Follow the Stars Home (27 page)

Sometimes Dianne felt Amy comparing her with her mother. Dianne worked, her mother slept. Dianne was busy, her mother was lazy. Amy was frowning, torn by the conflict.

“Most of all,” Dianne said, smiling, “I love playing. Let's swim.”

“I don't feel like it.”

“No?”

Amy shrugged. She seemed morose, as if a dark cloud passing along the beach had settled over her alone. “The waves are too big here. We usually go to Jetty Beach, where it's calm.”

“The waves won't hurt you, Amy. I could show you how to ride them.”

“No, it's okay.”

“You can think about it,” Dianne said, disappointed.

The waves were definitely too rough for Julia, so Dianne carried her up to Lucinda.

“How's the water?” Lucinda asked.

“Warm,” Dianne said.

“Going in?”

“I am. Amy's afraid.”

“Don't rush her, honey. You weren't too thrilled with the big waves at first. Remember that time you got tumbled headfirst into the sand? You scraped your nose and forehead.”

“I remember,” Dianne said. “But I was much younger-four or five.”

“The first time is the first time,” Lucinda said.

“Thanks, Mom.”

Content, Lucinda nodded and helped get Julia settled beside her. She was adjusting to retirement fine:
She had the beach, her book, her family, and her daughter's assurance the water was warm. The library dance was coming soon, and Lucinda was the guest of honor.

By the time Dianne walked down to the water, Amy had changed her mind. She didn't say anything, just rose from where she'd been working on the sand castle and walked into the water beside her.

“You're a good swimmer,” Dianne said when they were out where the sea rose and fell without breaking.

“My mother taught me,” Amy said. “When I was little.”

“She did a good job,” Dianne said. “My mother taught me too.”

She glanced at Lucinda now, sitting under the green and white striped umbrella with Julia. In her straw hat and dark glasses, reading a book in her faded striped beach chair, she looked timeless, the same as ever, Dianne's young mother.

“My mother's scared of waves,” Amy said, sounding nervous. “There aren't any over at Jetty Beach.”

“The secret,” Dianne said, taking Amy's hand, “lies in not fighting them. Pretend you're a seal, and you live in the water. You're more comfortable here than anywhere.”

“Like a dolphin?”

“More like a seal,” Dianne said. “You have to bob.”

The sea felt fresh and cool. It tasted salty, and it took the pressure out of Dianne's chest. When Amy seemed ready, they started drifting in toward the beach. Dianne showed Amy how to look over her shoulder, anticipate the next crest. Stretched out like fearless women, arms extended over their heads, they flew into shore, borne by the foaming wave.

“Wow!” Amy yelled, brushing the hair from her eyes.

“Great job!”

“Lucinda!” Amy called. “Did you see?”

“I saw!” Lucinda replied.

Dianne felt so happy for Amy. Riding the waves was a big first. Now that she had done it, she didn't want to stop. She spent the rest of the day bodysurfing. Other kids were playing down the beach, but Amy stayed away from them. She seemed happier swimming with Dianne and Lucinda, playing with Julia.

The tide had been coming in all day, and Dianne watched it getting closer to their sand castle. She felt a lump in her throat. The first wave washed the smooth sand, its front edge barely approaching the moat. Dianne didn't want to see the castle wash away.

“Oh, the sea, the sea,” her mother said, coming out of the water, drying her hair with a towel.

“Julia loves the sea too,” Amy said.

“Her middle name,” Lucinda said, “is Lea. It means ‘a meadow by the edge of the sea.’ L-e-a.”

“Julia Lea Robbins,” Amy said. “Oh, that's so pretty. It's a perfect name for her. Julia Meadow-by-the-edge-of-the-sea Robbins.”

Dianne stared at the sand castle. The waves were getting closer. She leaned over Julia. The child was awake, silent, gazing into her mother's eyes. Dianne held her tiny hands. They were soft and sun-warmed, and touching them gave Dianne relief.

