Second Star to the Right

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “Such a waste!” he exclaimed bitterly. “My father and I...We could have talked about so many things. We could have been friends. And who knows? Maybe I could have taught him something.”

  “Dear boy, don’t you realize? You did! Warner Graham was a broken man when you came to him. As a boy you were always so curious, so eager, snooping around looking for Lord knows what. You had this unshakable faith that a miracle was just beyond your grasp if you just kept your eyes and ears open. This was exactly what Warner needed. Faith. You were his miracle. You taught him to believe again.”

  It was like a cloud dispersed, and he saw his father for the first time. He always remembered Warner as he was the day he met him when he was a boy of eight come from England to live with his new parents. Warner Graham was a tall, gentle-faced man in his late forties with a shock of white hair and soft, pink skin that seemed to belong more in a library than in an open field. Now Jack understood his father’s long, brooding silences, the binges of time spent behind his closed study doors followed days later by a bonfire in the backyard when his father and mother would stand and toss papers filled with his feathery script, what must have been his father’s theories, into the flame.

  He understood, too, the strange gleam in his father’s eyes when he talked of the secrets of the galaxy, of myths, of religion, of a million things he comprehended at some deep level but never concretely. His father’s quixotic fight to teach his only son his love for science and his desire to keep his boy down on the farm, away from the evils he knew his genius could lead him toward, was the war that had, tragically, separated them in the end.

  “Thank you for the truth, Wendy,” he said hoarsely, rising to a stand and walking to view the painting on the wall of the little boy peering out from the mural. “So, this is me after all?”

  “Yes...”

  He sighed and was silent for a long time. “Okay,” he said at length. “I understand about that part now, but I still want to know about my biological parents. What can you tell me about them?”

  “Nothing at all. Truly. I simply don’t know.”

  “Wendy, I know you know something more. I can feel it.”

  She pursed her lips and turned her head away, averting her gaze.

  “I see. Well, I’ve always thought of myself as some unwanted, beaten up, crazy kid who didn’t know who he was. A boy without a name. I guess I still am.”

  “Jack dear,” Wendy said patiently, “think of what you just told me! A bird doesn’t know whether we call it a thrush or a robin or a warbler. It simply is a bird. It doesn’t doubt that it can spread its wings and fly. Peter once said, The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings. Have faith, Jack. In yourself. Let go of the past and embrace your future. Fly!”

  “I’ve tried, Wendy. But I still feel there’s something you aren’t telling me. What about all those other boys. The ones without histories.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Wendy, I know about the files. About the other boys. Boys like me.”

  She shook her head, her fingers at her temples. “I swore I’d never tell anyone this part.”

  He reached her side quickly, bending low to hold her hand. “Please, Wendy, tell me.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “I’ll try. At least let me try.”

  She looked deep into his troubled eyes, tilted her head, then sighed and said, “Very well. But please don’t tell anyone else. It so upsets Jane when she hears anything about the boys’ home. She resented it deeply, you know. Felt for whatever reason that she had to compete with my boys for my affection. And I daresay, my fortune.”

  He helped her to a comfortable seat, then sat by her side while she gathered her thoughts. “It was all because of the Lost Boys,” she began. “I really had little choice in the matter. My father took care of the first lot of Lost Boys. They came home with me, and he raised them as his own, dear man. Curly and Nibs, the Twins, and Tootles... Mother adored them all.”

  “By Lost Boys, you’re referring to,” Jack cleared his throat. “... Peter Pan’s Lost Boys? From the Neverland?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Years later, when Peter came with the second lot, however, I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t very well say no, but I was a widow at the time. A grown woman with Jane in the nursery. I had no husband to help care for a bunch of wild boys. So I began the boys’ home to care for my Lost Boys. It was soon after the war, and there was such a need for other orphaned boys as well. It all happened so quickly. Everything just fell neatly into place. Life can be like that, you know.”

