short hall, into a bedroom.

  “It’s a suite,” Alan said. “With rooms for us and Julia.”

  “Next to each other …” she said, seeing how they connected.

  “On the first floor,” Alan said, holding her. “So you don’t have to carry her up and down stairs.”

  “Oh, Alan,” Dianne said. Her back had been hurting worse than she’d told anyone. That spasm had been so bad this morning …she remembered with guilt the thought she’d had about Julia, and knew her own pain had contributed.

  “I’ll be with you from now on, Dianne,” Alan said. “To take care of both of you, you and Julia. I’ll make you so happy.”

  “I already am,” Dianne said, looking up into the eyes of the most wonderful man in the world. “You have no idea what you’ve given me.”

  “Nothing compared to what you give me,” Alan said, kissing her, leading her across the room to the spot where she could imagine putting their bed. He spread his jacket on the hard floor, and they lay down on it. They held each other, eyes wide open, for a long time. Dianne felt their hearts beating together through their clothes. Reaching up, she slid her hand into his shirt, through the space between his buttons.

  She thought of the first time they had made love. “Let my love guide you,” Alan had told her. He had made it so easy for her. She pressed her hand against his chest, and she found she wanted to do more than that. Very slowly she began undoing his buttons.