Catch a Falling Star

by Jessica Starre

  “I’m sure she will,” Richard said, coming cautiously into the living room. “No dogs?”

  “They took the dogs out for a walk.”

  “They?”

  “We have friends, you know.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Everyone needs friends.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “It’s the welcome that keeps me coming back,” he said.

  She was standing in the middle of the living room, looking at him, wishing it was easier to send him away. Wishing she didn’t care if he were here or not. Wishing wishing wishing.

  “Natalie told me what’s up,” he said, and sat on the sofa. “And she told me about that old bitch you used to work for, how she fired you. And what you’re trying to do, with that event-planning stuff. And I figured you could use a hand.”

  Her immediate answer was hell, no, but that was just reactionary. So she thought about it for a minute, and then she said, “Hell, no. You know what? I don’t need a hand. I’ve got Matthias, he takes turns with medical appointments and helps with the dogs, and he sends work my way. I’ve got Joe, he helps with the proposals and the dogs. I’ve got the Lombardis, they help with the chores.” She glared at him, daring him to contradict her.

  “That’s good, Bree,” he said gravely. “That’s real good, you got friends who are helping you. That’s what you need.”

  “So I don’t need you,” she said, in case that hadn’t been clear. She was breathing heavily but she didn’t care.

  “I can see that,” he said. He was looking down at his hands. If one of the dogs had been around, he could have been petting a dog, which was always a good thing to do with your hands if you didn’t know what else to do with them. She wished Dakota were here right now.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I don’t need you either.”

  That was sharp, like a slap.

  “That … that’s good,” she said when she could speak.

  “It’d be real nice if we could be … friendly,” he said. “You ain’t going to ever be able to trust me again. I’m not saying you have to. We’ll just have no expectations of each other.”

  “That’s not possible,” she said. “Not even for strangers walking by each other on the street.”

  He seemed to think about that for a minute. “I guess that’s true. I guess I expect the stranger on the street to just pass me by. So where does that leave us?”

  “I guess it means we’ll have very low expectations of each other.”

  He nodded. “There you go. I knew you’d know.”

  “Go to hell,” she said.

  He patted the sofa cushion next to him. “Sit down,” he said roughly.

  She didn’t know why she did it. She never knew why she did it. But she sat down next to him.

  “I’m still your daddy,” he said, and took her hand.

  • • •

  Natalie came in the front door, laughing at something, her cheeks red from the cold, brushing snow from her clothes. A young man, probably either Joe or Matthias, was a step behind her with both dogs, and he was smiling, watching her with unguarded affection. Richard thought the kid was probably going to get his heart destroyed, but what the hell. A man couldn’t stop it even if he wanted to.

  “Hey, Mr. Daniels,” Natalie said. She slanted a glance at Brianna, who got to her feet and took the dogs, unhooking their leashes and putting them away, then going into the kitchen to refill their water bowls. The dogs followed her, apparently knowing the routine. “This is my friend Joe. Joe, this is Brianna’s dad.”

  Richard rose to shake Joe’s hand.

  “So,” Natalie said, with a significant tilt of her head in Brianna’s direction.

  Richard shrugged. She hadn’t thrown him out. Progress, he guessed. A minute later she came back in and said, “Joe, you staying for dinner?”

  “You just don’t want to cook,” he said.

  “So young to be so cynical.”

  “I’ll make pasta.”

  “Oh, not pasta,” Natalie said, collapsing on the sofa next to Richard.

  “Then you make dinner,” Brianna said.

  “I’ll help Joe. But not pasta. Eggplant parmesan or something.”

  “Do we even have an eggplant?”

  Joe walked into the kitchen. Richard heard the refrigerator open. “Yep,” Joe called back. “Ma must have bought it.”

  “Yum,” Natalie said. “I’ll slice the eggplant, I can do that sitting down. That stupid walk exhausted me.” She glanced at Richard. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Never had eggplant parmesan before. Like to give it a try.”

  Brianna stood there with her hands on her hips, glaring, like she was about to rescind the invitation when another knock came at the door.

  “Matthias,” she said as she opened the door. “Come in.”

  That was the man who’d given Natalie that expensive necklace for Christmas. Richard had heard all about it from Brianna at the time. He was curious to see what Matthias looked like.

  Natalie came out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Hi,” she said, and Matthias leaned down and kissed her, and Brianna turned away and Richard thought Uh oh, and wondered how Brianna planned to deal with the fact that she was in love with her sister’s boyfriend.

  • • •

  Natalie spent an unsettled night coughing, which made her toss and turn and worry, and so she was not in a good mood the next morning when Matthias came by to bring her to a doctor’s appointment.

  He was patient, which was annoying. Joe would have asked her what was wrong and then he would have expected her to knock it off, but Joe was in class.

  “You don’t sound very good,” Matthias said as he helped her with her coat, but she didn’t respond. She was tired of being sick, she was tired of being told she looked sick or sounded sick or acted sick. She was tired of every damned thing.