  She sighed and gazed off. “Over the years, Peter always brought me the boys who’d decided to grow up. There were dozens. I’ve tried to capture their faces here,” she said, indicating with a wave of her hand her marvelous murals. “It was my own way of keeping track.”

  Jack scratched behind his ear and looked over at the picture of himself peeking out from a tree stump. If those were the paintings of the boys she claimed came from the Neverland...He had no memories of his first six years....

  “You’re saying that I was a...” He couldn’t say it.

  “A Lost Boy. Yes, dear.”

  Chapter 18

  In the tenets of quantum mechanics, until a particle interacts with something, it travels down every possible pathway simultaneously. Only when the particle collides with another does it snap out of its confusion and follow a direct trajectory. After Jack’s visit with Wendy, he was swerving left, right, and sideways, throwing shirts, dishes, and books into boxes on a direct path to California.

  By the dinner hour, the packed, sealed, and labeled boxes were mounting high against the rear wall. Most of them were filled with his books, and, seeing them, Jack sighed with relief that he at last made enough money that he no longer had to move them himself. Those boxes were as heavy as lead and Lord knew in the past he and a few pals had hoisted them plenty of times. He always swore after a move that he’d dump the books before he’d move them again, but he never could. Those books were his friends; he’d had some of them since boyhood.

  Boyhood. His thoughts flashed again to his conversation with Wendy. Hurt Faye? Impossible, he thought, hefting a large box over to the corner. Didn’t he do everything humanly possible not to hurt her? He couldn’t offer what she wanted, needed. It was just as well he was leaving.

  Leaving. His arms fell to his sides. Looking at the piles of sealed boxes and those left to be filled, the opened cabinets with contents spilling out as he sorted out what to keep and what to toss, he didn’t feel any of the excitement he usually felt at the prospect of moving on. Rather, he felt a bittersweet pang. This time the leaving wouldn’t be cut-and- dried. No. 14 wasn’t just some place he’d lived in.

  Hell, he’d really lived here.

  Leaning his weight against the table littered with packing materials, Jack squeezed his eyes tight and realized how much he’d miss Wendy and the infinite flow of optimism from the nursery. He’d miss spending part of every day with Maddie and Tom, hearing them creep down early in the morning to feed Nana, squabbling as children did, careful not to wake him up when, of course, they woke him every time.

  Over the summer he had taught them as his father had taught him, asking questions, pointing to natural phenomena, revealing in simple ways how every observer sees the same laws of nature. Teaching them, he had revisited his father in his memory. He recognized that he and his father did have a special bond after all. He no longer felt as driven to discover his biological mother and father.

  He’d forged a bond with the O’Neill children, too. Maddie had stolen his heart, there was no doubt about that. She came, she saw, and she conquered, in typical Maddie fashion.

  Tom was a part of him. The most tender part. That the boy would break his silence to come to him for help climaxed the campaign that Jack had waged all summer.

  And Faye...

  It struck him hard that he�
�d miss Faye most of all. He’d miss the crooked little smile that she gave up unwillingly; but when she did, it made her whole face shine like the sun coming out after a cloudy day. He’d miss watching how tender she was with the children, how kind she was to Wendy, loving her despite her fantasies. He’d miss the way her hair fell into her face, he’d miss the way she blushed when she caught him staring at her, which he did more and more often. He’d miss their chats, their debates, the little wisecracks that only a best friend could catch. His hands fell to his side.

  That was it. He’d miss his best friend.

  He picked up his football and tossed it in the air, feeling all jumbled and confused inside. Everyone else he could sort into a neat category, but Faye, she was a little bit of this and a little bit of that. She was, simply, everything. He’d never felt this way about anyone before.

  “Hello?” He recognized Faye’s voice and fumbled the ball. Glancing up at the clock he saw that it was six o’clock. She was home early tonight. My God, he thought with a shudder. I even know when to expect her home. It had come to that.

