Stars in the Grass

by Ann Marie Stewart

  “Dad?”

  “Yes, Abby.”

  “You need to be nicer to Uncle Troy.”

  Dad sighed heavily. “I was wrong.”

  “And Dad?” I continued, trying to figure out how to say the next thing. He had listened once; he might listen again. “It’s my room now. I don’t want that bed.”

  His breath was a shuddery intake and he didn’t say anything for what seemed like minutes.

  “I can see why,” he said at last, his voice gravelly. Then he cleared his throat and continued. “I’ll take it down tomorrow.” Dad didn’t move off the bed, maybe contemplating the empty place in the room. Then he bent down to kiss me, and I felt a tear fall on my cheek. When he closed the door, the strip of light disappeared, but the crib was bathed in moonlight for one last night.

  SEVEN

  Before Joel was born, I started asking questions about having babies. So many that Mom sat Matt and me down to have a little talk. Mom was always direct and honest. She didn’t show us any funny little pollywog pictures or talk about birds and bees or even read from Wonderfully Made. My mom had plenty of new words for us that day. Intercourse was one of them.

  While Mom attempted the talk, Matt frowned and fidgeted. In a few minutes, I went from being curious, but happily oblivious, to understanding why sometimes ignorance is bliss. Asking a lot of questions might not always be the answer. I liked thinking it happened because of a watermelon seed, although I have to admit that in kindergarten when Kevin Moretti said his mom loved watermelon and never spit out the seeds and that’s why he had four brothers, I stopped eating watermelon for a whole year.

  “The baby grows for nine months and then when it’s ready to come out, you’ll have a baby brother or sister,” Mom explained happily.

  Matt rubbed his hands on his legs. I kept tucking my hair behind my ears.

  “Can I go now?” Matt asked.

  “Do you have any questions?” Mom sounded like my kindergarten teacher.

  I shrugged, Matt looked up at the ceiling, and the screen door slapped shut. Dad was home for lunch. Perfect timing. “What’s up with you three?” he asked, plopping down on the couch between us.

  I looked at Matt and he looked at me and he kind of shrugged and then I giggled. I swung my legs back and forth, and Matt scratched his head. Mom bit her lip to keep from laughing. Dad raised his eyebrows and turned from Matt to me and back again, searching for an explanation.

  “I feel kind of left out. Did I miss something? Is this some sort of secret gathering?”

  “So I guess you had to do it three times? Huh, Dad?” I said.

  “What’s this about?” Dad asked, turning to Mom. “Renee?”

  “Just explaining a few things, John. You can finish where I left off,” she said, heading to the kitchen. “I’ll make lunch.” She winked at Dad, who turned back to us, shrugging, his eyebrows lifted in a question.

  “She told us about the baby. About s-e-x,” I whispered. “Ick.”

  Dad’s face reddened.

  “But she didn’t say how the baby gets out,” I added, knowing I was missing some of the information.

  Dad could preach on Revelation, but he couldn’t teach the facts of life. Matt said he had heard quite enough and marched upstairs, and so Mom finished our family life lessons the next day without Dad’s help.

  I was excited about a new baby, but Matt seemed apprehensive. That’s when he told me about Mom’s sadness. It made sense since there are so few baby pictures of me compared to the hundreds in Matt’s leather scrapbook. I think of mine as unphotographed memories. The kind you don’t want to remember.

  There is one black-and-white photo where I’m on my mom’s lap, but she isn’t really holding me. She seems unaware of the camera, gazing beyond it. A bottle of milk sits on the end table and Mom’s nightgown looks sloppy and unkempt. I finally took it out of my scrapbook and hid it in the bottom of my sock drawer. I found a few other photos—Dad holding me up to the sun, Matt tickling my nose with a feather, and a few of GramAnna holding me cheek to cheek.

