As Far as the Stars

by Virginia MacGregor

  ‘Blake used to say the same thing about his songs,’ I say. ‘That he could feel it in his body before he got the tune and the words down on paper. He said those were his best songs.’

  My words sit between us.

  The car heaters push out dusty air. We’re starting to warm up again. Leda’s sitting on her blanket in the back, her breath deep and heavy, exhausted after the swim.

  ‘You make things really small,’ I say. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘If they’re small enough, they won’t break. And it’s easier to carry around.’

  I remember that tiny bird he made back in Dulles. He’s right – if it had been bigger and full of air, it would have needed some kind of box or protective casing.

  ‘And people don’t notice as much,’ he says.

  ‘Why don’t you want people to notice?’ I ask.

  He shrugs.

  ‘Is it because of your dad? Because you’re hiding it from him?’

  Slowly, he nods. ‘I guess so. Maybe.’

  ‘Well, I think they’re beautiful. I think you should show them to the world.’

  He doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you have a collection of all the models you’ve made? Back home?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘What do you do with them?’

  ‘I throw them out.’

  ‘You what? That’s insane.’

  ‘They’re not worth keeping.’

  ‘The one you made for that woman, back at the airport – the small bird – that was worth keeping.’

  ‘I give them away sometimes too. Mostly to kids because they don’t mind—’

  ‘Don’t mind?’

  ‘If they’re not very good.’ He pauses. ‘I gave one to Dad once, for Christmas. I made this bird – a tiny warbler. I found out that they’re the smallest birds who can cross the whole Atlantic without even stopping. I thought he’d like it. Like it was a symbol.’

  ‘That’s really cool.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I never saw it again.’

  ‘The paper bird?’

  ‘No. I think he must have binned it or lost it or something. I guess that’s why I end up throwing most of them away.’

  ‘Because your dad didn’t value what you gave him?’ ‘Because they’re not very good. Not good enough.’ I want to tell him that of course they’re good enough – more than good enough. They’re amazing. But I know how it is: wanting something you really care about to be perfect. And if it’s not, you don’t want it to be there, reminding you that you didn’t get it right. And how crappy it is when people you care about shit over what you love.

  ‘And they’re still pieces of rubbish,’ he adds. ‘Like they were before I picked them up. That doesn’t change because I made a few folds.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ I say. ‘I don’t believe they’re still rubbish.’

  He shrugs.

  I think about what Blake said about his singing once. How, if you believe in it hard enough, you can turn anything into something amazing – a poem, a piece of music, a painting. You can take the rubbish of life and make it beautiful. He said that was the point of art.

  I wish Blake were here now. I wish he could explain it to Christopher. Help him see that the models he makes are beautiful.

  ‘You ready to go?’ I say.

  He nods.

  As I switch on the ignition, I can still feel him looking at me.

  And I know he must think I’m crazy – getting him to jump off rocks into swimming holes in the middle of the night; wearing his clothes; tearing across the country to get to a wedding. And he’s right.

  But I think he gets it.

  Why I’m doing all this.

  Why he came with me.

  And I think he feels the same as I do: that, right now, there’s nowhere else in the world we should be but here, in Blake’s old yellow Buick, shivering and dripping and wobbly-limbed from the jump we took, together.

  Chapter Twenty

  01.01 CDT 1-81

  The car’s warm. The road empty. We’re both exhausted but kind of buzzing, too, from jumping off that rock at Leda Falls.

  I keep glancing at my phone, sitting on my lap, expecting to see a message from Blake. It’s been ages since the text he sent from Heathrow. He’s pretty rubbish at staying in touch but even Blake would have sent me something to say that he’d landed – especially if I wasn’t there to collect him. And if he still hasn’t found his phone, he’d have blagged his way into borrowing some poor stranger’s like he did the last couple of times. And I made him learn my number off by heart so that he could always reach me.

  But there are no new messages on my phone.

  My breath goes shallow. He should definitely have got in touch by now. His silence doesn’t make any sense.

  I close my eyes for a second.

  For Christ’s sake, Blake, I whisper to myself. Why do you always make everything so fucking hard?

  I blink my eyes open, stare hard at the road and push away my thoughts. Then I grab my phone and shove it into the pocket of the door beside me.

  Christopher and I are making good headway. We’re getting to where we’re meant to be. We have to keep going now. I grip the steering wheel harder. We have to believe it’s going to be okay.

  ‘You alright?’ Christopher asks.

  I nod. ‘Fine.’

  I can feel him looking at me and then he turns his head back to the windscreen.

  ‘My dad would have liked that,’ Christopher says.

  ‘Liked what?’

  ‘The swimming hole. The rock. Jumping.’ He pauses. ‘I think he would have been proud that I did it.’

  I remember what he said to me about his dad back at the Mobil station – how he wanted Christopher to lead a big life.

  ‘You forgive me, then?’ I ask. ‘For pushing you into it?’

  He nods. ‘Yeah, I forgive you.’

  ‘I wish I could have worked out what I was going to do with my life, before—’ his voice breaks. ‘Before all this.’

