Luanne Rice - Follow the Stars Home

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.