Kitabı oku: «Follow the Stars Home»
LUANNE RICE
Follow the Stars Home
Dedication
For Andrea Cirillo,
my beloved friend and amazing agent,
with love and gratitude
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
By the Same Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
Snow was falling in New York. The flakes were fine and steady, obscuring the upper stories of Midtown’s black and silver buildings. Snow covered the avenues faster than city plows could clear it away. It capped stone monuments and the Plaza’s dormant fountain. As night closed in, and lights were turned on in every window, the woman stood with the young girl, breathing in the cold air.
“The snow looks so magical in the city!” Amy, twelve, said in amazement.
“It’s so beautiful,” Dianne agreed.
“But where do the kids go sledding?”
“In Central Park, I think. Right over there,” Dianne said, pointing at the trees coated in white, the yellow lights glowing through the snow.
Amy just stared. Everything about New York was new and wonderful, and Dianne loved seeing the city through her eyes. Fresh from the quiet marshlands of eastern Connecticut, they had checked into the Plaza hotel, visited Santa at Macy’s, and gone ice skating at Rockefeller Center. That night they had tickets to see the New York City Ballet dance The Nutcracker.
Standing under the hotel awning, they took in Christmas lights, livery-clad doormen, and guests dressed for a gala evening. Three cabs stood at the curb, snow thick in their headlights. At least twenty people were lined up, scanning the street for additional cabs. Hesitating for just a moment, Dianne took Amy’s hand and walked down the steps.
Overwhelmed with excitement, her own and for the child, she didn’t want to risk missing the curtain by waiting in a long taxi line. Standing by the curb, she checked the map and weighed the idea of walking to Lincoln Center.
“Dianne, are we going to be late?” Amy asked.
“No, we’re not,” Dianne said, making up her mind. “I’ll get us a cab.”
Amy laughed, thrilled by the sight of her friend standing in the street, arm outstretched like a real New Yorker. Dianne wore a black velvet dress, a black cashmere cape, a string of pearls, and her grandmother-in-law’s diamond and sapphire earrings: things she never wore at home at Gull Point. Her evening bag was ancient. Black satin, stiff with years spent on a closet shelf, it had come from a boutique in Essex, Connecticut.
“Oh, let me hail the cab,” Amy said, dancing with delight, her arm flying up just like Dianne’s. Her movement was sudden, and slipping on the snow, she grasped at Dianne’s bag. The strap was very long; even with Dianne’s arm raised, the bag swung just below her hip. Nearly losing her balance on the icy street, Dianne caught Amy and steadied them both.
They smiled, caught in a momentary embrace. Although Thanksgiving had just passed, Christmas lights glittered everywhere. Beneath its snowy veil, the city was enchanted. A Salvation Army band played “Silent Night.” Bells jingled on passing horse-drawn carriages.
“I’ve never been anywhere like this,” Amy said. Her enormous green eyes gazed into Dianne’s with the rapture of being twelve, on such a wonderful adventure.
“I’m so glad you came with me,” Dianne said.
“I wish Julia were here,” Amy said.
Bowled over with affection for the girl, and missing her own daughter, Dianne didn’t see the cab at first.
Spinning on the ice, the taxi clipped the bumper of a black Mercedes limousine. A snowplow and a sand truck drove by in the opposite direction, and the Yellow Cab caromed off the plow’s blade, crushing its front end, shattering the windshield. Dianne lunged for Amy.
The violent ballet happened in slow motion. Pirouetting once, twice, the cab spun on the icy street. Dianne grabbed the child. Her low black boot fought for traction. Glass tinkled on the pavement. Onlookers screamed. Arms around Amy, Dianne tried to run. In the seconds it took to register what was happening, that she wasn’t going to get out of the way fast enough, she wrapped her body around the child and tried to shield her from the impact.
The taxi struck the crowd. People flew up in the air together, tumbled apart, and landed with separate thuds. Skidding across the pavement, skin scraping and bones breaking, they slumped in shapeless heaps. For one long moment the city was silent. Traffic stopped. No one moved. The snow was bright with red blood. Down the block, horns began to blare. A far-off siren sounded. People closed in to help.
“They’re dead!” someone cried.
“So much blood …”
“Don’t move anyone, you might injure them worse.”
“That little girl, did she move? Is she alive?”
Five people lay crumpled like broken toys, surrounded by people not knowing what to do. Two off-duty New York cops out for the evening with their wives saw the commotion from their car and stopped to help. One of them ran to the wrecked taxi. Leaning through the shattered window, he yanked at the door handle before stopping himself.
The driver was killed, his neck sliced through by a sheet of door metal. Even in death, the man reeked of whiskey. Shaking his head, the cop went to the injured pedestrians.
“Driver’s dead,” he said, crouching beside his friend, working on the girl.
“What about her?” he asked, pulling open Amy’s coat to check her heartbeat.
With the child their first priority, the two policemen had their backs to Dianne. She lay facedown in the snow. Blood spread from her blond hair, her arm twisted beneath her at an impossible angle. Moving quickly, a stranger bent down beside her. He leaned over her head, touching the side of her neck as if in search of a pulse. No one saw him palm the single diamond earring he could reach, or pull the pearls from her throat.
By the time he grabbed her bag, a woman in the crowd noticed. The thief had the strap in his hand, easing it out from under the fallen woman’s arm.
“Hey,” the observer yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”
The thief yanked harder. He held the bag, tearing at the clasp. It opened, contents spilling into the snow. A comb, ballet tickets, a crystal perfume flacon, some papers, and a small green wallet. Snatching the wallet, the man dashed across the street, disappearing into the dark park.
One victim, an old man, was dead. A wife lay motionless while her husband tried to crawl closer to her. Bending over the child, one policeman barely looked up. The other moved to the woman – had to be the girl’s mother – noticing the blood pumping from her head. Taking off his jacket, he pressed it to the open wound. Police cars arrived along with an ambulance, and the technicians turned the blond woman over. She was lovely, her face as pale as ice. The policeman saw a lot of death, and the chill that shivered down his back told him the mother was in bad shape.
