Where the Stars Still Shine (3 page)

“The boys aren’t really old enough to understand what’s going on,” Greg says. “But they’re excited to have a big sister.”

Even though they’re right there, captured in the moment with perpetual smiles and matching shirts, I can’t wrap my mind around the concept. I have
brothers
. Greg closes the trunk and smiles at me. He looks so much younger than my mom, even though they must be close in age. His face is unlined and he doesn’t have a single strand of gray hair. “Ready?”

I’m not, but I do what I always do when it’s time to leave: I get in the car and fasten my seat belt.

He starts the engine, and the little digital letter in
the corner of the rearview mirror says we’re heading east. Somehow, though, I don’t think Greg has our future mapped out in his head the way Mom did. Mainly because as he drives, he’s working his lower lip, too.

We don’t talk on the drive to the airport in Chicago, except for when he says to tell him if the heat gets too warm or if I’d prefer a different radio station. Mom always talked—
talks
—she always talks too much, as if the silence makes her lonely. I don’t mind the soft musical babble of the radio or listening to the hum of the tires on pavement, and I’m glad Greg isn’t flooding me with words I’m not ready to hear. If no one says it out loud, there’s still a chance that none of this is real.

“Take the window.” Greg gestures toward the far seat in row eight. “You can watch as we take off and land.”

He doesn’t know if I’ve ever been on a plane before, so his suggestion makes me feel as if he thinks I was raised by wolves. My cheeks go hot with anger, but his expression seems earnest, and I realize maybe he’s being kind. The truth is, I’ve never been on a plane, and I
do
want to watch as we take off and land.

Sitting beside the window reminds me of Mom. We didn’t always have a car. Sometimes we rode the bus, buying as much distance as our money would allow. She
always gave me the window seat, putting herself between me and the crazies—like the old lady whose lipstick bled into the cracks around her mouth. She was convinced I was her dead daughter come back to life. When Mom refused to give me to her, the woman screamed until the driver stopped and made her get off the bus. The plane to Tampa is different from the bus. It doesn’t smell bad and nearly everyone is smiling. Probably pleased to be escaping the breath of winter that’s been at the back of our necks for the past couple of weeks.

“Takeoff is always my favorite part,” Greg says, craning his neck to look out the window as Chicago shrinks smaller and smaller. “I guess because the destination—unless you’ve been there before—is ripe with possibility.”

The city disappears beneath a bank of clouds, and I close my eyes to keep from crying again. With every mile I’m farther away from my mom than I have ever been and I am … lost. Life with her is wonderful and terrible, but at least I know how to be her daughter. I have no idea how to live in Greg’s world.

“I have something for you.” He holds out a red leather photo album. I take it and open the front cover. Pasted on the front page is a pink birth announcement card for Callista Catherine Tzorvas.

Running my fingertips over the raised black letters, I speak to him for the first time. “My name is Callista?”

Greg’s chuckle dies in his throat when he realizes I’m not joking. “You didn’t know?”

I shake my head, and his eyebrows pull together. I watch as a battle wages on his face, wondering if he’s thinking the same bad things about Mom as I am. When she stole me, she left behind all the parts she didn’t want anymore. Including my real name.

“It’s Greek,” he says finally. “It means ‘the most beautiful one.’ And Tzorvas”—the
tz
makes a
ch
sound when he says it—“means you’re part of a big crazy Greek family whose noses will be in your business all the time, but who will drop everything if you need them.”

I don’t want to be angry with my mother all over again, so I push the feeling away and turn the page. There is a snapshot of her holding a newborn me, with Greg beside her. They’re teenagers—about as old as I am now—and she’s the beautiful grunge girl I remember. Mom is looking down at me and he is looking at her. He
loved
her and she wrecked him.

I exhale as I close the album.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s a lot to process, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I made it for, um—it’s yours, so you can look at it whenever. No rush.”

