In Sight of Stars

by Gae Polisner

  “For many minutes, the fairies watch the rabbit like a game. The cousins, Liu Ch’en, and Yuan Chao, are mesmerized.

  “After a while, the fairies ask them, ‘When did you arrive?’

  “‘A few minutes ago,’ Liu Ch’en answers, looking to Yuan Chao. ‘Not more than that,’ Yuan Chao confirms. Broken from the rabbit’s spell, they turn to leave. But the fairies say, ‘No, you cannot go now. You must stay here in our grotto. If you go home now, no one will recognize you.’

  “The boys don’t understand what the fairies mean and cry out in protest. ‘No! No! We must go home.’ Seeing that they can’t persuade the cousins to stay, the fairies give them each a reed, and say, ‘If you find everything changed at home, return here and the reed will open this cave.’

  “So, Liu Ch’en and Yuan Chao take the reeds and return to their stream to collect their buckets. But when they get there, the stream has dried up and the terrain is unfamiliar. Perplexed, the boys flee to their village, but they find no trace of their home.”

  “Where is the house of Liu Ch’en and Yuan Chao?” I jump in, remembering this part from when he’s told it before.

  “This is the same question they ask of two white-haired old men who sit in a meadow where the house of Ch’en-Chao used to stand. The old men reply, ‘Liu Ch’en and Yuan Chao were our ancestors. We are their descendants in the seventh generation.’”

  He stops, and I say, “Dad … there’s more. I know that’s not the end of the story.” My lip quivers, something about the story always unsettles me. Dad says, “No, don’t worry.” He holds a finger to his lips and continues.

  “The cousins, too, are terribly confused about how they—barely young men—can have descendants in the seventh generation. It means, of course, that they would have to be very old.

  “‘Perhaps,’ Liu Ch’en says to Yuan Chao sadly, ‘the white rabbit at the grotto represented the changing seasons, and each time it jumped, another year had passed by. It jumped hundreds of times, which would mean our day at the cave lasted four hundred years.’

  “Fearful, they cry out to the old men, ‘But we are Liu Ch’en and Yuan Chao!’” My father cups his hand to his mouth and calls out across the water, as if he, too, is calling to the old men. “The old men shake their heads, their long beards swishing at their chins. They summon the other people of the village, who come and beat Yuan Chao and Liu Ch’en. ‘Young rascals,’ the villagers cry, ‘How dare you come bother old men!’”

  “But why were the villagers mean?” I ask. “Why didn’t they care about the cousins?”

  My father picks up a pebble and rolls it between his fingers. “They didn’t recognize them.”

  “That’s sad,” I say, and he agrees.

  “The boys flee back to the cave, reeds in hand—remember the reeds the cave fairies gave them?—but the entrance is closed up tight. And when they open their hands, the reeds are gone, and they can’t remember where they’ve left them. They knock and knock at the cave door, but there’s no answer. In their grief, they bang their heads against the stone until they die.

  “But the ruler of heaven takes pity on their sad fate and grants them favor, appointing Liu Ch’en the God of Good Luck and Yuan Chao the God of Bad Luck.” Dad tosses the pebble into the river and it quickly disappears. “The end,” he says, standing and grabbing his fishing rod. He nods for me to get mine, too.

  “That’s it?” I ask, disappointed yet again. “I still don’t get it.” But I don’t push because my father has tears in his eyes.

  “You will one day, Klee,” he says, clearing his throat, “I don’t feel like fishing anymore, okay?” Then he takes my hand and leads me back in the direction we came, toward my mother.

  Day 13 into 14—Overnight into Morning

  It’s daybreak, but dark out, pouring rain. I’m walking down West Broadway toward Spring Street.

  Thunder booms in the distance and lightning flashes in jagged streaks between the tall buildings, momentarily lighting up the entire sky.

  Dad engulfs my small hand with his so I feel safe, looks down and smiles at me.

  “Tell me what it all means,” I say, but all he says is, “Nothing to be afraid of now, Klee.”

  Another clap of thunder and he’s gone. The sky undulates and darkens and the cold rain streams down, drenching me.