  Jasmine came over and leaned into her and she patted the dog.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said waspishly to Matthias. “And you don’t have to be patient with me when I’m being a bitch.”

  “If that’s your idea of bitchy, you need a broader experience of life,” Matthias said, which was the kind of thing Brianna laughed at but which to Natalie was just annoying. He was being patronizing, or at least that was how it felt.

  “You probably ought to get that cough checked out,” said Brianna, coming into the room with a cup of coffee. To Matthias she said, “And that’s as bitchy as she gets. Really pathetic.”

  “It’s like she’s not even trying,” Matthias agreed, and Natalie, who had been buttoning up her coat, stopped halfway through, struck — paralyzed — by an understanding she had been too infatuated to notice before.

  Matthias and Brianna smiled at each other and then Brianna grabbed her bag and kissed Natalie on the cheek, patted Matthias’s arm, and said, “Thanks!”

  Natalie finished buttoning up her coat. It was unsettling to think that Brianna and Matthias — did they have something going on behind her back? But Brianna wouldn’t do that, and neither would Matthias. Which meant —

  Which meant they didn’t know, and hadn’t told each other, and wouldn’t, because there was poor, sick Natalie squatting in the middle of their story.

  That sucked, and she didn’t know what to do about it, or how she felt, and she really wished Joe were around to talk about it.

  • • •

  “It’s pneumonia,” Brianna said, sounding a little rattled. “It’s a fairly common occurrence during the induction phase. But it’s very serious and very dangerous.”

  Joe was sitting in the hallway outside the classroom, talking to Brianna on his cell phone, trying to understand what she was saying, about Natalie being back in the hospital even though she had just gotten out of the hospital, and she was sick in a way that didn’t seem to have anything to do with cancer, except that Brianna was saying it did.

  “I do
n’t understand,” he said, and then, because that didn’t matter, “can I see her?”

  “She’s not in ICU,” Brianna said, by which he guessed that meant he could, so he said, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “Don’t you have class?”

  “It won’t kill me to miss one class,” he said. “Are you there now? I’ll see you in a bit.” He grabbed his backpack, asked one of the guys he knew in the class if he’d mind emailing his notes, and went out to his truck.

  • • •

  “Hey.”

  Natalie turned her head on the pillow and saw Joe come in. She pushed herself up and said, “Come on in.”

  He was already mostly in. This time he had flowers. Carnations, probably from the gift shop downstairs. Red. He probably couldn’t afford the roses.

  For some reason, tears welled in her eyes.

  “Oh, hey,” he said and came over to the bed. He set the flowers down on the table, then fumbled with the side rail, and she had to help him, and finally he got it lowered. Then he took her gently into his arms, mindful of the IV line and the monitor wires, and said, “It sucks so much, Nat.”

  She nodded against his shoulder, not sure she was capable of speaking. He just kept on holding her, not saying anything, not patting her on the back, or setting her away, just keeping his arms around her like he would do it as long as she needed, a hundred years even.

  “I’m so scared,” she said.

  “Me, too,” he said, and she tightened her grip on him.

  “That’s not what you’re supposed to say,” she whispered. “But I’m glad you said it.” She hung on to him, tight as she could. And then she told him the one thing she had never been able to say to anyone: “I don’t want to die, Joe.”

  “I love you,” he gasped. “I know I’m not supposed to say that either. I don’t want to lose you. But I want to be with you, however long there is.”

  She started crying again.

  “It’s like that William Blake poem,” he said. “‘To hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.’ That’s what I feel like when I’m with you.”

  • • •

  It was probably dumb to be telling her poetry, and anyway he hadn’t said it right, and now he was all trying not to cry and everything, and she probably hadn’t heard of William Blake, he had gotten that from Giuliana, who’d been an English major.

  And she had a boyfriend and here was Joe spilling his guts about his feelings. She didn’t want him spilling his guts about his feelings —

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  He couldn’t have heard that right. He leaned back a little to look at her face. “What?”

  “Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me like you mean it.”

  She was crying, and they were in a hospital room, and it wasn’t where he would have done it, given her their first kiss, but he might never get a chance again, and so he took it.

  He kissed her, he kissed her with all his heart, his heat, and his passion, with his hope for the spring and children and growing old together and all the things they might not get, he put everything he had into that kiss, and then she trembled in his arms and kissed him back, her hands coming up to touch his face, giving him lazy Sunday mornings and erotic Saturday nights, a backyard wedding, moving into their own place, watching their children and their grandchildren play, all the things they might never do.

  Then the kiss ended, a kiss with a lifetime in it, and Natalie looked at him with her beautiful blue eyes and said, “It’s you, it’s really you,” the wonder and delight clear in her voice. And it was worth everything, every risk, every promise she might not be able to keep, and he was happy, sitting in this awful room with Natalie hooked up to machines. Happy.

  “We’re in this together,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said, a promise, a vow.

  He linked his fingers with hers. “Everything I have, everything I am, is yours,” he said hoarsely.