  I couldn’t remember those days, but Matt could. He considered it another of God’s failings. Matt hadn’t wanted to relocate from Dad’s first church in Madison, Wisconsin, to Bethel Springs, and he hadn’t asked for a sibling. And then God failed the five-year-old boy who flicked the light switch on and off outside the bathroom door to try to get his mother to stop crying while his baby sister screamed from the end of the hall. God failed the kindergartner who stood at the bus stop alone on the first day of school because his mother couldn’t push herself out of bed. God failed the boy who wanted to play catch with the dad who needed to heat TV dinners, change diapers, and then head out to visit the shut-ins.

  When Matt told me the story, I apologized to the brother who was everything to me.

  When Joel was born, Dad nicknamed him “the little pumpkin,” and when he came home three days later, I thought he looked more like a squash. Mom called it jaundice, and they kept a watch on his color. And then everybody kept a watch on Mom.

  Whenever Matt came home from school, he first ran to find Mom. Dad watched her as if out of the corner of his eye and never stayed at the office the whole day. He brought her special lunches from a restaurant downtown, and they took long walks pushing the stroller. Why wasn’t Dad concerned now?

  If for some reason I had previously been the cause of sorrow, Joel was the cause of great joy. When she sat in my bedroom nursing him, I looked longingly at the tender way she let his fingers curl around her forefinger as they rocked back and forth. She’d caress his head and press her lips to his forehead, and I knew that she really loved him. “Abby, do you remember this song?” she’d say and then begin the lullaby, “Have I Told You Lately that I Love You.” The melody and lyrics were unfamiliar and I couldn’t remember her ever singing them to me. But I knew that if Mom loved this baby, she had to have loved me, too, and she still did.

  It would be a lie to say I had always loved my brother. Once I nearly ran away from home because I didn’t want to share a room with him, and another time I nearly lost him, quite accidentally.

  The sanctuary had always been Joel’s favorite place. When he was a baby and Mom practiced the music for Sunday services, he lay in a laundry basket on top of the organ, seemingly soothed by the low, rumbling tones. But when he learned to crawl and then walk, she brought me along to watch him. We had our own version of the game of hide-and-go-seek. Joel would always hide behind the pulpit and I would pretend I didn’t know it.

  “I wonder where Joel is today,” I’d yell, louder than he needed, as Mom pounded a hymn on her console.

  “Hmmmmm, I wonder if he’s under this pew.” And I’d stick my hand beneath and hear him giggle from the front of the church. “Joel? Oh, Joel?” I’d call out. “Oh dear, I think I’ve lost him.”

  That got him every time. “No, Bee, I here.” And then he’d come out and run for a big hug and we’d play the game all over again with the same results.

  But one day both Joel and I were lost until he was found.

  “I’ll bet he went up in the balcony,” I said as I climbed the stairs, announcing to no one except the little boy crouched behind the pulpit.

  I played my usual game but he didn’t play his. When at last I popped behind the pulpit, he was not there. At first I wasn’t worried; I figured he had finally caught on to the game and picked a new hiding place. I looked under every pew and table and increased the boundaries to include the entire second floor and then the basement, at last ending up in Dad’s study, where I assumed I’d find him sitting on Dad’s lap as they rocked or wheeled his office chair.

  “What’s up, Abby?” Dad asked as I sat down facing his desk.

  “Joel and I were playing hide-and-go-seek and …”

  “He’s playing preacher?”

  “No, I can’t find him.”

  “Well then, let’s go look together,” he said, getting up.

  “No, Dad, I’ve looked everywhere and
I can’t find him.”

  “Where’s Mom?” he asked.

  “She left to run an errand.”

  “Did she unlock the front doors when she came in?”

  I shut my eyes, trying to remember entering the heavy sanctuary doors, and then ran to check. The front doors were unlocked; Joel could be anywhere. Within a half hour, our church friends were combing the streets looking for him.

  Two hours later, I slipped back into the church. The lights behind Jesus were off and the sun wasn’t bright enough to illuminate Him. By the dim-colored light from the stained-glass miracles, I could make out the benches and could hear soft breathing. Dad had just returned from his search and sat down on the front pew, bent over in prayer.