  I run and I run, but I’m not little anymore. I’m me now, eighteen.

  As I run, and the rain pelts down, people move out of my way, rush off the streets, under awnings, huddle in doorways, umbrellas snapping in the wind, newspapers held over their heads. I try to wedge myself between bodies in an open doorway to stay dry, but no one seems willing to let me in.

  Then Martin is waving from a doorway. “Come on in, Alden. Mi casa es su casa,” he says. I move past him into the building. A doorbell chimes. “Are you coming?” I call back, but he shakes his head and says, “It’s not my thing, you go in.”

  The door clicks shut behind me.

  The room I find myself in is dimly lit, musty, quiet. “We’ve been waiting for you, Klee,” a voice says.

  A girl with wild fuchsia hair and multiple piercings looks down on me from behind a tall counter where she sits in a white lifeguard chair. The counter is covered with art books and brochures. Van Gogh’s Van Goghs stands open, on display.

  I look up at her, and she asks, “Are you going in for a swim?” She nods toward the end of the room.

  At first I don’t know what she’s talking about. This is an art gallery. There’s no pool here. Then I see it. A huge painting of a lake. Suddenly, the gallery seems familiar, and I realize it’s the one where I went with my dad, where he bought Icarus’s Flight Plan.

  My father will be here, then! I search and search but don’t see him anywhere.

  The girl with the wild hair coughs. “Look closer,” she calls down. “You’re not paying attention.” She motions me toward the painting of the lake.

  I walk toward it and squint, the lake coming alive before my eyes, with fish jumping and people splashing and swimming and diving in.

  “Remarkable, right?” she asks. And some of it is, but some of it isn’t. Some of it is master quality, and some just seems juvenile, painted like the fish in the mural at the Ape Can.

  “Who painted those?” I ask. “Those fish are bad. They don’t belong in a gallery.”

  The girl shrugs. “It can’t all be good, right?” she says.

  “No,” I say. “I guess it can’t. But I wish it could.”

  I move closer to the lake, and she says, “You can touch it if you want. You can go in: make it better. I don’t get why the whole world thinks you shouldn’t touch art.”

  I do as she says, reaching out to touch the people in the lake, one after another. Some of them are familiar: Sarah, and Abbott and Scott Dunn.

  Sarah reels when I touch her, then dives, disappearing like a mermaid, under the surface. Sister Agnes Teresa and Martin are there. Sabrina, too. I scan the water for Dr. Alvarez, but the girl says, “Don’t look for everyone. Not everyone can be where you want them. So, are you going to buy it?” she asks.

  “Me? No. I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have the money,” she says.

  I feel nauseous and panicky, and turn to leave.

  “It’s okay, son, stay.” A man, lanky, with white-blond hair and eyebrows, has appeared and holds tightly to my arm. “I think you’re looking for me,” he says.

  “I am. I was. I need to talk to you,” I say.

  “Of course you do. Follow me.”

  I follow him down a long, dark hall to a narrow tunnel that slopes downward, leading us underground. Water drips from the ceiling, and our footsteps echo, wet and hollow, as we proceed. When we reach an open space, he puts a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” he says. “Take this reed.” He moves away, revealing the entrance to a cave. Sitting before it is Sister Agnes Teresa.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” she says.


  I follow her into the cave, strewn with paintings, framed and unframed, small ones and huge canvases that take up the length of a bedroom wall. “Hold on,” she says. “I’ll find the one that is yours.”

  “I didn’t paint one,” I say, but she disappears through a door, and returns, dragging a large canvas.

  “I know,” she says. “You didn’t. He did. He asked me to give it to you.” She switches on an overhead light to illuminate it, revealing Van Gogh’s potato eaters, Les Mangeurs de Pommes de Terre.

  Five gaunt, ugly peasants sit at a wooden table, their faces bleak and tired. Grotesque. A lack of hope permeates the painting. One peasant is unseen, her back to the viewer. But from under her cap, I see her long black hair.

  “I don’t want it,” I say. “He knows it’s the one painting of his I never liked.”

  “That’s because you’re looking at it wrong,” Sister Agnes Teresa says. “You’re looking at it upside down.” She waddles around the front, turning each corner with effort until she makes a full rotation with the painting, then steps away again. “There. Try now.”

