Follow the Stars Home (50 page)

“Everyone takes their kids to Alan,” Dianne said. “They'd expect him to live there.”

“With you and Julia.”

Dianne nodded, glowing with love and joy.

Lucinda stared at her granddaughter. Julia hardly opened her eyes at all these days. She rocked and slept, trying to work her way tighter into the fetal position, as if she wanted to be a snail. Dianne was so patient. She constantly tried to undo Julia's position, the way the physical therapist had shown her so long ago, so Julia's muscles wouldn't cramp.

“Alan wants to adopt her,” Dianne said, following her mother's gaze.

“I know.”

“The thing I love the most,” Dianne said, “is how much he wants us to be a family.”

“He's wanted it for twelve years,” Lucinda said.

“Mom,” Dianne said, hugging herself as if she were cold.

“What, honey?”

“Do I deserve this?”

“Dianne!”

“For so long,” Dianne said, her voice so quiet Lucinda had to lean close to hear, “I'd wonder what I did to bring it on. I'd think it had to be something in me, that I had done, to cause Julia to be born the way she was.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Lucinda said.

“But I'm her mother,” Dianne said. “It must have been something. The food I ate, the food I didn't eat. Mean things I did when I was little …”

“You were never mean.”

“Sins,” Dianne said. “It's funny. I never think about that for other people-look at crippled or blind people, wonder what sins their mothers committed before they were born. But I thought about it for myself.”

“You don't anymore?” Lucinda asked, relieved.

“I try not to,” Dianne said. “But it's hard. When I see Julia hurting, or having a seizure. When I think about how I'm taking Amy to
The Nutcracker
instead of Julia, because Julia can't go …When I think about those things, I have doubts. I think there must be some reason I'm being punished.”

“But now,” Lucinda said, “you're being rewarded.”

“With Alan,” Dianne said. As she said his name, her expression changed. Lucinda watched the anxiety go away. She felt the tension leave the room. Dianne was suddenly radiant.

“With love,” Lucinda said. Because it was more complicated than Dianne being rewarded with Alan. He was being rewarded with her too. They were kindred spirits, and they had found each other. Against many odds, they were together.

“Can we keep it?” Dianne asked.

Lucinda held her hand. When Dianne was young, she had been full of questions. She had trusted her parents completely, and Lucinda remembered how Dianne would ask her something impossible, like how high was the sky, gazing into Lucinda's eyes with the exact same expression she had right now.

“Sweetheart, Dianne,” Lucinda said, “begin telling yourself you deserve love, deserve being happy. Every bit as much as anyone else. And me too. Amy. Julia. We should take every bit of joy that comes our way. Whether it's in a Winnebago or a big white house on the harbor. Or right here.”

Dianne hugged herself, looking around the modest house that had been her home her whole life.

“Anywhere at all,” Lucinda said.

“My kindred spirit,” Dianne said.

“Amy would appreciate that,” Lucinda said.

“I'm glad it's Thanksgiving,” Dianne said.

Lucinda drew her close. “Be grateful every day,” she said. “That's my secret to you. It's what I did with your father, and it's why we were so happy. Because you never know when it might end.”

Tomorrow was the day her story had to be submitted. Amy had put her story in the safest place possible: behind her father's picture on the wall of her bedroom. There he was, Russell Brooks, the handsome, trustworthy car dealer, smiling out at her. And behind the picture, just as if it were a wall safe, was Amy's story. She got it down now. She felt nervous, afraid the story wasn't good enough, and she wanted to get another opinion.

“Mom,” Amy said, going to her mother's door.

“Shhh, honey,” her mother said, lying in bed. “I didn't get any sleep last night. I'm tired.”

“Will you read this?” Amy asked.

“Not right now,” her mother moaned from under the covers.

“Please, Mom. It's
important”
Amy said, starting to feel angry. It wasn't fair: In the story, Catherine's mother had gotten over her depression, but in real life Amy's mother seemed to be slipping back. Amy felt so worried and panicked, but, at the same time, very mad.

“Later,” her mother said, and Amy was pretty sure she heard her starting to cry.

Amy stared with her fists clenched. Lucinda and Dianne were so proud of her, why couldn't her mother be? Her mother's antidepressants were in a bottle on the bathroom shelf. Yesterday Amy had counted them to make sure she was taking them. She stormed into the bathroom and counted them again today: the same number.

“Mom,” she said, shaking her mother's shoulder.

“What is it, Amy?”

“Why aren't you taking your medication? Don't you want to get better?”

“I do, Amy.”

“But you're not taking your pills!” Amy's voice rose. “I counted, so don't try to tell me you did! Our life is beautiful, we're together, Thanksgiving is here! Why aren't you taking your pills?” She shook her mother hard but with just a fraction of the terrible frustration she felt.

“They make me too sleepy,” her mother said, starting to cry. “They make my mouth dry and give me a headache.”

“You're not trying!” Amy screamed. “You're not trying at all!”

Her mother just lay there, weeping. Amy stared at her. Why couldn't she be like Dianne? She didn't care
that Amy was going to enter a writing contest and, win or lose, go to New York City. Why couldn't her mother take her to
The Nutcracker
instead? Her mother didn't even seem to care that Amy was going to go with someone else. She was too busy lying under the blankets, not taking her medicine.

“We don't even have a turkey,” Amy said, her voice shaking. “It's Thanksgiving almost, and we have no poultry at
all.
No turnips, no cranberry sauce. I wrote a story, and you won't even read it.”

“I read it,” her mother whispered. “When you were at school.”

“You did?” Amy asked, getting a funny feeling in her head.