  I quietly made my way up the aisle. It was my fault Joel was lost, and now everybody would hate me. I thought about all the times I was jealous of the attention he got and the times I was angry about the way our family had changed, but they were small in comparison to the way Joel had changed us for the good.

  I felt a horrible coiling snake in my stomach that threatened to emerge from my throat. The skin of my face was prickly and my eyes stung. I tiptoed past the pulpit and took one more look behind it, as if I’d find Joel still hiding there. At last I collapsed on the back choir pew, right where the thick velvet curtains dropped to the floor.

  And there he was, fast asleep, half-covered by the soft folds of purple velvet spilled around him. His sanctuary.

  “Daddy, he’s here!” I whispered.

  “What?”

  “He’s behind the pew, asleep. We never checked the side pew in the choir loft.” Joel had found a nook I had not discovered until now. He had really learned the game.

  Dad walked slowly to the front, as if in disbelief, and then ran up the steps. We both stared at Joel as if he were a newborn, curled up sucking his thumb, his coat over him like a blanket. Dad reached over and picked him up. Joel’s arms draped over Dad’s shoulder as Dad whispered, “I found you. You’re it.”

  On October tenth, the day Joel would have turned four, Matt said he was going to the movies. I didn’t think that was right. Mom never questioned what he was doing or who he was hanging out with or how he was paying for things, but I did.

  We didn’t have school the next day, so Rita had invited me over for a sleepover, but how could I leave Mom alone? As worried as everyone was about her with Joel’s birth, somebody had to be concerned about his death.

  “You’re going,” she said to me. “It’s good for you to get out with Rita.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “And Matt needs to get away, too,” she rationalized. She needed to believe Matt was doing the right thing. How could I tell her the truth?

  Mom couldn’t know that the indoor theater was playing The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, but Matt wasn’t going there. Some of his new friends knew how to go to the drive-in without actually driving in. This drive-in was by the cemetery, and it didn’t run Disney films.

  The graveyard overlooked the big screen. Matt had told me kids climbed in the holes dug for upcoming funerals, poking their heads out for a perfect view of the big screen. He used to think that was morbid or disgusting. When Psycho played, Matt stopped taking showers for a few weeks. With all the talk around school about some scary shower scene, I figured he had gone to the pit. The last few Saturday nights he had spent behind a tombstone or in a hole in the graveyard. Tonight he was seeing Rosemary’s Baby.

  “What time is the movie over?” Mom asked as Matt threw on his letterman jacket. “Matt, that coat smells terrible!” she said. It reeked of smoke and Matt backed away, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “Mr. Paoletti is such a smoker,” Matt said too smoothly, and Mom accepted his excuse too easily.

  “So when are you coming home?”

  “Nine, I think,” Matt answered, looking away. I could tell he was lying. Couldn’t she? Should I say something?

  “Who’s going with you?”

  “I’m just meeting the guys over by … by the church,” Matt stumbled. Lying wasn’t always easy.

  Mom not only accepted “the guys,” but Matt’s meeting place linked him with church friends, and so she didn’t suspect a thing.

  I bit my lip. Matt looked over at me and shook his head. I didn’t know what to do. Maybe it was just one more movie. Still, that funny feeling in my stomach grew. All the times I hid a lie wound more yarn on my ball of guilt. I wondered if there was a way to pull at the end and free it all.

  “Well then, let’s go!” Mom said cheerfully. Matt frowned until Mom explained, “No, I’m not going to the movies with you!” She laughed at his open mouth. “I’m going over to Miss Patti’s with Abby.”

  Then it was my look of surprise that made Mom smile.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not spending the night. Miss Patti invited me over while you and Rita play. But after that, I’m going home. I won’t ruin your party.”

  I picked up my sleeping bag and overnight suitcase complete with stuffed animals, dolls, nightgown, and toothbrush, and then Mom and I walked next door.

  Our Indian summer was lingering into October, with the leaves turning magnificent shades of pink, burgundy, orange, and gold. The leaves scratched at the sidewalk and swirled into a whirlpool of dancing colors. I stood in the center and watched the leaves surround me, each crackling a secret and magic whisper.