  “Anybody home?” she called from the stairs.

  “Hi, come on in,” he called back nonchalantly, pretending to be hard at work with his packing. “Careful where you step. It’s a war zone in here.”

  She entered the kitchen then stopped short, her hand still resting on the doorframe. He watched as her eyes scanned the opened drawers and cabinets, the piles of newspapers, the rolls of packing tape, and alighted on the large pile of sealed boxes against the wall. Her face could hide nothing from him any longer, and it pained him to watch her smile freeze, then melt away to a frown, the chill moving instead to her eyes.

  “You’re packing already?”

  “Yep,” he said, thrusting out his jaw, trying to sound distracted. “Time’s almost up.”

  “I thought...”She paused to clear her throat and cross her arms across her chest, gestures he recognized as those she used to hide distress. He looked away and began tearing tape strips with a vengeance.

  “I thought you were leaving in September.”

  “Faye,” he said, resting his hands on the newspaper, “it’s September next week.”

  “Yes, but, only September first. Surely you’re not leaving on the first.”

  “Got to. I’m done with my work here. And there’s a major race with my old pals at CERN to be the first laboratory to discover the top quark. I was asked to consult.”

  He saw the stunned expression on her face and hurried on, tossing books into the box. “It’s a great opportunity. You should see the accelerator they’ve got there. Man, it’s a huge machine, a mile across, the largest and most powerful in the world. My money’s on them. Once we discover that sucker, the puzzle will all fall into place. It’s gonna be fun.” He sighed, hearing the forced enthusiasm in his voice.

  “So, you’ll be leaving soon.” She coupled her hands and chewed her lips, a clear sign that she was deeply upset. “I guess I’d better get dinner started then.” She rubbed her temple. “Dinner. In all the excitement I hadn’t given it a thought.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. Big day for you! You signed the contracts with that tea company, right? We want to hear all about it.” He thought, we? He and the children? Listen to him, going on like they were a family.

  “Yes, uh, it went well,” she said in a stumbling fashion. “Very well. Looks like I’m staying in London.” All the elation she’d felt rushing into this great, warm kitchen to share with Jack her day’s news slipped away the moment she saw the obvious signs that he was leaving.

  Looking at all the boxes lined up against the wall, Faye realized that her life was a series of tightly wrapped compartments. She packed her feelings into packages, taping them shut, neatly labeling them and shipping them off somewhere. Everything had a destination. All her dreams had been stored for so long she didn’t know where to find them anymore. And for what? She was standing here now, feeling empty. She’d focused so long on the day-to-day challenge of raising her children, getting a new account, keeping her job, that she’d closed the lid and sealed herself off from any bits of joy, love, and spontaneity that might have slipped in.

  Jack tossed a roll of tape in the air like a football. “Don’t fuss tonight,” he suggested. “Why don’t I go out and buy us some takeout?”

  “No, I’m sure I have some eggs and cheese. Some bread. I’ll just rummage around in my cupboard and see what I can pull together. I’d love to cook on the old Aga, seeing as I won’t have another chance after next week.”

  She saw his brows gather and his mouth twist and felt a sudden surge of sadness rise up in her throat and threaten tears. She turned toward the Aga, resting her hands on the warm metal.

  Jack would be leaving Wednesday? That he would be out of their lives so soon was inconceivable. Jack not be there to rustle them together on a Saturday morning to take them to the park? He would not be there each morning to offer a rushed hello on the front stoop? Or a long, lingering good-bye in the garden at night, their banter laden with innuendo? This meant that all their romps in the great, warm kitchen of No. 14 while she cooked dinner and he played with Maddie, Tom, and Nana were coming to an end. That the only happiness she’d ever known as a family would soon be over. Jack gone? She couldn’t bear to think of him out of her life.

