The Promise of Stardust (22 page)

Elle didn't even tell me he was gone. We had all but stopped talking. I found out when I came home from school. The note Mom left on the table said:

We found Hank. Dad's taking him to a place to dry out. The hospice nurse called Child Services. I'm going to Portland to see if I can keep Elle and Christopher out of foster care
.

I leaped over the fence between our two driveways to the McClures'.

The nurse opened the door. “I had no choice. I'm legally bound to report neglect and abuse. Your family has been trying to keep the kids safe, but this is a mess.”

Behind the nurse, I could see that Alice lingered, more skeletal than ever, and she sounded like she was struggling to breathe.

“I didn't tell CPS about Elle getting pregnant,” the nurse said. “And if your parents can get custody of Elle and Christopher, I will tell the social workers it's for the best. Your parents obviously love the kids. But, Matt, you and Elle can't mess around. If something happened again, if anyone found out, the kids would both end up in foster care for sure.”

“It's all right. Elle won't let me near her anymore,” I said.

Take one formerly pregnant underage girlfriend and one horny high school senior, and Elle and I arrived at an impasse. My father threatened to pull my college savings. My mother threatened castration. Elle cowered away every time I tried to touch her. And Alice festered. Day in and day out, Alice did not die. She would never die.

Mom came home with Christopher and Elle around ten that night. Elle's face was red and her eyes were puffy. Christopher's face was filthy with snot.

Mom kept shaking her head no. Dad beckoned to me to follow as he carried Christopher upstairs to my room. After dropping Chris on the top bunk, Dad said, “He's scared. I want you to stay here with him.”

I followed my father out into the hall. “Let me talk to Elle first.”

Dad put his hand on my chest and pushed me back. “You need to get to bed. You've got school in the morning. Your mother is going to take Elle home. The nurse is over there, and the social worker said as long as that was the case, it was okay to leave Elle home.”

I didn't have school in the morning. It was a Friday night, but as I opened my mouth to argue, Christopher started bawling. “It's too high. I want Elle.”

“Go. Stay with him,” Dad said. “Let your mother handle Elle.”

I sagged and joined Christopher. “It's okay, kiddo. I'm here.”

“I want Elle.”

“Me, too.” I pulled off my shirt and dove under the flannel sheets of the bottom bunk.

“It's too high up here,” Chris said. “Can I sleep with you?”

The only McClure I wanted to sleep with was Elle. “No. There's a rail. You won't fall out.”

“Please, can't I sleep with you?”

“The bed's too small,” I said. Hell, it was too small for me without him hogging the covers.

“Elle would let me,” he said.

Shit
. Elle could probably hear him whining all the way down in the kitchen, too. So to shut Chris up, I said, “Fine.”

His legs swung over, and he stepped on my arm. After a few minutes of shifting around, he settled next to the wall. I stared out the window at the McClure house until Mom walked Elle over. I expected Mom to be right back, but I didn't see her come home.

In the morning, Mom was cooking corn bread and bacon. I plopped down at the table. “Christopher snores.”

Mom set a cup of coffee in front of me. A little baffled, I sniffed it. She'd never given me coffee before, although I'd drunk a cup here and there. “Is this mine?”

She didn't answer.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

She looked at me, seeming to see me for the first time. “Why are you drinking coffee?” she asked. And then, before I could answer, “You'd better hurry; you'll be late for school.”

“It's Saturday.”

There was a tap on the door and the nurse entered. “I'm sorry to bother you, but—” She cleared her throat. “Alice McClure died about an hour ago. Elle is inconsolable.”

Even after the months of praying for her mother's peace, Elle wasn't prepared for the impact.

We never are.

   19   

Elle and I were in bed together, discussing the differences between the sexes. After the usual and obvious anatomical comments, the ones lovers share, conversation turned to the psychosocial, the spiritual, the cliché. I said men were more aggressive and women more nurturing.

Elle said, “Women are stronger, more certain of themselves.”

I flexed a muscle. “How do you figure that one?”