I rest my head against the little oval window, and for a while I just sit, watching the clouds and the miles pass. Through a break I see what I think might be
Tennessee. Mom and I lived there for a few months when I was seven. I remember, because she worked the morning shift at a diner and would sometimes take me to the park to play with other kids. The other moms would circle up to talk—some with babies on their hips—but they never included my mom in their conversations. If she cared, she never showed it. She’d fan herself out on the grass with her portable CD player, chain-smoking cigarettes and singing along with Pearl Jam, her forever favorite band. Tennessee wasn’t as good as our first place in North Carolina—where I still went to school—but we were still happy. And Mom hadn’t met Frank yet.

“Why did she take me?” I ask.

“She was scared,” Greg says. “Our relationship was falling apart, and my parents were pushing me to get full custody so they could take care of you while I went to college. Your mom—she was convinced I wasn’t going to let her see you, so she left.”

He sounds so sincere that it seems impossible that he’s not telling the truth, but in Mom’s version of the story, he is the villain.

“Do you think she’ll go to prison?”

“Maybe.” He pushes his hand through his hair. “Probably.” He sighs. “This is not what I wanted for her. Not ever.”

The conversation is interrupted by the flight attendant pushing the drink cart. Greg orders Cokes, but I feel guilty that I’m sitting on a plane drinking soda while Mom is in jail. Is she scared? Does she miss me? Does she wonder why I haven’t come to see her?

The captain announces that the weather in Tampa is sunny and warm, and that we’re scheduled to land on time.

Greg breaks the silence. “Twelve years is a long time. And if you want to know the truth, I’m still pretty pissed off. There’s a big part of me that wants to treat your mom the same way she treated me, but I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to you. So here’s the thing … I want you to stay. You’re my daughter, too, and I want to know you. But if your mom gets out of jail before you turn eighteen and you want to go back, I won’t keep you from her.”

“Really?” My birthday is in May, only six months away. Half a year. Temporary. And I’ve got temporary down to an art.

His eyes tell me this is an offer he doesn’t want to make, but he nods anyway. “I promise.”

Another airport, an hour drive, and we finally come to a stop in the driveway of a small yellow cottage in a town called Tarpon Springs. A porch swing propped with floral cushions sways slowly in the afternoon breeze. I wonder if I should recognize this place. Have I lived here? Was this our house before Mom took me?

“Phoebe and I bought this place a couple of years ago.” Greg answers the question before I can ask it, as he cuts the ignition of the dark-blue compact SUV that was waiting for us in the Tampa airport parking lot. “It was a complete wreck, but we gave it new life. I’m an architect, so that’s … kind of what I do.”

As we walk through the gate of a low white picket fence, the front screen door creaks open and two little boys spill out, launching themselves at their dad. He
squats down to their level and lets them bowl him over with hugs. They’re laughing and rolling around on the lawn like puppies when Phoebe comes out. She reminds me of one of those perfect moms from the Tennessee park, with her rolled-up denim capris and sparkly flip-flops. She’s even prettier than her picture.

“You must be Callie.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear before she reaches out to shake my hand. Hers isn’t rough the way Mom’s is; it’s smooth and she wears a braided silver ring. “I’m Phoebe. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

“I, um—you, too.”

Greg untangles himself and stands, brushing bits of grass off his clothes.

“I’m Tucker,” the taller of the two boys says. He’s the one who resembles Phoebe. “Are you my sister? Because Daddy says you’re my sister. Do you want to see my finger? I have a boo-boo.”

He extends his hand, and his index finger is wrapped in a bandage with wide-mouthed cartoon monkeys all over it. I’m not used to little kids and unsure of what to say, so I go with, “Cool.” He beams at me, then peeks under the bandage to inspect his wound. It’s barely a scratch, but to Tucker it’s serious business.

Greg ruffles a hand over his son’s dark-blond head. “He’s three,” he says, as if that’s all the explanation I need.

“That’s Joe.” Tucker points to his brother. Joe’s fingers are jammed in his mouth and his brown eyes are wary. “He’s littler than me. He’s not even two.”