  Faye looked over her shoulder, bereft, and saw that Jack was standing rigid with the same look of disbelief that she was sure she wore herself. His jaw was thrust forward and his eyes shone with intensity. They had marched so comfortably, so long, each careful not to step on the other’s toes, that neither of them had realized they’d lost their way.

  The silence was broken by a loud clumping on the stairs along with short, piercing dog whistles. A moment later Maddie marched in, all business, with Nana hot on her heels. When she spied the stack of boxes and disarray in the kitchen she halted abruptly, her face puzzled.

  “Hey, what’s going on in here?” she asked with her hands on her hips. A child, and a bossy one at that, she had no trouble voicing what Faye only dared think.

  For a second Jack appeared nonplussed. Then he rallied. “Packing, kiddo. I’m heading out.”

  Maddie’s brow knitted over a deep sulk. “Oh.”

  Faye stepped into the fray. “Well, since dinner won’t be for a few minutes, why don’t I put on a kettle of water for tea? It’s a bit nippy tonight. The weatherman said it might get as low as...” She was talking inanely she knew, filling in the sulking silence.

  “I don’t care what we eat as long as we eat soon,” Maddie said peevishly, marching over to the plastic bin that held Nana’s food and scooping out a cup. She often hid her tender emotions with anger. “I’m starving. And so is Nana.”

  As she talked, she busily added a bit of water to the dry dog food and stirred it while Nana wriggled her bottom and licked her mouth, trying to remain obedient to the “sit” command. Both Faye and Jack stood stock-still, hands hanging at their sides, watching her.

  “Puppies ought not to wait too long between meals, you know,” Maddie continued in that prim voice that she’d learned from Wendy. “They get very hungry and whine, and I have to be very good about feeding right on time. I have been very good, haven’t I?” She sniffed and lowered her head as she stirred. “You see, puppies need to be taken very good care of. They’re like babies, you know. You can’t just learn to love them and have them love you and then just stop taking care of them. It’s very cruel to do that to puppies, don’t you think? I mean, they don’t understand that grown-ups have to move away for jobs. They just know that the person they love is gone, and I wonder if she’ll go sniffing and whimpering for Tom and me? And Wendy? What if we have to move again, too? Poor Wendy, all alone here with only Mrs. Jerkins and Mrs. Lloyd to look after her. Don’t you think that’s just too mean?” With that she covered her face and burst into tears and great, heaving sobs.

  Faye rushed to her side and held her in her arms. Then for no one reason she cared to
give a name to and for a million reasons she could, she started to cry herself, holding her little girl and rocking her, while Jack picked up the puppy in his arms and stood by watching helplessly.

  Seeing him standing there through a blur of tears, tenderly stroking a whimpering Nana in his arms, with both their big brown eyes bewildered, Faye cried all the harder, thinking that the big oaf was not the least aware that all the females were crying because they were all head over heels in love with Jack Graham.

  When the tears subsided, Jack scooted down, drawing Maddie into one of his long arms so she could rest on his bent leg. While she sniffed and noisily wiped her eyes, Nana eagerly licked her cheeks. Jack thought with a pang that this was the second sobbing O’Neill child he’d held in his arms that week. It felt natural, comfortable, right. And what he felt for their mother ran even deeper. These new feelings were worrisome. Even frightening. He felt the sudden urge to throw whatever remained into the boxes and leave tonight, while he still could.

  “You’re right about puppies,” he said in a husky voice. Maddie’s eyes were round with so much trust it made him wince. “Nana wouldn’t be happy without the people she loves most in this world. No one would be.”

  He looked over at Faye, brows raised in question. Her breath stopped short, and her heart hammered in anticipation. Could he be...? She didn’t dare finish the thought.

  “I want you to have Nana,” he said to Maddie. “After all, I travel so much, flying to cities all over the world, it wouldn’t be fair to leave her all alone, would it? I’m sure she’d be happiest with you and Tom.” He raised his eyes to meet her gaze. “That is, if your mother says yes.”