The crowd stood back, everyone talking at once. “The taxi … out of control … skidded on the ice … five people hit … mother tried to save the little girl … scumbag stole her wallet.”
“Crackhead got her ID?” the ambulance driver asked. “No. Shit, no. You mean no one knows their names? We got no one to call?”
“That’s right,” one of the cops said. He knew the ambulance driver wasn’t necessarily being altruistic, imagining someone waiting for these two somewhere with no way to get in touch with him. Unidentified victims were a paperwork nightmare.
“Goddamn,” his friend said, watching the EMTs load them into the ambulance. The lady was so pretty, delicate and petite. Bystanders were saying she had curled her body around the child to protect her from the runaway cab. Ten to one she was from out of town, staying at the Plaza for a special holiday treat, nailed by some celebrating cabbie on his way back to the garage with a bellyful of cheer.
Throwing the useless handbag into the ambulance, they watched the vehicle scream down West Fifty-ninth Street, heading for St. Bernadette’s Hospital.
Speeding crosstown, the ambulance driver ran every light carefully, easing through intersections. Storms brought out the worst in New Yorkers. They panicked at the first sign of snow. The driver stayed steady, focused on avoiding the slow traffic and numerous fender benders. Aware of his critical passengers, he called ahead to alert the emergency staff.
Oxygen masks covered the victims’ faces. The attending EMT pulled away the woman’s cape, searching for a heartbeat. Checking her blood pressure, he felt shocked when her eyes opened. She lay still, her lips blue. The intensity in each small movement was frightening to behold as she opened her mouth to speak one word: “Amy,” she said.
“The little girl?” the technician asked.
“Amy …” the woman repeated, panic apparent in her eyes and in the effort it took her to whisper.
“Your daughter?” the EMT asked. “She’s right here beside you, she’s just fine. You’re both going to be just fine. Lie back now, there you go. Just –” he said, watching her unimaginable distress behind the oxygen mask before she slid back into unconsciousness.
The kid’s arm’s a mess, he thought, silently chastising himself for the blatant lie.
The trauma unit was ready. Intercepting the ambulance beneath the wide portico, they slid the woman and girl onto gurneys. IV lines were hooked up. Blood and plasma were ready, just waiting for blood samples to be typed. Nurses and doctors in green surrounded the victims, assessing the worst of their injuries. Woman and child were wheeled into separate cubicles.
While the doctors worked, an EMT brought the black satin handbag to the desk. The head nurse checked it for ID, but the police report was right: The wallet was missing. She found two tickets for the ballet, two Amtrak ticket stubs originating in Old Saybrook, and two business cards, one for a lumberyard in Niantic, the other for a fishing boat called Aphrodite.
“Find anything?” a young nurse asked, coming from the injured woman’s cubicle. “It would be awfully good to call someone.”
“What’s her condition?” the head nurse asked, glancing up.
“Critical,” the younger woman said, discarding her gloves. She was thirty-eight, about the same age as the woman she’d just been working on. She had children herself, including a ten-year-old daughter, just a little younger than the girl, and nothing made her count her blessings and fear the universe like a badly injured woman and child. “Both of them. Extensive blood loss, bruising, concussion and contusions for the woman, fractured humerus and severed artery for the girl. They’re prepping her for surgery.”
“There’s nothing much here,” the head nurse replied. “Cards for a lumberyard and a fishing boat …”
The head nurse squinted, taking a closer look. She saw a fine zipper she had missed the first time, along the seam of the bag’s lining. Tugging it open, she reached inside and fished out a small card filled out in elegant handwriting:
In case of emergency, please call Timothy McIntosh (203) 555–8941.
“Connecticut number,” the young nurse said, reading the card. “Think it’s her husband?”
Dialing the number, the head nurse didn’t reply. She got a recording: The area code had been changed. Using the new numbers, she learned that the phone was out of service. She tried the lumberyard: no answer at this hour. Frustrated, she looked at the last card and wondered what good could come from calling a fishing boat at the end of November. Since she had no options, she called the marine operator and requested to be put through to the Aphrodite.
Waves pounded the hull and light snow sifted from the dark night sky. Tim McIntosh gripped the wheel, steering a long course due south. He had been lobstering in Maine, saving enough money to last the winter in Florida. He wore thick gloves, but even so his hands were chapped and rough. His leather boots were soaked through, his feet blocks of ice.
He glanced at the chart, illuminated by light from the binnacle. Point Pleasant, New Jersey, was his destination. He’d put in at Red’s Lobster Dock for one night, then leave on the dawn tide for his trip south. Tim had had enough winter to last him for the rest of his life. Malachy Condon had once tried to talk him out of leaving for good, but that was before their final breach. Tim was heading for Miami.
A foghorn moaned over the sound of waves crashing against the steel hull. Checking his loran, Tim swung right into the Manasquan Inlet. The water grew calmer, but he could still feel the Atlantic waves pounding in his joints. He had traveled a long way. Great rock and concrete breakwaters flanked either side of the channel. Houses looked warmly lit; Christmas trees twinkled in picture windows, and Tim imagined other sailors’ homecomings.
The radio crackled. Tim’s ears were ringing from the constant roaring of the wind and throbbing of the Detroit diesel, but nevertheless he heard the high seas operator calling him.
“Aphrodite,” the voice said. “Calling vessel Aphrodite …”
Tim stared at the set. His first thought was that Malachy had relented. Tim felt a quick spread of relief; he had known Malachy couldn’t stay mad forever, that he wasn’t cold enough to just banish Tim from his life. Malachy Condon was an old oceanographer, scientific as they came, but he had a family man’s romantic vision of the holidays. Malachy believed in setting things right. He would want to fix things between them, press Tim to change his ways toward his daughter, her mother, Tim’s brother.
“McIntosh, aboard the Aphrodite,” Tim said, grabbing the mike, ready to greet the old meddler with “Happy Thanksgiving, what took you so long?” A click sounded, the operator connecting him to the caller.
“This is Jennifer Hanson from the emergency room at St. Bernadette’s Hospital in New York City. I’m afraid I have some bad news.…”
Tim straightened up, the human response to hearing “bad news” and “emergency room” in the same sentence. He hated New York, and so did every other fisherman he knew. Even worse, he despised hospitals and sickness with every bone in his body.