“It made me feel so lousy, that I can't get better as fast as Catherine's mother. She's like me, but so much better. She takes care of her kids, the you-kid and the Julia-kid, better than I ever could. I'm sorry, Amy.”

“Mom …” Amy began, not knowing what to say.

“Just leave me alone right now,” her mother said. “Please? Just let me sleep a little.”

Amy backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. She dropped the story on the kitchen table. There was a big glob of peanut butter there, but she didn't even care. Her story had hurt her mother's feelings.

Walking down the street, she found herself heading for the Robbinses' house. Seeing Julia would make her feel better. But when she got closer, she realized she didn't want to see Dianne. Lucinda, maybe, but not Dianne with her pink cheeks and golden hair. Thinking of how her mother must have felt when she'd read Amy's description of the mother, Amy cringed.

Orion saw her coming. He was playing in the yard. Together, he and Amy went down to the marsh.
The old dinghy was filled with ice-filmed water. Amy bailed it out. The puppy was growing bigger. He jumped into the boat, wanting to go for a ride. Amy's heart was heavy, but she didn't want to disappoint her friend. Maybe today she'd bring him home with her.

They rowed out the marsh to the beach. The sky was deep gray, a line of bright gold along the horizon. The marsh looked brown and dead. Amy kept seeing her mother lying in bed, crying because of Amy's story. Maybe that's why she wasn't taking her medication. Amy would throw her story out so her mother would never have to read it again.

Orion bounded over the sand dune. A wintry wind blew off the ocean, shooting Amy's brown hair straight back from her face. Grains of sand blew into her mouth, and she spit them out, climbing the small hill. The dog pranced in excited circles, sniffing everything. He led her toward the lighthouse, and as Amy followed, she almost couldn't bear to look.

The sand castle was gone.

That strong fortress she had built in September, in the lee of the lighthouse, far from the tides and the autumn storms, had washed away. It seemed impossible, but the tide had come up this high: Amy saw bits of seaweed and driftwood, a smashed lobster pot, fish bones, to prove it.

While Orion snorted with joy, smelling the sand and seaweed, Amy fell to her knees. This was the spot. Was it her imagination, or was this a mound of sand? Was it all that remained from the castle she had built? She had had hope in her heart that day. Building that sand castle, Amy had been thinking of Julia.

So much was gone. Amy's mother was back in bed, and Julia …Amy covered her eyes. Julia could
hardly even talk anymore. Amy's sand castle had failed everyone. Amy began to dig, to push the sand into a thick wall, to build the foundation to start again. But her hands were blocks of ice, and she felt herself shivering in the cold wind. What good would it do anyway?

Orion barked. Amy shivered with a sob. The wind was blowing so hard, no one could hear her, not even the dolphins swimming in the sea. Amy cried and cried. The castle had crumbled, and she didn't have the heart to build it over.

Tess Brooks had gotten out of bed just in time to see her daughter running down the street.

“Amy!” Tess had called out the front door. “Amy!”

But it was too late; Amy had disappeared around the corner. Sighing, Tess closed the door. A gust of wind had come in, bringing a terrible chill. Tess walked over to the thermostat, stared at it. It was set on sixty-two. Tess couldn't afford to push it up too high; the money from Russ's fund was running out.

Amy was such a good girl. She never complained about the house being cold. She did her homework, more than her share of chores around the house. Her heart was set on being a writer, and she'd put all that effort into her story.

Why had Tess said the things she did? Pushing the hair out of her face, she went into the bathroom, took her pills. She didn't want to be like this: negative and scared. She didn't want to be depressed, hiding under the covers, afraid her own daughter had been better off with the Robbinses.

Picking up a hairbrush, she ran it through her
brown hair. One step at a time, her doctor said. He was very nice and kind; he never told her she was wasting their sessions when she cried the entire fifty minutes. She had lost her husband when she was only twenty years old. He had been the only boy she'd ever loved.

Tess had gone to pieces. She had Amy now, and that money from the fishermen's fund, but she felt so alone. She had never had a good job, she had never felt like
enough.
There she was with a bubbly little girl, and Tess hadn't even had the energy to read to her.

Tess had made many mistakes, but she considered that one of her worst: not reading to Amy when she was little. Tess had loved books herself. She had hung around the library when she was young, signing books out as fast as Mrs. Robbins could give them to her. But once Russ died, the world just turned gray. Real life and lives on the page: Tess hadn't cared about any of them.

That's why she had been so happy when Amy had started hanging around with the Robbinses. Mrs. Robbins was such a no-nonsense lady, so upright and concerned about the well-being of young people, Tess had just known she would help Amy. And everyone in town knew Dianne, how she had stuck it out with her deformed baby even after her handsome husband had just sailed away. How could Tess object to Amy spending time with such fine people?

Did it make sense, then, that Tess had seethed with jealousy? That every time she'd heard the words “I'm going to Julia's” or, worse, “I'm going to Dianne's,” her stomach had clenched right into a knot? Buddy had been here then, and he had fed those bad feelings, telling her that Amy was starting to prefer strangers to her own home, that pretty soon Amy wouldn't want to be there at all.

Not that Tess could blame her. She sighed, staring at Amy's story on the table. The lower left corner had a little peanut butter on it. The grease was spreading through the paper, turning it clear. Tess wiped it off. She gazed at the title: “Sand Castles.” Jealousy was a terrible thing. She wished she hadn't said the things she had. She was glad, sort of, that Amy was going to have the opportunity to see
The Nutcracker.
But why did Amy have to give the mother in the story blond hair?