  My throat goes tight. The way he says it – before all this – it’s like the first time he’s acknowledging that something really bad might have happened to his dad. No excuses about the newspapers or the investigators or the UKFlyer officials. He’s making it sound like it’s all too late.

  ‘You’re going to work it out,’ I say.

  He doesn’t answer.

  I stare out of the windscreen and, for a second, I let myself think about what I would have wanted to say to Blake if the last time we were together was the last time I got to see him. If he really was on that plane. And then I push the thought away again. I can’t do this. I can’t let myself think that anything bad has happened. Blake’s probably in Nashville already. Knowing Blake, he’s probably turned up at the hotel without me and I’ll show up in the middle of the night, totally exhausted and end up walking down the aisle in a crinkled blue dress with massive bags under my eyes because I’ve spent the last two days chasing a brother who can’t get his travel plans together.

  I glance at Christopher. His shoulders are drooped. It must be hard, having a relationship like that with your dad – feeling like you’re not good enough.

  ‘I bet there’s something you’re amazing at,’ I say. ‘Something that comes naturally, that other people find hard but that you can do without even thinking.’

  I think about how Blake can perform a song perfectly, even if he’s only heard it once. And about how Jude can play these really old, classical pieces of music on the piano that people have heard a million times before – and make them come to life and sound new. And how she’s amazing at making things match and look beautiful whether it’s a homemade birthday card or her apartment or the clothes she wears – or this whole wedding that’s about to take place.

  He looks over at me.

  ‘Can you do space stuff without even thinking?’ he asks.

  I scrunch up my nose. ‘Space stuff?’

  ‘Astronomy.
’

  ‘I have to work at it. I find Physics hard. Anyone who isn’t a total genius finds Physics hard. And I know that if I want to be an astronaut, I’m going to have to learn to be a really good engineer, because understanding how to get to space – technically – is as important as understanding space itself. And engineering’s tough. But yeah, when I look through my telescope, it makes sense to me – more than anything else does. So the hard stuff is worth it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really have anything,’ he says. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘Maybe.’ His body slumps a bit and he stares out through the windscreen and I know he’s thinking about his dad again.

  I glance down at my phone. I don’t know what Dad did to get Mom to stop calling me, but it’s worked. The only notifications are news items. The eclipse. A replay of the Red Sox game. An update on the plane.

  Christopher’s gets out his phone and starts scanning through the pages.

  ‘Any news about the plane?’ I ask.

  He keeps scanning for a bit, then he says:

  ‘They’re still trying to work out why it dropped so fast. It was meant to be on autopilot so it should have been flying at a steady altitude.’

  ‘Are they giving any explanations?’

  ‘They’re investigating the conversation between air traffic control and the cockpit.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There weren’t any alerts.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The crew didn’t notice that there was a problem.’

  I wait for him to go into defensive mode, like back at the Mobil station. To say that they’re professionals and that they knew what they were doing and that the news reports are wrong. But instead, he says:

  ‘God, all this is screwed up.’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’

  Christopher puts away his phone and, for a really long time, he stares out through the windscreen.

  And then the thoughts crowd back in. The ones I’ve been pushing away, over and over. And for a second, I think about how Blake would have reacted if he’d been on the plane.

  Would he have felt the drop?

  And would that have made him feel scared?

  Or would he have thought that it was simply a bit of turbulence, that in a few hours he’d land and then go to Jude’s wedding? That, even if there were a few hiccups on the way, in the end, everything was going to be okay?

  The last time we thought we’d lost Blake – really lost him in a way that actually worried us – was on a family holiday in Scotland. It was three years ago. We were celebrating Mom and Dad’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  Mom wanted to show us the exact spot on the shores of Loch Leven where Dad had proposed. She also wanted to show us the old white cottage where the Shaws, generations of her family were supposed to have lived. Dad, in this totally romantic, feminist move took on Mom’s maiden name. That’s why we’re all called Shaw. It’s one of the many reasons I love him so much. Guys from Dad’s generation didn’t do that stuff. Anyway, on that holiday, Mom and Dad took us to the grave of Robby Shaw, who was known for two things: his singing voice and his rebellious spirit. He was an outlaw, Mom said, like it was an accomplishment – which struck me as odd, considering she’s a lawyer, until she said the next thing. Standing there in front of that mossy grave thousands of miles from DC, Mom turned to Blake and said: That’s where you get it from, my love. As if this Gaelic ancestor who lived hundreds of years ago explained everything Blake had ever done wrong, including getting kicked out of high school for spending more days busking around DC than sitting behind a desk.

  And that’s when I got it. If an ancestor did it – and Mom loves all that ancestor, family – tree stuff – then Blake was forgiven. Because it wasn’t his fault: it was written in his blood.

  Mom finds excuses for Blake. I guess we all do.

  Anyway, that summer, when I was fourteen, as the five of us stayed in a small B&B in Kinross, Blake performed one of his vanishing acts.