“A woman and child were brought in several hours ago. They have no ID save a card with your boat’s name on it.”
“The Aphrodite?” he asked, bewildered.
“The woman is slender, with blond hair and fair skin.”
He held on, saying nothing.
“Blue eyes …” the nurse said.
Tim bowed his head, his pulse accelerating. His mind conjured up a pair of familiar periwinkle eyes, searching and ready to laugh. Marsh-gold hair falling to her shoulders, freckles on pale skin. But with a child in New York? It wasn’t possible.
“Thirty-four or thirty-five,” the nurse continued. “Type O blood. The child is about twelve, has type AB.”
“I don’t know them,” Tim said, his mouth dry. Didn’t his daughter have type A? His head felt strange, as if he had the flu. The rough seas getting to him. Payback time for running out on his daughter time and again. He felt guilty enough already, obsessed with the way he lived his life. Malachy had never written him off before, and the old man’s final rage had shaken Tim to the core.
Throttling back, Tim turned toward Red’s. The docks and pilings were white with snow. Ice clung to the rigging of the big draggers. Woman with a twelve-year-old kid. In New York City? He had thought she was too sick to travel, but she had been on Nova Scotia last summer.
“The woman was wearing one earring. A small diamond and sapphire, kind of dangling …”
That did it. Glancing up, Tim saw himself reflected in the wheelhouse glass. Flooded with shame and regret, he remembered the little house by the Hawthorne docks, and he could see those trees his wife had loved so much, the ones with the white flowers that smelled so sweet. She wouldn’t be calling him though. Not after what had happened last summer.
“The bag is satin,” the nurse continued. “It has a tag inside, with the name of a place –”
“It came from the Schooner Shop,” Tim said, clearing his throat. “I gave it to her one Christmas. The earrings belonged to my grandmother.…”
“Then, you do know her?” the nurse asked tensely.
“Her name is Dianne Robbins,” Tim said. “She was my wife.”
The Briggs taxi was an old blue Impala. Tim sat in back, staring out the window as the driver sped up Route 35. From the bridge, he saw suburban houses under snow, decorated with wreaths and lights. A few had snowmen in the yard. As they approached the Garden State Parkway, kids bombarded the taxi with snowballs.
“Heh,” the driver said. “I should be offended, but in my day I’d’ve been doing the same thing, snow like this.”
“Yeah,” Tim said, thinking of himself and his brothers.
“Heading up to the city for a good time?”
“To the hospital,” Tim said, his throat so dry he could hardly speak.
“Hey, man,” the driver said. “Sorry.” He fell silent, and Tim was glad. He didn’t want to talk. The heater was pumping and the radio was on. Tim didn’t want to tell some stranger his whole life story, how he had been running away for eleven straight years and had been just about to run even farther when he’d gotten this call.
Christmastime. Maybe Malachy had been right about this time of year: Families reunited, women forgave, children got better. Tim had wrecked his chances with everyone. He had stolen Dianne from his brother, married her, then walked away from her and their daughter.
Tim had just barely been able to live with himself all these eleven years, way out at sea. But he had burned his bridges with the old Irishman, the man who had made listening to dolphins off Nova Scotia his lifework, and that had woken him up. Malachy Condon had always urged him to make things right with Dianne. Maybe this was Tim’s last chance.
Amy woke up slowly. Her first thought was Mama! Her second was Dianne. Amy was in a hospital bed. The walls were green and the sheets were white. She had a cast on her arm, which was held up over her head by a metal triangle that looked like a trapeze.
“Is Dianne okay?” she asked the nurse standing by her bed.
“Is that your mother, honey?” the nurse asked.
Amy shook her head. She felt tears hot in her eyes. Her mother was back in Hawthorne. Amy wanted to call her, wanted her to come. “Tell me, please,” she said, choking on a sob. “Is Dianne –” she tried to ask.
The cabdriver took the Holland Tunnel. Tim hadn’t been in a tunnel in more years than he could remember. His life was the sea: crustaceans, the price of lobster at the Portland Fish Exchange, cold feet in wet boots, the smell of diesel fuel, and regret.
Tim’s life could have been different. Passing the nice houses decorated for Christmas, he wondered why he had given it all away. Once he had had it all: beautiful wife, nice house, prosperous lobstering business. Sometimes he felt guilty for taking Dianne from his brother, but the choice had been hers. She could have stayed with Alan – the great doctor – if she had wanted, but she had chosen Tim.
“I’m gonna take Hudson Street uptown,” the driver said. “West Side Highway’s stopped deader’n hell.”
“Just get me there,” Tim said. Dianne was in some New York hospital, just minutes away now. The closer he got to her, the harder his heart pounded. He had made mistakes, no doubt about it. But maybe he could undo some of them: He could go to the hospital now, see if he could help. Tim was a good guy at heart; his intentions had never been bad. He wanted Dianne to know that.
Maybe she understood already. Hadn’t she gotten the nurse to call him?
Tim would like to show Malachy. He hated picturing their last time together: spit flying from Malachy’s angry mouth, shouting at Tim as they stood on the Lunenburg dock. Acting more like Alan than Malachy: sanctimonious, looking down on Tim for his shortcomings. But this might be Tim’s chance to help Dianne, to prove both Alan and Malachy wrong.
Besides, didn’t the stars point to something? Why had Tim been steaming into Point Pleasant instead of somewhere else? He might have bailed into Nantucket, avoided yesterday’s storm. Or he could have veered into the Gulf Stream, headed farther south than New Jersey for his first port, had the radio off, not heard the call.
“Dianne,” he said out loud.
New York was filled with people and cars. Couples stood at every street corner. The Empire State Building was lit up green and red. Christmas trees down from Nova Scotia, where Tim had been the previous summer, filled the city air with the lovely fragrance of deep pine forests. Dianne loved the holidays. She was a good person, full of love, and she saw the holidays as one more chance to make her family happy – to bring joy to their daughter, he was sure.