“I'm going to take Julia swimming,” she said. “Across the hill.”

Amy and Lucinda gathered up the beach things. Dianne carried Julia over the dune. From the top, she
could see the half-circle of beach on one side, the sweeping marsh on the other. The white lighthouse stood on the point. The sea had washed away their beautiful sand castle, so Dianne turned the other way.

Julia moved in her arms. Dianne held her close. Their skin was warm together, their bare arms touching. Julia loved summer; she always had, and her favorite part-the swim-was coming. Dianne carried her down the lee side of the small dune. The open sea lay to their left, the marsh to their right.

The water was calm and warm. Holding Julia, Dianne walked straight in. The sand bottom felt soft and muddy. Dianne didn't like thinking about crabs and sharp shells, so she turned around, lifting Julia nearly chin height, and slipped backward into the water. The salt silkiness enclosed them with warmth.

“Maaa,” Julia said.

“That's right, love,” Dianne said. “I'm your mama.”

Floating together on their backs, they moved away from shore. Dianne held Julia against her breast, kicking gently. Weightless, they felt the sun on their faces. Sandpipers skittered along the narrow beach, then took off in a brown blur. Dianne imagined flying, thought of Julia unburdened by her broken body.

“We're swimming, sweetheart,” Dianne said.

Julia nuzzled her collarbone. Incapable of putting her arms around Dianne's neck, she let her mother do the holding. Dianne was swimming for both of them. The saltwater did the work. It held them up, swept them along without effort.

“Summertime,” Dianne said, and the salt spray on her face tasted like tears. “You love summer, Julia.”

“Maaa,” Julia said.

“So much. You've always loved it so much, ever since you were born.”

Julia moved, wringing her hands in Dianne's embrace.

“You're a summer baby,” Dianne said. “You love this season so much, don't you, Julia? This warm, wonderful time …”

Across the marsh Dianne could see their house. The weathered shingles looked silver in the light, the shutters as blue as the sea. Lucinda's garden blazed with color. Gold-green marsh reeds swayed in the breeze, and the flag waved. Her studio looked tiny, almost like one of her playhouses. The driveway was empty, but Dianne wondered whether Alan would be passing by later to check on Amy and Julia. She thought of how they had hugged the last time he was over, and she held Julia tighter.

“Helloooo!” Amy called, waving from the top of the dune.

“Hear that?” Dianne asked. “That's your friend Amy calling you.”

“Gaaa,” Julia said.

“Hi,” Dianne called back. “Julia says hi.”

Julia was weightless and free. Amy and Lucinda stood on the sand hill. Their faces were shadowed, but Dianne believed they were smiling. This day was blessed. The kingfisher perched on an old piling, watching them pass. The sun was hot, the breeze fresh. It was summer, and the girls were together.

Nine hundred miles north-northeast, Malachy Condon sat on his old red tugboat, listening to dolphins sing love songs to each other. He had the headphones on. Last night he had anchored off Big Tancook Island,
dangling the hydrophone over the side. Dolphins had streaked by, trailing green fire. Their language was complex and mysterious, irresistible as poetry to an Irishman like Malachy.

Now he was back at his dock in Lunenburg, translating last night's recordings. He was seventy-two years old, white-haired and sturdy. Born and raised in the west of Ireland, his love for the sea dated back to childhood. His father had caught salmon in purse nets, and one summer he and his sisters had made holes to let the salmon out. An idealist from the start, his love of nature knew no bounds. Like right now: He'd listen to dolphins crooning over James Galway's flute playing or Pavarotti's singing anytime.

Out the wheelhouse window, the harbor was still as dark green glass. The bright red and blue buildings were as simple as children's building blocks. White gulls circled overhead. A fishing boat left the dock, and Malachy sighed. Beautiful music in his ears, the drama of a northern harbor to watch, what more could he want?