  Rita came out with her Footsie and demonstrated how it worked, swinging the tethered ball in 360s while she hopped over the rope. Like jumping rope, it demanded coordination, but Rita was really good. I crunched the leaves along the walk, avoiding leaf-covered cracks. Step on a crack, break your mother’s back … Mom and Miss Patti sat on the front porch, just within earshot.

  “I like it that Rita has a friend like Abby,” Miss Patti said. “It’s good for all of us. Company is good.” Rita and I ran off to play Barbies and Yahtzee. When we returned, Mom was still there, eating popcorn with Miss Patti.

  Rita and I curled up under a blanket and talked about our Halloween costumes. I was going as a television set, and Rita was going as a ballerina. I had found an empty box in the church basement and painted a black square on the front, but I was still searching for antennae. Mom said we could untwist a hanger. She was always resourceful. Innovative.

  “You’re not going to be scared out there, are you?” Miss Patti teased.

  “Of course not. We’re almost ten now,” I declared as if that were a cure for all fears.

  “Well, I’m more than three times that and I still have a few worries,” Miss Patti exclaimed.

  “Well, I’m older than you are, so that means I have even more!” Mom added.

  I never thought about Miss Patti being any age at all or that Mom was older than her.

  “I thought big people didn’t have so much to worry about,” I said and immediately regretted saying big. “I mean big like old people. But you’re not old, I just mean …” And then I stopped and shoved another handful of popcorn in my mouth. Rita nodded. She didn’t seem to notice anything.

  “Actually, I think we have more to worry about,” Miss Patti said.

  “Like what?” I said, cautious but curious.

  Miss Patti paused for a minute and then too easily rattled off her list.

  “We worry about burglars, our kids, paying the mortgage, losing our jobs, and … and other things.”

  “Now you tell me what you worry about, Abby,” Miss Patti continued. I couldn’t answer right away. Did she mean strange noises at night or that I might get hit on the playground or that Matt might get sick and die or that my mom and dad might not ever really talk again? Too much to consider. Mom frowned. What did Mom want me to say? Was anything safe? What could I tell her?

  “Start with the hardest one,” she said, as if reading my mind.

  The hardest? How could I put my fears in order? I wished it were as simple as Mrs. Clevenger classifying the hardness of rocks from diamonds to talc. Ever since Joel died, there was a lump of fear that stuck in the
center of my stomach, threatening to consume me. It was smaller than the ball of guilt, but it fought harder for space and was fed by thinking about everything that could happen to us. And sometimes I couldn’t tell why I was afraid. How could I put something in order that didn’t have a name?

  Mom had stopped swinging and was staring at me. Rita was tugging at the threads of the blanket. They were waiting. I had to say something. Anything. I knew my biggest fear, but I couldn’t talk about that. I looked straight at Miss Patti and tried to think of something to say. And then out came something completely unplanned.

  “That I’d accidentally call you ‘Fatty Patti.’”

  My mother’s mouth fell open but no sound came out. I could hear what she would have said if she weren’t immobilized by shock. How could you say that? Apologize to her. Abigail Renee, that was terribly rude. I can’t believe you said that!

  I couldn’t believe I said it, either. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rita. My cheeks burned. To embarrass my friend by humiliating her mother was beyond forgiveness.

  Miss Patti was fixed on me. I didn’t look away but pursed my lips together and frowned. She stared at me and nodded, a little smile, then a hearty grin widening between her full cheeks. Miss Patti had perfect white teeth and the most beautiful smile. And then out came her generous laugh. A deep bell-like tone resonated in the open air. Miss Patti seemed to laugh on both exhalation and inhalation.

  At first I didn’t join in, but then after nervously surveying my mom—who had thankfully joined in—and then finally Rita, I giggled slightly. Miss Patti was laughing so hard now, I wasn’t sure she could stop. Mom kept gasping for breath, and just when I thought she could laugh no more, she started another round, tears streaming down her face. It was so good to see Mom not only smiling, but laughing. Laughing like she used to.