As he thought of the little girl he had never met, Tim’s eyes stung. Dianne had told him her name was Julia. It didn’t help that Alan was her pediatrician, that he used to send letters to Tim through Malachy. Tim had torn them all up. The child had been born damaged.
No renegade lobsterman wanted to be reminded of lousy things he’d done. Dianne had given birth to a sick baby, and Tim hadn’t been able to handle it. That’s what fishing the Atlantic was for: tides and currents and a big lobster boat named after the goddess of love to take him the hell away.
Tim handed the driver a pile of money and jumped out at St. Bernadette’s Hospital – a complex of redbrick buildings too huge to figure out. He ran into the ER, pushing past a guard who told him he had to sign in. The nurses were nice. They took one look at him and knew he needed help fast. Tim had been aboard Aphrodite for days, and he needed to wash and shave.
“The woman and girl,” he said to the head nurse. “Who were brought in earlier, the accident, you called me …”
“You’re the fisherman,” she said kindly, handing him his grandmother’s earring.
Tim shuddered and groaned. He dried his face with the oil-stained sleeve of his brown Carhartt jacket. His knuckles were cracked and bloody from winter in northern waters. He clutched the ancient earring Dorothea McIntosh had given Dianne on their wedding day, and he remembered it sparkling in the Hawthorne sun as they’d said their vows.
Tim had been roaming for so long, searching for something that would help him forget he had run out on his wife and daughter. Julia had been born sick and crippled. Tim had been too afraid to see her.
“Where’s Dianne?” he asked, wiping his eyes.
The nurse led him through the hospital. Tim followed, their footsteps echoing down long corridors. The hospital seemed old, several brick buildings connected by a warren of hallways. Accustomed to starlight, Tim blinked under the fluorescent lighting. Entering a more modern wing, they rode an elevator to the twentieth floor.
“I’m taking you to see the child,” the nurse said. “Her mother is still in surgery.”
“No –” Tim began.
“The girl is scared,” the nurse said. “She’s hurt, and she’s all alone.”
“My daughter,” Tim whispered. Was it really possible? After eleven years, was he about to meet his little girl? His stomach clenched. He had never seen her, but in his imagination she was stunted and palsied, like other damaged children he had seen. By then, sure he was on the brink of meeting her, Tim steeled himself for what he would see.
“In here,” the nurse said, opening a door.
“Which one?” Tim asked.
It was a double room. Both beds were filled. The occupants of each were quiet, their faces in shadow. The nurse indicated the girl with a broken arm. She lay in traction, her arm suspended overhead with lines and crossbars, like the elaborate rigging of a brigantine. Stepping closer, Tim was stunned.
Lying there was a beautiful young girl. Her arm was in a cast, her forehead was bruised, but she was perfect. Dark lashes lay upon delicate skin. Her face was oval, her nose straight, her lips full. As Tim stared, he began to shake.
“My daughter,” he said, his voice croaking.
“She’s waking up,” the nurse said.
The child began to stir. She licked her lips, tried to move her arm. Her cry was awful to hear, and Tim wanted to put his arms around her.
“Oh,” she wept. “My arm hurts.”
“There, honey,” the nurse said soothingly, bending over the girl. She spoke quietly, helping the child to orient herself, blocking Tim from her sight. Tim pulled himself together the best he could. He didn’t want to meet his daughter for the first time in shock and looking like Captain Ahab – or worse.
“I want to go home,” the girl cried. “I want to go back to Hawthorne.”
“It’s okay,” the nurse said kindly. “You’re going to be fine, honey. And you’re not alone. There’s someone here to see you.”
The young girl blinked. Stepping out from behind the white-clad nurse, Tim watched the child bring him into focus. Blood pounded in his ears like waves smashing over a ship’s bow. He tried to smile, not wanting to frighten her. But he needn’t have worried. Her fearful expression changed instantly the moment she saw him into one of sheer delight and love.
“Dr. McIntosh!” she exclaimed, bursting into tears.
Tim was too choked up to speak. Hearing only his last name, he thought for one minute that his daughter knew him already. Dianne had showed her his picture. Maybe they kept it on the mantel. They had talked about him all this time.
“Oh, Dr. McIntosh,” she said again, and now Tim heard the rest, the “Doctor.” Shit. She was calling for his brother. Alan. In her groggy, posttraumatic state, she had caught sight of one McIntosh and mistaken him for the other. Tim’s heart fell. He closed his eyes and knew that the little girl had made a mistake.
And so, he thought, probably he had too. But he was going to set it straight. He had to see Dianne.
Two
Conscious only of bright light and searing pain in her arm and head, Dianne moaned. Her eyes tried to focus. Shapes swam before her, green beings saying her name over and over.
“Dianne?” she heard. “Dianne, can you hear me?”
“Mrs. McIntosh, how many fingers am I holding up?”
“Amy …”
“Hold steady, that’s right.” She felt the pressure of a hand on her forehead. The Plaza, Christmas lights. Headlights came at her, and she cried out. But they weren’t headlights. A man in green was standing there, shining a light in her face.
“Dianne, do you know where you are?” came a woman’s voice.
“She’s lost so much blood,” a male voice said.
“Her pressure’s dropping,” came another voice.
“Please, help,” she murmured. Was this a nightmare? She could not move, and her thoughts swarmed in her mind. “Julia,” she mouthed, but she had been with Amy, hadn’t she? Julia was at home with her mother. Alan should be here … if he came, he would know what to do. He would save her. Memory fragments began to materialize, shifting around like parts of a terrible puzzle.
“Mrs. McIntosh,” the nurse said gently. “Amy is being taken care of. Everything we can do is being done. You need to be strong. Stay with us.”
Dianne’s mind was fuzzy with pain and injury and blood loss and whatever drugs they had given her. She felt herself losing consciousness. She wished she could open the door and walk through the snow to the marsh. Trying to see, her eyes would hardly focus. She was in New York. That’s right, they had come to New York to see The Nutcracker.
Shivering, thinking of Amy’s imagined terror, Dianne cried out in anguish.
“Stay with us, Dianne,” one voice said. “Mrs. McIntosh!” called another.