“Don’t take Joe personally,” Greg says. “His people motor doesn’t warm up as fast as Tucker’s, but once it does, he’s Velcro Boy.”

“Velcro Boy!” Tucker exclaims in a superhero voice, and races circles around us, arms extended as if he’s flying. Phoebe catches him up in her arms and gently scolds him—not really scolding at all—that he needs to turn down his volume.

I miss my mom.

Greg notices my distress. “So, who wants to show Callie her new room?”

“Me, me, me!” Tucker’s T-shirt rides up as he worms his way out of his mother’s grasp. “Pick me, Daddy.”

Without waiting for an answer, he catches my hand as if I’m not a complete stranger and pulls me along the side of the house to the backyard. Against the rear fence is an old-fashioned silver Airstream trailer, the kind you hitch to a car to go camping. Tucker races ahead to open the door, then doubles back to me.

“You get to sleep in here.” He says it with reverence, as if this trailer is the holy grail of sleep spaces.

Inside, it resembles a mini-apartment with a sink, stove, and refrigerator; a dining table; a built-in couch;
a bathroom with a shower; and even a tiny bedroom. The bed is covered by a purple cotton spread embroidered with flowers and tiny bits of mirror, and decorated with a cluster of throw pillows. Nestled among the pillows is a patchwork owl that gives me the same déjà vu sensation I had at the sheriff’s office.

“It’s nothing fancy,” Greg says, entering the trailer. “The stove doesn’t work, and I still need to hook up the propane for hot water and heat, but we only have two bedrooms and … I guess I thought you might want a place of your own.”

I pick up the owl. Some of the patches are worn so thin you can almost see through them to the stuffing inside.

“You used to carry him everywhere,” he says. “You called him—”

“Toot.” It’s just a tiny flash of a memory, but I remember making sure he was with me every night before I went to sleep. “I thought that’s what owls said.”

I can see the bitter blurred in the sweet of Greg’s smile. All these years I’ve had very few memories, while he—he’s had nothing but.

“Owls say ‘hoot,’ silly.” Tucker cracks up, as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard, and Phoebe suggests they go in the house to check on dinner. He protests, but she scoops him up and carries him off, leaving Greg
and me—and a silent Joe, who regards me with owl-size eyes from the safety of his father’s arms—in the trailer.

“So, um—there will be some rules,” Greg says. “Not sure what yet, because—well, when you left you were a tiny girl who slept with an owl and called me Daddy. But I’m sure they’ll be the typical things. Boys, curfews, and”—he gestures toward a laptop sitting on the small dining table—“stuff about porn.”

I nod, dizzy at the idea of having my own computer. I’ve only ever used the computers at public libraries, usually in moments stolen between card-holding patrons. Most librarians were nice about it, but a few would chase me off, questioning why I wasn’t in school. Whenever that happened, I’d hide in the most secluded corner I could find and read. Once in a while, I’d take home a book without checking it out. And if I couldn’t return it to its home library, I’d return it to the next library.

“This is only meant to be your bedroom, Callie,” Greg says. “The rest of the house is yours, too. Don’t feel as if you have to stay out here all the time, okay?”

I nod again, overwhelmed by suddenly having so much when I’ve gone for so long with so little. Overwhelmed at how my life has been turned upside down.

“We’ll probably eat around six,” he says, as he carries
Joe out the screen door. He pauses on the step. “You could come join us now, if—”

“I might sleep.”

His smile falters a little, as if he expects me to be excited about bonding with his family when I’ve just lost mine. I’m not ready. “Sure, um—we’ll see you at dinner, then.”

I lie down on top of the bedspread and rest my head on one of the pillows. The white pillowcase is cool against my cheek and smells faintly of bleach. I feel bad for crying on Phoebe’s clean laundry, but I can’t stop the tears. I cry until my whole body hurts and then cry until I fall asleep.