  This time I see it. The painting is so much different than I thought. The same bleak peasants sit at the table, their gnarled fingers thick with dirt. But their faces are no longer grotesque, they’re familiar and happy and warm. Dad’s face, Mom’s, and mine. And, next to my father, sits Armond.

  “And, look here,” Sister Agnes Teresa says, pointing. “Look how many sunflowers! And none of them simply plain yellow. But you have to look carefully to see all the colors.”

  Beneath the table, I see them. Sunflowers. Van Gogh’s sunflowers. The floor is covered in them. And as she turns the painting again, the sunflowers multiply and come to life, spilling out of the painting and into the room.

  “You see, Klee,” Dad says, turning from the table where he sits between Mom and Armond. “I wanted to accomplish what Millet said I could. To paint people so they’d appear to arise from the very same soil they’ve sowed.”

  “And?”

  “Don’t you understand? I wanted you to understand.”

  I nod, but I don’t understand at all.

  “We’re sown from dirt, and sorrow, and flower petals. You and me. Your mother, Sarah, Armond. Do you understand, Klee? I need you to. It’s important that you understand.”

  I nod again, reaching out to touch the smear of dirt on his nose. But, I can’t find him through the blur of my tears.

  “Please, understand, Klee,” he says.

  I keep nodding until he disappears.

  * * *

  I awaken, drenched in sweat. It’s still dark out, but that weird slate gray before the sun rises.

  Quiet.

  Still.

  The clock reads 4:42 A.M.

  I’m still here, in the Ape Can. But in a few short hours, my mother will pick me up and bring me home.

  I throw on sweats and a T-shirt, and walk to the closet, sliding out the duffel she dropped off over a week ago. I pull out the large sets of acrylics and the biggest brushes, add those to the small set of brushes and second acrylic set still in my backpack, and head out into the hall.

  The hallways are desolate, the lights still dimmed for sleep hours. A male orderly sits dozing at a desk on the far end of the hall. I hear a nurse talking in someone’s room. Maybe Sabrina woke up. Maybe Martin had a nightmare.

  I slip past, go quietly into the stairwell, and walk the long corridor that leads to the hall I take to Dr. Alvarez’s office. Halfway down, another lone nurse sits at a desk. She’s got her head down, a blue light bouncing off her face. Probably playing Candy Crush on her iPad.

  I continue down the hall to the fish mural. Across from it, there’s a bathroom. I duck in and fill a paper cup with water. I’m going to need more, but this will get me started. On my way out, I nudge the small wooden wedge with my toe, to hold the door open. It spills light out onto the wall.

  I unzip my bag and pull out the paints, using the empty box as a palette. I don’t touch any of the finished work, but rather start at the far end, blending the blues from the earlier section of ocean so that there’s a seamless flow between the existing mural and my new work. As I move down the wall, I deepen the blues to near black, light to dark, from sky down to the deepest abyssal zone.

  I paint slowly, methodically making my way across the wall, blending the blues with reds into violets and purples, choosing larger brushes as the mural expands. By the time it’s 5:30, I have a decently large section covered. A magnificent swirling sky melting into a cobalt sea of erupting waves. And beneath that, the ocean bottom, deep as black space.

  I return to the bathroom for clean water, biting the ends of tubes to squeeze out the last bits of paint, opening new tubes, adding layer upon layer upon layer.

  By 6 A.M., the early staff is arriving. They stand and watch, silent, but no one stops me. The sea is now filling with vibrant color, silvery fish and neon anemones awash in pinks and oranges and greens. And, at the bottom, one sleek magenta squid, his inky, watchful eye focused up to the sunburst sky.

  By 6:30, I’m almost done. Almost out of paint, anyway.

  I stand back and study it; the staff watching breaks into an admiring, if embarrassing, round of applause. Considering my lack of supplies, it’s not bad. You can definitely see Van Gogh’s influence.

  You can definitely see my father’s.

  I return to my bag and retrieve one last tube each of cobalt, black, silver, and titanium white. I’ll have just enough to do what I am hoping to do.