She thought of her home by the Connecticut marshes, her mother and daughter, and Alan. The nurse had called her “Mrs. McIntosh” as if she were still married to Tim. A long time ago Dianne had dated both McIntosh brothers. They had both loved her, and at different times she had loved each of them. Alan was day, Tim was night. Dianne, for whom life had always been gentle, fair, and kind, had chosen the brother with a dark side. She had married Tim, and she had paid a price.
But over the last three magical seasons, she and Alan had started to come back together. For the first time in eleven years, Dianne had just started to love again, and now she lay in this strange bed in a New York hospital, so far from home, feeling as if she were starting to die. She spun back: winter, fall, summer, all the way to last spring.…
It was April, and the scent of flowering pear trees filled the air of Hawthorne. The trees had been planted one hundred years earlier, along the brick sidewalks around the waterfront, and their blossoms were white, fragile, and delicate. Looking up as she passed underneath, Dianne Robbins wondered how they survived the fresh sea wind that blew in from the east.
“Flowers, Julia,” she said.
Her daughter slept in the wheelchair, unaware. Reaching up, Dianne stood on her toes to grab hold of the lowest branch and break off a twig. Three perfect blossoms curved from thread-fine stems. The petals were pure white, soft pink in the center. Dianne thought they were beautiful, the more so because they lasted so short a time. The flowering pears of Hawthorne stayed in bloom less than a week.
Julia had once seen a flower and said “la,” her first word. So Dianne placed the twig on her sleeping child’s lap and continued on. She passed White Chapel Square, named for the three churches that surrounded it. The sea captains’ houses came next, gleaming white Federals with wide columns and green-black shutters, overlooking the harbor and lighthouse. Dianne had always dreamed of living in one of these houses, ever since she was a child.
She slowed in front of the one she loved most. It had an ornate wrought-iron fence surrounding the big yard and sea-flower meadow. At age nine Dianne had stood there gripping the black fence rails and imagining her life as a grown-up. She would be an architect and have a wonderful husband, beautiful children, two golden dogs, and they would all live blissfully in this house on the harbor.
Glancing at her daughter, Dianne pushed the wheelchair faster. The breeze had picked up, and it was cold for April. Low clouds scudded across the sky, making her wonder about rain. They had been early, with time for a walk after parking the car. But now it was almost three o’clock, time for Julia’s appointment with her uncle, Dr. Alan McIntosh.
Alan McIntosh sat as his desk while Mrs. Beaudoin went through Billy’s latest pictures in search of the perfect one for the Wall. She was a very young mother – Billy was her first baby – and Alan had long since learned that every patient’s mother’s goal was to see her child properly enshrined in the collage of photos hanging behind his desk.
“In this one he’s drooling,” she said, smiling and proudly handing it over nevertheless. “And in this one he’s squinting. He looks just like an old man!”
“He is one,” Alan said, cradling Billy in one arm while he wrote out a prescription for ear drops with his other. “Six months on Tuesday.”
Martha Blake, his nurse, appeared at the door. She raised her eyebrows, as if to ask whether Alan needed help in hurrying Mrs. Beaudoin along. He’d had an emergency at the hospital that morning, so now he was backed up with a packed waiting room. He’d been so busy, he hadn’t had time for lunch, and at that moment his stomach let out such a loud grumble that Billy’s brown eyes flew open with surprise.
“I like this one where he’s squinting,” Alan said, glancing over for permission to hang the picture on the Wall. “He looks like he’s thinking deep thoughts.”
Walking Mrs. Beaudoin to the door, he gave her the prescription and told her to keep Billy’s ears dry when she bathed him. His office was in an old brush factory dating back to the early 1800s, and some of the doorways were very low, built for humans two hundred years shorter of bone. Alan, six four since eighth grade, had to duck to walk through.
When he straightened, he saw the waiting room packed with patients: mothers and children everywhere. Children sniffling, huddled at their mothers’ sides, trying to read picture books, their big eyes looking in his direction as if the big, bad wolf had just stepped off the page. Only two children looked happy to see him, and they filled his heart with the kind of gratitude he had become a doctor to feel. They were both young girls, just a year apart in age, and only one of them had an appointment.
Amy was sitting in the big playhouse in the corner. She was twelve, slight, with silky, uncombed brown hair and big green eyes, and she was theoretically too old to be playing there. Hidden in shadows, she ducked down so she couldn’t be seen by any of the mothers, but she gave Alan a wide grin. He gave her a secret smile, letting her know he was playing the game and would find time to talk to her later.
Julia was in her wheelchair. She had huge, eloquent eyes. When she smiled, every tooth in her mouth showed. Seeing Alan, she let out a bellow of joy, causing her mother to lean over from behind and wrap her in a hug. Dianne Robbins laughed out loud, pressing her lips against Julia’s pale cheek. When Dianne looked up, the expression in her blue eyes made her look as happy and carefree as a young girl sailing. Alan started to say he was running late, but something about the moment left him temporarily unable to speak, so he just walked back into his office.
Amy Brooks was invisible. She was as clear as her name: a clean brook that ran over rocks and stones and pebbles, under fallen trees and arched bridges, through dark woods and sunny meadows. Amy was water. People might look in her direction, but they’d see right through her to things on the other side.
Amy felt safe there in Dr. McIntosh’s playhouse, and she wasn’t sure which part was best. Knowing that Dr. McIntosh was in the next room or sitting in the little house itself. Some lady in Hawthorne had made it to look just like one of those white mansions down by the water. Outside, it had glistening white clapboards and dark green shutters that closed. The heavy blue door swung on brass hinges, with a bronze sea horse door knocker.
A little kid knocked on the door, wanting to come in.
“Grrrr,” Amy growled, like the new puppy in the cage at home. The little kid couldn’t see her because she was invisible, but he could hear her. That was enough.
“Mine again,” Amy whispered to the house.
Glancing at her father’s watch, a huge Timex weighing down her wrist, she wondered what time Dr. McIntosh would see her. She had had a good day at school – she was a sixth-grader at Hawthorne Middle, three blocks from his office – and she had purposely missed the bus to tell him about it. Just then she heard a strange noise.
