Luanne Rice - Follow the Stars Home

This was a game Dianne often played with her cat. Stella could play; Julia could not. Amy watched openmouthed.

Afternoon sun bathed the room, and Dianne tilted her watch crystal to catch the light. Directing it against the white wall, she sent the bright disk of reflected light careening along the baseboard. Stella began to chase it, making the “eh-eh” noises as she stalked her prey.

“She thinks it’s alive,” Amy exclaimed. “She wants to catch it!”

“You try it,” Dianne said. “With your father’s Timex.”

“Okay,” Amy said, and Julia sighed.

Dianne watched Amy get the hang of it, sending the tiny moon along the floor, Stella chattering in hot pursuit.

“Watch, Julia,” Amy laughed. “You have one crazy cat!”

Julia strained to focus. Her hands moved rapidly. Her eyes seemed to follow the action, and when Amy sent the tiny moon onto Julia’s tray and Stella jumped into Julia’s lap, Amy squealed with surprise and delight.

“Stella means ‘star,’” Dianne said. “I named her because when I first brought her home, I found her sitting in the window one night, staring at the sky. She always looks toward the same constellation.”

“Which one?” Amy asked.

“Orion.”

“I love the story of Stella,” Amy said.

Dianne nodded. As she watched Julia and Amy pet the cat, she tried not to let Amy’s comment make her feel too sad. She thought of loving the strange, the unlovable. She knew the value of play, of imagination and symbolism. It was every mother’s dream to see her child grow and develop, and to help the child along that path. Dianne had been able to do that more for a cat than for her own daughter.

Leaving the girls alone, she went silently over to her workbench, back to the columns. She loved the ionic capitals; their scrollwork reminded her of moon shells. The girls’ voices drifted over. They were soft and harmonious; at their feet, the cat chirped and peeped.

Listening, Dianne thought: This wasn’t the life she would have chosen. Dianne loved to talk, tell stories, exchange tales about the mysteries of life. Her child, her darling, her beacon of light, was incapable of reflection. Gazing into her eyes, she saw blankness, as if Julia’s eyes saw only inward, deep into her own soul – or nothing at all. Dianne pretended that Julia spoke in words and gestures, and sometimes she was more able than others to admit her own maternal lies.

Somewhere along the line Dianne had turned into an eccentric who talked to cats. Then, since she couldn’t communicate with her daughter, she captivated another woman’s child. To escape the hurt of her life, she imagined that her daughter was aware. That Julia was more, somehow, than a broken human body.

Much more, Julia. Much more, my love.

Dianne glanced over: The girls were talking. Amy was imitating the cat, and Julia was expressing her pleasure with the elaborate hulalike motion of her arms. Dianne bent over her work, positioning columns.

“Does your mother want you home?” she called to Amy.

“Nope,” Amy called back.

Amy rarely spoke of her family, but Alan had given Dianne to understand that all was not well in the Brooks household. Dianne had respect for all mothers, no matter how troubled or imperfect, and she took a long breath to make herself mindful of that fact.

“What do you think we should do for my mother when she retires?” Dianne asked, changing the subject, knowing that she had touched a raw nerve. Amy was clearly not ready to open up to Dianne about the goings-on at home.

“A surprise party,” Amy said.

“She says she’ll kill us if we do that.”

“My friend Amber’s mom took her parents on a cruise for their golden anniversary.”

“A cruise …” Dianne said, mulling it over.

“Dianne,” Amy said. “Julia’s wet.”

“Okay, be right there,” Dianne said.

The game was over, and Stella crept back to her basket. Dianne went to the bathroom and returned with a clean diaper. During Amy’s first visits, Dianne had taken Julia behind the rice-paper screen to change her. They were beyond that now. Julia was eleven. If she went to camp, to gym class, to sleep over at a friend’s house, other girls would see her naked. Amy was Julia’s friend, her good friend.

“Here’s powder,” Amy said, handing Dianne the bottle.

“Thank you,” Dianne said, sprinkling it on.

“I love baby powder,” Amy said to Julia. “It’s better than perfume. I wear it to school.”

“Laaa,” Julia said.

“I always think she means flower,” Dianne said, “when she says la .”

“She does,” Amy said solemnly. As if she knew more about Julia’s language, could hear more, translate better, than even Dianne herself. Dianne was silent, wishing Julia would say something else. But she didn’t.

“La, Julia,” Amy said. “Marigold, lily, daisy, and rose.”

Julia blinked her eyes, rolling her head.

Dianne listened, watching Julia play with her friend, glad she had told Amy the story of Stella. Maybe someday she’d tell Amy the other story, the story of Julia.

The story started with the McIntosh brothers.

Dianne had dreamed of love her whole life. Her parents were wonderful people, devoted to each other and to her. She had always wanted that for herself, to find that kind of true love. Dianne’s mother had been an orphan, and she claimed Emmett had saved her. Dianne was shy, and she lived at home long after other kids her age had left. It was as if she knew that the real world was harsh, that she had to be ready before she stepped out into it.

Taking after her father, she went into carpentry. He had built her a playhouse when she was a little girl, and Dianne made one for the third birthday of a daughter of a childhood friend. She had modeled it after that white house on the harbor, the place where she fantasized someday living with a family of her own, and every mother who saw it wanted one for her own child.

Alan was then a new pediatrician in town and he commissioned Dianne’s father to build shelves in his office. Alan was young, just getting his practice off the ground, and Emmett had liked him a lot. He had suggested he buy one of Dianne’s playhouses for his waiting room. Dianne had gone to the medical arts building to get a feel for the space, and Alan had come out to meet her.

“Your father did such a good job,” he said. “I wanted to see what you could do.”

“I learned everything from him,” Dianne said, feeling shy and a little intimidated. “From the best.”

“I’ll be the only doctor in town with a Robbins playhouse. All the kids’ll want to come to me. I’ll have the edge,” he joked in a way that let her know he was partly serious, a little insecure. He was tall and thin, not much older than Dianne. He had light brown hair that kept falling into his eyes.

“Are you from around here?” she asked.

“Cape Cod.”

“And you decided to be a doctor in Hawthorne?”

He nodded. “I did my residency in New Haven, and I took over this practice when Dr. Morrison decided to retire.”

“Do you miss Cape Cod?”

“It’s not that far away,” he said, “but, yes, I do.”

“Do you have family there?” Dianne asked, knowing how much she’d miss her parents if she ever moved.

He shook his head. “Not anymore. My brother’s a lobsterman, working off Block Island this year. Half the time he ties up right here in Hawthorne.”

“That’s good,” Dianne said, nodding.

“I like the hospital here,” Alan said. “The town’s growing, and the area’s beautiful. But fitting in …”

“My dad says Hawthorners take forever to accept newcomers,” Dianne said. Even though she was just a carpenter and he was a doctor, something about Alan made her feel she could say these things to him. “Even my business started off slow, and I was born here.”