  I run my brush through the paints and begin to blend the light of the top of the sky with the darks, so the sky near the ceiling doubles back on itself, returning to midnight again. Deep ocean into daylight into night sky into deep ocean or night sky again.

  When that is finished, I take a finer-tipped brush and dip it into the white alternating with silver, and work my way across, dotting the sky, where the squid’s gaze falls, with a hundred shimmering pinprick stars.

  Finally, I kneel at the base, and I write, For Dr. Alvarez, A sky full of stars. In honor of my father, who lost sight of them.

  MONDAY MORNING

  My mother wears jeans with heels, less makeup than usual, and her hair pulled back in a natural sweep that seems as if she put just a bit too much effort into not putting effort into it. Still, she manages to look younger this morning, softer, yet somehow also more solid. She stands at Dr. Alvarez’s door afraid to fully come in.

  “Hey, Mom.” I walk to the door, and awkwardly hug her. She pats my back, then drops her arms to the side, making me realize how long it’s been since we hugged. We’re out of practice, but it’s a start. Something to work on, I guess.

  “Dr. Alvarez says the checkout is relatively quick,” she says, studying my face. “They require me to sign you out, and if you’re willing, they want you—us—to agree that you’ll continue to do outpatient therapy.”

  “Here,” I say, “right? I’d like that.” I turn to Dr. Alvarez. “I’d like to continue with Dr. Alvarez if I can.”

  Dr. Alvarez smiles. “That works for me,” she says.

  My mother moves into the room, the gold bracelets jangling on her wrists. “Whatever you both feel is best. So long as you’re coming home.”

  Even though I’ve tried to prepare myself, my stomach lurches at the word “home,” at the thought of going back there, back to school.

  At the thought of facing Sarah.

  What if I’m not ready? It was never easy being there in the first place.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment,” Dr. Alvarez says, getting up, “I just need to get some paperwork from the administrative office,” and she slips quietly out the door.

  My mother and I sit. She turns her body toward me on the couch. “I want you to know that I loved him, Klee,” she says, picking at a thread on her jeans. “Even after he told me, I still loved him.”

  “I know. I get that now,” I say.

  “We were so young when we met, when we marr
ied. Maybe I should have known. I felt so stupid when I found out. Looking back, I should have seen … I had my suspicions, of course, but I don’t think even he knew. Not at first. Not fully. Not for a long time. He was raised a certain way—his parents, well, you didn’t know them very well. They were of a time, wanted certain things for him. He wanted those things, too. Or thought he did. Everything else he put out of his mind. He was good at that, your father. From the time I met him, he had a vision about what his life would be. About what it should be. And he worked hard to get it there. And anything that got in the way … that’s how he was. Single-minded. He got what he wanted and avoided what he didn’t want to see. He wanted to be successful. And he wanted a family. And, for sure, he wanted you.”

  I shift uncomfortably, swallow back tears.

  “And he loved us always, Klee,” she says. “He did. No matter what happened, I always knew that. The rest, he couldn’t help … You were the best thing that ever happened to him. I know this. And you need to know it, too. He was very proud of you. He always told me you were braver than he ever was.”

  “When did you find out … What happened?” I manage, but it comes out as little more than a croak.

  “A few years ago, but not the full extent. He said it was something on the side … compartmentalized. That’s what he called it. I didn’t realize there was anyone in particular. Someone who meant that much, that he was supporting…” She breaks down here, then regains herself. “I didn’t know specifically about Armond.”

  “Armond,” I say aloud. “I met him once. He owns a gallery downtown.” My mother looks alarmed, but I’m stuck on something else. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘he was supporting’?”

  “He was supporting him, too,” she says, choking back a sob. “Completely.” She pulls a rumpled napkin from her bag and uses it to dab at the corner of her eyes. I pick up a box of tissues from the table and hold it out to her. “And, that—he, the whole mess—was the way bigger problem we had. Because, apparently, your father, in his infinite wisdom, was trying to keep both Armond and the gallery afloat. In addition to us, our family. He made a good living, Klee, but there wasn’t enough money to go around. Not for two families. That’s why he—”