It was a kid: From across the room, some child with its back to Amy started making funny sounds, like water trying to flow through a broken pipe. Its mother was pretty, like the golden-haired mother in storybooks, with silver-blue eyes and a smile meant only for the child. The two mothers on either side bent double like jackknives trying to get a peek at what was wrong. The kid’s ratchety noise turned pretty, like a dolphin singing, and suddenly the kid’s mother joined in.
The nurse called them, and they disappeared down the corridor. The mother caught Amy’s eyes as she passed the playhouse. She smiled but just kept going. When the office door shut behind them, Amy missed their odd song.
“Pretty music,” Alan said.
“Julia was singing,” Dianne said, holding her daughter’s hand as the young girl rolled her eyes. “I just joined in.”
“Hi, Julia,” Alan said. He crouched beside Julia’s wheelchair, smoothing the white-blond hair back from her face. She leaned into his hand for an instant, eyes closed with what appeared to be deep trust. Dianne stood back, watching.
Alan spoke to Julia. His tone was rich and low, the voice of a very big man. But he spoke gently to Julia, tender and unthreatening, and the girl bowed her head and sighed contentedly. He was her uncle; he had been her doctor for the eleven years she had been alive. In spite of their history, the awkwardness between them, Dianne would never take Julia to anyone else.
Alan encircled Julia with his arms, easily lifting her onto the exam table. She weighed very little: twenty-nine pounds at the last visit. She was a fairy child, with a perfect face and misshapen body. Her head bobbed against her chest, her thin arms flailing slowly about as if she were swimming in the bay. She was wearing jeans, and a navy blue Gap sweatshirt over her T-shirt, and Dr. McIntosh must have just tickled her because she suddenly gasped. At the sound, Dianne turned away.
She let herself have this fantasy: Julia was healthy, “normal.” She was just like all the other kids in the outer office. She could read books and draw pictures, and when you took her hand, it wasn’t ice cold. She would jump and dance and demand her favorite cereal. Dianne would know that her favorite color was blue because Julia said so, not from hours of watching for slight changes of expression as Dianne pointed at colors on a page: red, yellow, green, blue.
Blue! Is that the one you like most, Julia? Blue, sweetheart?
To be a mother and know your own child’s heart: Dianne couldn’t imagine anything more incredible. Could Julia even distinguish colors, or was Dianne just kidding herself? Julia could not answer Dianne’s questions. She made sounds, which experts had told Dianne were not words at all. When she said “la,” it did not mean “flower”; it was only a sound.
“How are you, Dianne?” Alan asked.
“Fine, Alan.”
“Julia and I were just having a talk.”
“You were?”
“Yep. She says you’re working too hard. Every kid in Hawthorne wants a playhouse, and you’re backed up till Christmas.”
Dianne swallowed. Nervous today, she couldn’t manage the small talk. She was at her worst during Julia’s exams. Her nerves were raw, and just then Alan reminded Dianne of his brother, of being left, and the worst of everything that could happen to her child; waiting for him to examine Julia made her want to scream.
Julia had been born with defects. A blond angel, she had spina bifida and Rett syndrome, a condition similar to autism. No talking, no for-sure affection. There was the maybe affection, where she’d kiss Dianne’s face and Dianne wasn’t really sure whether it was a real kiss or just a lip spasm. Dianne tended toward optimism, and she gave each smooch the benefit of the doubt every time.
Since birth Julia had had thirteen surgeries. Many trips to the hospitals – here, in Providence, and in Boston – had produced wear and tear on the spirit, sitting in those oddly similar waiting rooms, wondering whether Julia would survive the procedure. Hydrocephalus had developed after one operation, and for a time Dianne had had to get used to a shunt in her baby’s brain to drain off the excess fluid.
Dianne, so desperate to lash out at Tim, would often talk to herself.
“Hello! Darling! Kindly bring me a sponge – I seem to have spilled this little bowl full of our daughter’s brain water. Oh, you’ve left for good? Never mind, I’ll get it myself.”
Dianne’s heart never knew which way to twist. She teetered between hope and rage, love and terror. She hated Tim for leaving, Alan for reminding her of his brother, all doctors for being able to keep Julia alive but not being able to cure her. But Dianne loved Julia with a simple heart. Her daughter was innocent and pure.
Julia could not walk, hold things, or eat solid food. She would not grow much bigger. Her limbs looked jumbled and broken; the bones in her body were askew. Her body was her prison, and it failed her at every turn.
Her organs were hooked up wrong. Most of those early surgeries had been to correctly connect her stomach, bladder, bowels, and to protect the bulging sac on her smooth little baby back containing her meninges and spinal cord. Julia was the baby every pregnant mother feared having, and Dianne loved her so much, she thought her own heart would crack.
“You okay?” Alan asked.
“Just do the exam,” Dianne said, sweating. “Please, Alan.”
She took off all but Julia’s T-shirt and diaper. They had been in this very room, on this exact table, so many times. Alan was frowning now, his feelings hurt. Dianne wanted to apologize, but her throat was too tight. Her stomach was in a knot: She was extra upset this visit, her fear and intuition in high, high gear, and it wasn’t going to get better till after Alan did the exam.
Unsnapping Julia’s T-shirt, Alan began to pass the silver disc across Julia’s concave chest. His wavy brown hair was going gray, and his steel-rimmed glasses were sliding down his nose. He often had a quizzical, distant expression in his hazel eyes, as if his mind were occupied with higher math, but right then he was totally focused on Julia’s heart.
“Can you hear anything?” she asked.
He didn’t reply.
Dianne bit her lip so hard it hurt. This was the part of the exam Dianne feared the most. But she watched him, restraining herself and letting him work.
Julia’s body was tiny, her small lungs and kidneys just able to do the job of keeping her alive. If she stopped growing soon, as the endocrinologist predicted she would, her organs would be sufficient. But if she sprouted even another inch, her lungs would be overtaxed and her other systems would give out.
“Her heart sounds good today,” Alan said. “Her lungs too.”
“Really?” Dianne asked, although she had never known him to tell them anything but the truth.