  “Oh, Joe,” she said, her tears coming harder. He would collect them in his hands, he would wipe them away. “I love you with everything I have and everything I am. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

  That was enough, that was more than enough. It was all he had ever wanted. He gathered her into his arms again, living forever in this moment.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Matthias had promised Brianna he’d stop by the house to take the dogs for a walk. Richard was there, and he didn’t ask why Richard didn’t take the dogs for a walk; clearly Richard was not a dog person. But Richard surprised Matthias by putting on a coat and coming along with him. He didn’t offer to take a leash but watched what Matthias did as he ambled along beside him, like he was storing up the knowledge for sometime when he might need it.

  “How’s the kid doing?” Richard asked. “I figured I might stop by to spell Brianna tomorrow but Natalie probably doesn’t need me in there right now.”

  “She’s as well as can be expected,” Matthias said. Then: “I’m sure she’d be glad to see you. She likes you a lot.”

  “Well, I like Natalie,” Richard said. “Sensible girl. Calm.”

  That made Matthias smile. “Brianna’s sensible, too. Although maybe not calm.”

  “I know,” Richard said. “She’s got enough emotion for any two people.”

  “So,” Matthias said. They walked in silence for a minute.

  “Hard on you.”

  “Harder on Natalie.”

  “I mean not being able to leave.”

  Matthias took in a breath. “Christ. I hope it’s not that noticeable.”

  “It ain’t. I’ve been around a long time is all.”

  More silence. “I’m waiting for you to advise me,” Matthias said. “Isn’t that why you brought it up?”

  “Oh hell no, son,” Richard said. “I don’t know the first damned thing about living.”

  “Then why did you bring it up?” Matthias felt the frustration surge through him. He didn’t know what to do about Natalie, but there really wasn’t anything to do right now anyway, and so it worked best if he just shoved it aside.

  “Just commiserating,” Richard said, ambling along beside him.

  • • •

  Brianna had had an appointment that ran over, but she knew Joe had planned to be with Natalie, which was good, because Natalie was taking the new problem really hard. Brianna liked to lick her wounds in private, but Natalie did better when she had someone to sit with her, which probably had to do with her mother dying when she was so young and her father being not much help in the hand-holding department.

  Chrissy hadn’t been much use, and neither had Richard, especially after he’d run off, but the challenges Brianna had faced in life were nothing like the life-and-death struggles Natalie had waged. Maybe Natalie was afraid of dying alone. Maybe it was as simple as that. Brianna had had bad things happen to her but she had never worried about dying alone, mostly because she had never had a reason to worry about dying at all.

  Anyway, it was good Joe was there.

  When she came into the room, he was still there, sitting on Natalie’s bed and holding her hand, and Natalie had obviously been crying, and something else was happening in the room, something new and fragile that they had no interest in sharing with Brianna because when they saw her, Joe moved away from the bed to the guest chair, and Natalie wiped away her tears with her fingers, and neither of them said anything.

  “Pretty flowers,” Brianna said, the first thing that popped into her head.

  “I finally remembered them,” Joe said, looking a little sheepish. Then, to Natalie, “I should go now. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  The last he said on a rising inflection, like she might say no, although as far as Brianna was aware, Natalie had never said no to Joe.

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, and Brianna wondered what the hell had happened between them.

  The door shut behind Joe and Natalie said, “I need to rest, Bree,” which made Brianna blink because Natalie
never had a problem dropping off to sleep with Brianna there.

  “Um, okay,” Brianna said. “Sure. You want me to come back later?”

  “No,” said Natalie. “I need you to send Matthias.”

  • • •

  She wants to see you tonight, Brianna had said to Matthias, sounding a little tart, like how could Natalie favor him over her. And so Matthias was here, more flowers in hand, wondering what the hell he was going to do, and how he was going to break the news to her. Maybe when she got out of the hospital.

  But the problem was, what if there were other hospitals? There would be, he supposed, for a long while now. And she might not make it through. And he didn’t mean to stop being her friend, but he wasn’t sure he could keep playing the role of boyfriend day after day and not do something bad for both of them while trying to do something good.

  It struck him that perhaps that was what had been missing all along: a willingness to be authentic, to be who and what he was, to accept whatever that meant. He had enjoyed Natalie’s company, but he had been as attracted to the thought of her — brave and noble and amazing — as the actuality of her, and the actuality was, though they were superficially alike, insofar as chocolate chip cookies went, they did not have that much in common. She was young, she had little life experience, she was the angel he wanted to keep protected in bubble wrap, not a partner for the life he intended to live.

  And what was that life?

  He pushed the door to her room open. He supposed he would have to sort that out. He supposed —

  “Matthias,” she said, and she looked determined. He could tell from the redness of her eyes that she’d been crying but she didn’t look on the verge of tears now.

  He set the lilies down next to a pot of carnations, almost certainly Joe’s contribution to the cause, and then he understood, or thought he understood, why Natalie had summoned him here tonight. He felt immeasurably lighter as he took the guest chair. He didn’t kiss her, and she seemed to relax a little, like at least she didn’t have to deal with that.