“No, no, men have all the testosterone to grow the bulging muscles—hmm, nice, by the way—and assert themselves, but men are an insecure bunch. I mean you, and I don't mean you personally, but you in the plural sense, need to control everything you don't understand. Men don't get women, so they subjugate them. Your gender won't even read books or watch films with female protagonists; it's intimidating, and if men feel inadequate about something, they hide it.”

“Huh?”

“If you—and again I mean the plural you”—she wagged her eyebrows and touched me suggestively—“couldn't get it up—which doesn't seem to be a problem—but if a man had that issue, would he tell his buddies at the gym? I think not. No, he'd lay on the machismo even thicker, brag about all his conquests, and manage to convey he was a lothario instead.”

“I'm being maligned.”

She rolled her eyes. “No. You don't have an issue in that department. Obviously. Let me make the counterexample, a case closer to home. If a woman couldn't carry a baby to term, something which makes me feel like I'm as big of a failure as a woman as impotence would a man, what would she do? What did I do? I found another woman who has been through a similar thing, and we obsess about it together. Men can't do that. They aren't certain enough of themselves.”

“Or, as I said, women are nurturers. You nurture each other. Same thing. We agree on everything. Did you ever notice that?”

She hit me over the head with a pillow.

The other woman Elle had found was Keisha Sudani. That was one of the few things the two of them had in common: their mutual inability to give birth. Keisha couldn't conceive, and Elle couldn't carry a baby to term. Yes, they were both associate professors at Bowdoin, but Elle taught physics and astronomy. Keisha taught women's studies. Elle spent every minute she could outdoors, running, swimming, kneading the earth in her garden. The only way Keisha would put her hands in the dirt would be if someone told her it would help her conceive. She'd tried everything from IVF, herbs, and acupuncture to tribal remedies in the South Pacific. She had one of those undiagnosable fertility issues. Everything was perfect—except Keisha and her husband were lonely for a child—the same way Elle and I were.

   20   

Having spent the last few months in New Zealand, Keisha came straight from the airport to the hospital, and her midnight-dark eyes filled with tears as she touched Elle's shaven head. She murmured in her soft accent, “Girlfriend, girlfriend, look what they did to you.” Then, meeting my gaze, she said, “How's the baby, Matthew? And how are you?”

“I'm holding on. Everything's all right with the …” I almost said
pregnancy
, but stammered, “baby.” That's how I was still thinking about it, the pregnancy. Elle was pregnant.

“Tell me what you need, and I'll do it,” Keisha said.

“Can you testify that Elle would want the baby to live?”

“No, she wouldn't
want
it.” Keisha swallowed. “She would
insist
upon it. I don't understand how your mother could even consider stopping Elle's life support, not when there's a baby growing in her belly.”

My mind flashed to Elle taking my hand and putting it on her belly to feel Celina kick—to feel Dylan kick. I connected to the child inside her through her actions. Elle would never do that with this baby. And it occurred to me, I might never feel attached to this child without Elle. It occurred to me, I would have to raise it alone. It occurred to me, I hadn't even thought that far ahead.

“Matthew, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thank you. And, uh, could you go through her office at Bowdoin? Pack it up? If you find anything that would even hint at what she'd want done in this situation …”

“I'll keep my eyes open.” She turned back toward Elle. “This breaks my heart.” She leaned over to kiss Elle's forehead. “I love you, my sweet friend.”

I had two allies: Hank and Keisha. But the foes numbered higher. Christopher and his wife, Arianne, a sheepish little blond woman, came in to see Elle, stayed four or five minutes, and stormed out. All three of my brothers, one at a time, or occasionally with collective strength, paraded in to remind me about Alice McClure festering in her living/dying room for months. Doug moved to Vermont right out of high school, and since he was the oldest, and I the youngest, we had never been close. He put his arm around my shoulder. “Matty, it's over. Let her go. You don't have perspective.”

“It's not over,” I said. “Not while Elle's pregnant.”

Or Keith, who tried another approach: Mom and the guilt I should feel about defying her. Defying? As if I were an errant teenager instead of a grown man. And Mike—he turned into a water bucket every time he entered Elle's room, blubbering about how she shouldn't be lying in that bed. I told him not to come anymore. If anyone should be crying, it was me. But I couldn't cry. I needed to act certain.