The question was a bitter one, and he bit down on his pipe. Malachy missed his wife. Brigid had died five years before. They had had a grand life together-in Ireland, in the States, and on many oceans around the world. An Aran Island girl, Brigid had encouraged him to study the sea. She had cleaned houses and taken in wash to put him through school. There weren't many students at the Kerry Oceanographic College with young wives chapping their hands and toughening their knees so that they might study eel-grass and shark livers.

“My day will come,” she'd say with her low voice lilting and heather-green eyes twinkling. “You'll be hard at work studyin' your fish, and I'll be a lady of
leisure. Me and the babies will stay home all day playing patty-cake.”

“That's a promise,” Malachy had said. “I'll support you and eleven babies until you're so happy, you can't take it anymore.”

“Can a person ever be so happy?” she had asked him, laying her red head against his chest. “So happy she can't take it anymore?”

“Maybe after eleven babies,” he had joked. “She'd be so happy, she'd be beggin' her husband to leave her alone.”

“Oh, Mal,” she had laughed.

But there weren't eleven babies. There was only one. Malachy and Brigid had had a son. They had named him Gabriel, because he was their archangel. Brigid never had another child, but Malachy was glad. Gabriel was enough. He was their full moon, their rising sun. Small, funny, with his mother's curly red hair, he had been a poet.

No, he hadn't been published. But he would have been, Malachy knew. The boy had a gift. His language came straight from his forebears: Yeats, Synge, and Joyce. At fourteen he had the soul of a wise man. His words had the rhythm of songs, and when he wrote about moonlight shining on the bay, you could see the ripples. When he wrote about loving a girl, something he had not yet experienced, his poem had the power to pierce your heart and leave it bleeding.

Gabriel's agility and brilliance had its epicenter in his heart. The happiest baby ever born, he grabbed the life given him with passion and fervor. Everyone knew he was great. His teachers, friends, neighbors. His poems won contests. His English teachers were nurturing him, telling the Condons their son would be famous someday. Malachy didn't care about fame.
If only he could hear his son's words for the rest of his life, that would be enough for him.

But Gabriel had been killed. He was only fourteen, killed in a car accident on Route 132 in Hyannis, just before the Airport Rotary. The shock had nearly destroyed his parents. If not for their faith …

Brigid had gone to mass at St. Francis Xavier Church every morning, kneeling a few pews back from Rose Kennedy. Sometimes their eyes would meet, the older woman well understanding Brigid's dark sorrow.

Malachy had buried himself in the lab. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was used to night owls, but even so, Malachy's office lights burned later than anyone's. Dolphins became his passion. He would listen to them talk for hours. He had far-fetched theories that no one wanted to hear about-that dolphins were romantic, had elaborate rituals of courtship, that their voice tones changed when they were in love.

Hunched over, his earphones on, Malachy was lost in grief. All he could do was listen. How could a human being interpret dolphins' love songs without allowing the music to touch him? He nearly lost his grant that year. Unable to hear the love songs, he had been incapable of writing papers about them. Research without a theory didn't get funded.

Malachy's young assistant helped him out. Months after Gabriel's death, Alan McIntosh handed him a tape.

“It's from the Caribbean,” he said. “Dolphins recorded in the Anegada Passage.”

“More gibberish,” Malachy said.

“Not the way I hear it,” Alan said. “Not the way you taught me to listen. It sounds like poetry to me. We're reading Yeats in school, and it sounds like that.”

“Yeats,” Malachy said. Gabriel had been his Yeats. Gabriel had written words to break the heart and waken the soul. What did an American science student like Alan McIntosh know about Yeats?

Malachy hated the sight of him for months: a young man who went to school every day, who was alive, the things Gabriel was not. On the other hand, Alan had lost a brother. It was tragic and lousy, and it destroyed his parents. So, wanting to oblige, Malachy slipped on the earphones, trying to listen for Yeats in the dolphins' language. Instead, he heard Gabriel.