“Yes,” he said. “Really.”
“Good or just okay?”
“Dianne –”
Alan had never promised to fix Julia. Her prognosis since birth had been season by season. They had spent Julia’s whole life waiting for that moment when she would turn the corner. There were times Dianne couldn’t stand the suspense. She wanted to flip through the book, get to the last page, know how it was going to end.
“Really good?” she asked. “Or not?”
“Really good for Julia,” he said. “You know that’s all I can tell you. You know better than anyone, any specialist, what that means.”
“She’s Julia,” Dianne said. The news was as good as she was going to get this visit. She couldn’t speak right away. Her relief was sudden and great, and she had a swift impulse to run full tilt down to the dock, jump in his dinghy, and row into the wind until she exhausted herself.
“For so long,” Dianne said, her eyes brimming, “all I wanted was for her to grow.”
“I know … How’s her eating?”
“Good. Great. Milk shakes, chicken soup, she eats all the time. Right, sweetheart?”
Julia looked up from the table. Her enormous eyes roved from Dianne to Alan and back again. She looked upon her mother with waves of seeming joy and adoration. Her right hand rose, making its way to Dianne’s cheek. As always, Dianne was never sure whether Julia meant to touch her or whether the movement was just a reflex, but she bowed her forehead and let her daughter’s small fingers trail down the side of her face.
“Gaaa,” Julia said. “Gaaa.”
“I know,” Dianne said. “I know, sweetheart.”
Dianne believed her daughter had a sensitive soul, that in spite of her limitations, Julia was capable of deep emotion. Out in the waiting room, with those mothers staring at her, Dianne had started singing along with her, to help Julia feel less alone and embarrassed.
Eleven years earlier she had given her deformed baby the most elegant, dignified name she could think of: Julia. Not Megan, Ellie, Darcy, or even Lucinda, after Dianne’s mother, but Julia. A name with weight for a person of importance. Dianne still remembered a little boy looking through the nursery window, who started to cry because he thought Julia was a monster.
Julia sighed, long and low.
Dianne touched her hand. When she had dreamed of motherhood, she had imagined reading and drawing and playing with her child. They would create family myths as rich as any story in the library. Dianne’s child would inspire her playhouses. Together they would change and grow. Her baby’s progress, her creative and intellectual development, would bring Dianne unimaginable joy.
“That’s my girl,” Alan said, bending down to kiss Julia. As he did, his blue shirt strained across his broad back. And now that the exam was over, other feelings kicked in, the other part of why it was hard to be around Alan. Dianne folded her arms across her chest.
She could see his muscles, his lean waist. The back of his neck was exposed. Staring at it, she had a trapdoor feeling in her stomach. She thought back to when they’d first met. To her amazement, he had asked her out. Dianne had been a shy girl, flattered and intimidated by the young doctor. But then she had gone for his brother instead – dating a lobsterman made much more sense, didn’t it? Life had thrown Dianne and Alan together for the long haul though, and she couldn’t help staring at his body. Oh, my God, she thought, feeling such an overwhelming need to be held.
“I can’t believe Lucinda’s retiring,” Alan said. “Lucky for you and Julia – you’ll have a lot more time with her.”
“I know.” Her mother was the town librarian, and even though she wasn’t leaving until July, people were already beginning to miss her.
When he looked over his shoulder, Dianne bit her lip. This was the crazy thing: She had just been staring at Alan’s body, wishing he would hold her, and now she had the barbed wire up, on guard against his familiar tone, against his even thinking he was part of the family. She couldn’t handle this; the balance was too hard.
“The library won’t be the same without her.”
Dianne glanced at Alan’s wall of pictures, catching her breath. He and her mother shared the same clientele: Alan’s patients learned their library skills from Mrs. Robbins. Julia couldn’t use the library, had never even held a book, but many nights she had been lulled to sleep by her grandmother, the beloved and venerated storyteller of the Hawthorne Public Library.
“We’re lucky,” Dianne said to Alan, half turning away from Julia.
Alan didn’t know what she meant; he hesitated before responding.
“In what way?” Alan asked.
“To have that time you mentioned.”
Wringing her hands, Julia bowed her head. She moaned, but the sound changed to something near glee.
“My mother, me, and Julia,” Dianne continued. “To be together after she retires. Time to do something important before Julia …”
Alan didn’t answer. Was he thinking that she had left him off the list? Dianne started to speak, to correct herself, but instead she stopped. Holding herself tight, she stared at Julia. My girl, she thought. The terrible reality seemed sharper in Alan’s office than it did anywhere else: The day would come when she would leave them.
“Dianne, talk to me,” he said.
He had taken off his glasses, and he rubbed his eyes. He looked so much like Tim just then, Dianne focused down at her shoes. Coming closer, he touched her shoulder.
“I can’t,” she said carefully, stepping away. “Talking about it won’t change things.”
“This is nuts,” he said. “I’m your friend.”
“Don’t, Alan. Please. You’re Julia’s doctor.”
He stared at her, lines of anger and stress in his face.
“I’m a lot more than that,” Alan said, and Dianne’s eyes filled with tears. Without his glasses he looked just like his brother, and at that moment he sounded as dark as Tim had ever been.
Stupid young woman, Dianne thought, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks. She had been full of love. She had chosen the McIntosh she had thought would need her most, take every bit of care she had to offer, heal from the sorrows of his own past. Tim had been brash and mysterious, afraid to open his heart to anyone. Dianne had thought she could change him. She had wanted to save him. Instead, he had left her alone with their baby.
“A lot more than that,” Alan said again.
Still, Dianne wouldn’t look at him. She bent down to kiss Julia, nuzzling her wet face against her daughter’s neck.
“Maaa,” Julia said.
Dianne gulped, trying to pull herself together. Kissing Julia, Dianne got her dressed as quickly as possible.
“It’s cool out,” Alan said, making peace.
“I know,” Dianne said, her voice thick.
“Better put her sweatshirt on,” Alan said, rummaging in the diaper bag.