  Mom gave us The Day Off. The Day Off is a family tradition. It’s the only way we cope with the way Mom organises the hell out of every other minute of our holidays. The Day Off is always a surprise – Mom gets to choose. One morning, she’ll announce it over breakfast and then go back to her room to sleep because having days without plans makes her anxious and sleeping gets her through them quicker.

  The Day Off usually happens about halfway through any given holiday, when we’re all in need of some alone time and some brain space and some time away from touring. It’s everyone’s favourite day, except for Mom, obviously.

  So, on The Day Off in Scotland, we all went our separate ways.

  I went off to explore the bits of the world that weren’t covered by Mom’s Fodor guidebook. The B&B owner leant me an old bicycle she had hanging around in her garage. I grabbed a pair of binoculars Dad had given me for my birthday, packed a sandwich I’d made up from the breakfast buffet and headed off for a trip around the Loch.

  As for Blake, he went off on foot, his guitar slung across his back – to find inspiration, he said. Inspiration and a local pub.

  The bike I was riding ended up getting a flat tyre. Probably because I took it onto a dirt track to get closer to a wild bit of the lake. I had to walk back – which took ages and because the night sets in really early in Scotland, by the time I got back to the B&B, it was dark.

  Before I even got through the front door of the B&B, I could feel that something was wrong.

  When I saw Mom’s face, I knew something was wrong.

  Jude was standing behind her, biting her freshly painted nails. She caught my eye and I could tell that she was relieved that I was back. She’d clearly been absorbing Mom’s stress for the last few hours.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Mom asked.

  ‘The bike got a flat tyre.’

  ‘You couldn’t have called?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would take as long as it did.’

  She looked over my shoulder. ‘So, you’re not with your brother?’

  ‘No.’

  Then Mom tilted her head up to the ceiling and let out a long sigh. She was never really worried about me. Probably because I’d never given her much of a reason to be. She knew I’d show up. It was the fact that I’d come back without Blake that was rattling her.

  ‘Blake’s always late back, Mom,’ I said.

  Though, I remember thinking, even Blake can’t have spent all day in the pub. And between the pub and the B&B and a whole expanse of lake, there wasn’t much to do out here. And we were meant to have dinner together tonight to celebrate Mom and Dad’s anniversary, so Mom had told him (like a million times) to be on time.

  I slumped down into an armchair, my feet aching from the long walk home.

  ‘Don’t sit down, Air,’ Mom snapped.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You need to help me look for him.’

  Of course I did.

  Mom held out her hand, waiting for me to take it so that she could pull me out of the chair again.

  I pushed myself up to standing.

  Mom put her hands on her hips.

  ‘He was at the Bird and Stone. All day.’

  ‘It’s our day off, Mom, we’re allowed to do what we want. And how do you know he was there all day?’

  ‘I went and checked.’

  I picture Mom storming into the old Scottish pub, yelling out for Blake. The locals would have loved that.

  ‘And – what did you find out?’ I asked.

  ‘They said he drank too much.’ She bit her nail in the exact same way that Jude did. ‘Bad company, I bet,’ she mumbled.

  Mom didn’t want to admit that Blake was perfectly capable of getting in trouble by himself. And drinking by himself. He loved that the drinking age in the UK was eighteen and took full advantage of that freedom by visiting every pub within walking distance of wherever we were staying. He said that pubs inspired him. That the peop
le were interesting. And that, one day, he’d do a music tour of all his favourite pubs. Going to London this summer was a realisation of that dream – or the first part of it, anyway.

  ‘He left three hours ago,’ Mom went on. ‘And the pub’s only two miles away.’ Her voice was shaking.

  ‘Did you try calling him?’ I asked.

  Though I knew that was a stupid question. Reception here was rubbish. And Blake wasn’t good at answering his phone. Especially when Mom called.

  ‘Of course I tried calling him. It went straight to voicemail.’

  ‘He’s probably just gone for a walk,’ I said.

  ‘Or hooked up with some girl,’ Jude said.

  I shot Jude a be quiet look. If there was one thing that worried Mom more than Blake drinking too much or falling into bad company, it was Blake getting mixed up with a girl who would, in her words, ruin his life.

  ‘It’s dark, and it’s been three hours and he’s had too much to drink,’ Mom said. ‘And you know your brother…’ Her voice trailed off. ‘He gets distracted.’

  Yeah, we all knew how Blake got distracted.

  Then Mom went quiet.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘Upstairs,’ Jude said. ‘In the library.’

  Of course.

  ‘I’m going to call the police,’ Mom said.

  ‘It’s not even that late, Mom.’

  But she ignored me and got out her cell.

  This is the weird paradox about Blake. He gets in trouble – all the time – which totally stresses Mom out. But he lands on his feet. Except, we’re never allowed to just relax and wait for that to happen.

  It’s like this unwritten deal:

  a)Blake messes up.

  b)We go into action-stations to make sure he’s okay.

  c)Blake shows up fine and we’re totally pissed at him but more relieved than pissed so we end up forgiving him.

  And the thing is, we can never skip straight from a) to c). We have to go crazy finding him, because the one time we don’t, he’ll be in trouble and we’ll have missed it.