“Thanks,” Dianne said, barely able to look him in the face. Her heart was pounding hard, and her palms were damp with sweat. He kissed Julia and held her hand for a long time. She gurgled happily. The adults were silent because they didn’t know what else to say. Dianne stared at their hands, Alan’s still holding Julia’s. Then she picked up Julia, placed her in the wheelchair, and they left.
By the time Alan finished seeing all his patients, it was nearly six-thirty. Martha said good-bye, rushing off to pick up her son at baseball practice. Alan nodded without looking up. His back ached, and he rolled his shoulders, the place he stored the pent-up tension of seeing Dianne. He knew he needed a run.
He had Julia’s chart out on his desk, studying her progress since the last visit. Maybe he should have done an EKG today. But he had run one two weeks before and found the results to be within normal limits.
Hawthorne Cottage Hospital was a great place to have healthy babies, to schedule routine procedures. Few pediatricians did electrocardiograms; most didn’t even own the equipment. Alan had bought his as soon as it became obvious that Julia was going to need frequent monitoring. She had specialists in New Haven, but Alan didn’t see any reason for Dianne to drive all that way when he could do the test himself.
Alan had a picture in his mind. Dianne was standing in the doorway, waiting for him to come home. She wore her blond hair in one long braid, and she was smiling as if she knew all his secrets. Her blue eyes did not look worried, the way they did in real life. She had finally decided to let Alan love her and help her; she had finally figured out that the two things were really the same.
“Ah-hem!”
Looking up, he saw Amy Brooks standing in his doorway. Her brown hair was its usual tangle, she was wearing one of her mother’s pink sweaters over lint-balled red leggings. Her wide belt and turquoise beads completed the ensemble.
“Oh, it’s the young lady who lives in the playhouse,” he said. With his mind on Dianne and Julia, he felt lousy for forgetting about Amy.
“You saw me?” she asked, breaking into smiles.
“With those beautiful green eyes looking out the window – how could I miss?”
“I was hiding,” she said. “Sick brats were pounding at my door, but I put spells on them and sent them back to their mamas. What do they all have?”
“Never mind that,” Alan said. “What brings you to my office today?”
“I like that little house,” she said, turning her back to stare at the black-cat clock, its tail ticking back and forth each second. “I like it a lot.”
“I’ll have to tell the lady who made it,” he said.
Amy nodded. She moved from the clock to the Wall. Scanning the gallery, she found her pictures in the pack. Last year’s school photo, one from the year before, Amy at Jetty Beach, Amy sitting on her front steps. She had given him all of them.
“Are there any other kids with four pictures here?”
“Only you.”
“No one else has more?”
“No,” Alan said.
Wheeling around, she bent down to read the papers on his desk. Alan heard her breathing hard, and she smelled dusty, as if she hadn’t taken a shower or washed her hair in a while. Her forearms and hands were already summer-tan, and she had crescent moons of black dirt under her fingernails.
“Julia Robbins …” Amy read upside down. Gently Alan slid the pages of Julia’s chart under a pile of medical journals. He knew that Amy was jealous of his other patients. She was one of his neediest cases. Alan had the compulsion to help children who were hurting, but he knew some things couldn’t be cured.
Amy came from a lost home. Her mother was sinking in depression, just as Alan’s mother had drowned in drink thirty years earlier. She didn’t hit Amy or give him any clear cause to contact Marla Arden, Amy’s caseworker. But the state had gotten calls from neighbors. There were reports of Amy missing school, the mother fighting with her boyfriend, doors slamming, and people shouting. They had an open file on Amy. But Alan knew the terrible tightrope a child walked, loving a mother in trouble. They were always one step from falling.
Amy had latched on to Alan. From her first time in his office, she had loved him all out. She would clutch him like a tree monkey. His nurse would have to pry her off. She would cry leaving his office instead of coming in. Her mother slept all day to kill the pain of losing her husband, just as Alan’s mother had drunk to survive the death of his older brother, Neil.
“Come on,” he said to Amy. “I’ll drive you home.”
She shrugged.
Alan knew the cycles of grief. They spun all around him, taking people far away from the ones they were meant to love. His mother, Amy’s mother, Dianne, and Julia, even his brother Tim. Alan wanted to save them all. He wanted to heal everyone, fix entire families. He wished for Julia to live through her teens. He wanted Dianne to meet Amy because he believed they could help each other. People needed connection just to survive.
“I’ll drive you,” he said again.
“You don’t have to,” Amy said, starting to smile.
“I know,” he said. “But I want to.” Doctors were like parents; they weren’t supposed to have favorites, but they did. It was just the way life was.
Amy worried that someday Dr. McIntosh would stop her from coming to his office. She didn’t need to be there: She was as healthy as a horse, her fourth favorite animal following dolphins, cats, and green turtles.
“I only got two spelling words wrong today,” she said.
“Only two?” he asked. “Which ones?”
Amy frowned. She had wanted him to congratulate her: She had never gotten so many right before. “Judge and delightful,” she said.
“How’d you spell judge?”
“J-u-j-e,” she said. “Like it sounds.”
“Did you read those books I gave you?”
Amy fiddled with a loose thread. Dr. McIntosh had bought her two mystery books he thought she’d like. Amy had never read much. She kept feeling as if she were missing the key all other readers received at birth. Plus, it was hard to concentrate at home, where there were real mysteries to be solved.
“Do you have a maid?” she asked, changing the subject.
“A maid?”
Did he think she was dumb for asking? Amy slid down in her seat, feeling like an idiot. They were in his station wagon, driving past the fishing docks. This part of town smelled like clams, flounder, and powdered oyster shells. Amy breathed deeply, loving it. Her father had been a long-liner, and fishing was in her blood.
“You know, someone to clean your house,” she said.
“Not exactly,” he laughed, as if she had said something outlandish.
Amy tried not to feel hurt. He was rich, a doctor – he could afford it! He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and once she had asked him whether he was married and he’d said no. So he was alone, he needed someone to take care of him. Why shouldn’t it be Amy?
“I love to clean,” she said.
“You do?”
“It’s not exactly a hobby, but I’m very good at it. Mr. Clean smells like perfume to me – why do you think I like your office so much? Can you think of many other people who like the smell of doctors’ offices?”
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