Follow the Stars Home

by Luanne Rice

  Dianne removed the old plastic container from the paper bag. She raised it, smiling. “To claim this lovely vessel? I wonder why. Thank you for bringing it to us though. We’ll turn the alarms back on.”

  “The soup was good.”

  “I’ll tell my mother.”

  So, Dianne hadn’t made it herself. It had been Lucinda’s idea, a fact that shouldn’t have surprised Alan at all. Alan drank his coffee and stood to leave.

  “Are you feeling better?” Dianne asked after such a long pause that it took Alan a minute to realize she was referring to his cold.

  “Yes,” Alan said. “Much. It’s long gone.”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m glad.”

  “Got to keep myself in shape,” he said. “To keep up with Julia.”

  “Yes,” Dianne said. “We count on that.”

  Alan laughed.

  “Oh, Alan,” Dianne said, suddenly rising up on her toes to hold him hard. He felt her breath on his skin, her arms tightening around his neck. He slipped one arm around her waist, and he felt the shiver down his spine, the backs of his legs. Her body felt so sweet and hot, and he was close to joy. They were standing in her kitchen, holding each other, laughing like fools.

  “You’re happy,” he said.

  “I am,” Dianne laughed. “I really am.”

  It was so nice to hear her laugh, to see her take pleasure in her unusual and amazing daughter. Dianne and Alan were raising this little girl together, if only Dianne would realize it. He wanted her so badly. He wanted to take care of them both.

  Alan felt he could have stayed in Dianne’s kitchen until the sun rose over the marsh. But instead, he pulled on his tweed jacket and said good-bye. When he stepped into the cool outdoors, he felt terribly lonely. The half moon had set. The sun hadn’t started rising. The lights were still on in the house. And Alan was leaving.

  One rainy day, a bunch of kids were playing in the shed behind Amy’s house. Amber had stolen cigarettes from her mother, and everyone was smoking. Amy had heard the laughter, gone out to investigate. David Bagwell was practicing to be a loser, leaning against the wall with a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Amy said, upset.

  “Make us get out,” Amber said.

  “Buddy won’t like it—”

  “Buddy’s cool,” David interrupted. “He’s in my dad’s band. You’re lucky he’s your stepfather.”

  “They’re not married!” Amy said, making an anti-vampire cross with her two forefingers. She tried to see through the smoke. It was like a night of heavy fog, only it smelled disgusting. Outside, it had started to rain, drops pelted the tin roof. She felt sorry for these kids, that they were smoking. She knew they didn’t have people like Dianne and Dr. McIntosh to show them that life could be better than puffing their lungs out in a toolshed.

  “You’ll kill yourselves,” she said sharply, embarrassed to hear her own voice. “Smoking’s bad.”

  “Oh, go play with the retard,” Amber said, blowing smoke rings.

  “She’s not-” Amy began, shocked and hurt.

  “Get out, you bitch,” David said, wadding up an empty cigarette pack and throwing it at her.

  “Only an ignorant person would call someone that,” Amy said, welling up as she used the words Dianne had told her to say.

  “Bitch means girl dog-that’s you!” David called as Amy walked out.

  Passing David, she tried to feel sorry for him, but that was too much for her. Amy’s head was jammed up with hurting thoughts. Running through the rain, she felt upset at being called a bitch, mad about what Amber had called Julia, but mainly worried about her mother. Something bad had happened behind her mother’s closed door the night before. Amy hadn’t seen her yet that day, and it was now three o’clock.

  Rain poured down in sheets. The yard was one big puddle. Amy knew the basement would be flooded, making Buddy’s mood even worse than usual. Anticipating his ups and downs was a skill of Amy’s. She had learned what made him happiest and maddest, and she used those guides to stay out of his way. But right then, however Buddy might be feeling, Amy was going to see her mother.

  Amy stepped inside as drenched as a marsh raccoon. She slipped off her sneakers on the kitchen floor. Her heart was beating fast, as if she were entering the haunted house at the Harvest Fair. The house was dark and silent, just as it had been all day. The puppy made a high, thin sound: his fearful greeting.

  The fight had been loud. The evening had started off fine, with Amy, her mother, and Buddy having dinner together in the kitchen. Buddy was in a great mood. He’d gotten paid, and some bar owner had complimented him on his music; Buddy liked nothing better than being a big shot. Leaning back in his chair, arms outstretched along the wall behind him, he was telling them how his band was going to be bigger than Pearl Jam, Guns N’ Roses, or Nine Inch Nails.

  Buddy was drinking beer, and Amy’s mother was sipping white wine. Watching Buddy’s glass empty and be filled again, Amy felt a knot in her stomach. She saw all the danger signs, recognized every single one for what it was. The more Buddy drank, the worse it always got.

  First, her mother served fish sticks. Buddy’s skinny lips thinned to nothing when he saw that. Fish, even frozen little bland cutouts, reminded Buddy of Amy’s father, the fact that Amy’s mother had been married before. But Buddy said nothing: He was still feeling too good, and a soon-to-be-Grammy-winning rock star was better than a lost-at-sea fisherman, he knew.

  Second, her mother requested James Taylor. Midway through the Tool CD, which was loud and obnoxious as dinner music, Amy’s mother had gently asked if anyone would mind a little James. Buddy hadn’t objected, but it was clear that he did mind. His lips and eyes both disappeared: turned into straight lines. James Taylor had started it all. Because his music had touched Amy’s mother’s heart, and that had made her feel sad again, and then she’d started looking at old photo albums, and pretty soon she was sitting on the sofa, tears running down her face as she stared at pictures of Amy’s father.

  Now, the next day, Amy tiptoed to her mother’s door and tapped lightly.

  “Mom?” she whispered. “Mama?”

  The dog whimpered a little more loudly. Knowing he wouldn’t make a sound if Buddy was home, Amy felt emboldened to push open the door. Her mother’s room was darkest on rainy days. The curtains and blinds were both pulled, double protection against the lack of sun. Rain drummed on the roof. Her mother was huddled in bed as if she hadn’t moved all day.

  Amy moved closer, feeling scared. The room smelled disgusting, not just old cigarettes and Buddy’s beer, but bathroom smells like Julia’s diaper pail. At Julia’s it was kind of nice, but here it seemed evil. Amy couldn’t explain it, but it made her want to shake her mother as hard as she could, yelling in her loudest voice.

  At the same time, it made Amy feel too shy to move. Standing at the end of her mother’s bed, she stared and stared. “Mom?” she whispered. “Mom, will you wake up? I want to ask you something….”

  It felt awful to be afraid to wake up her own mother. When had she started feeling this way? When Buddy moved in with them. Three years, four months, and two weeks ago. That’s when.

  “Mom!” Amy said loudly.

  Her mother groaned.

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” Amy said. The previous night she had felt so sorry for her mother, hearing Buddy yell at her, hearing the slaps and her mother’s screams. Amy had lain in her bed, covers over her head, thinking of things to do. She could call the police, get a neighbor, hold Buddy at bay with a kitchen knife. But she hadn’t known what to do, what her mother would want, so she hadn’t acted.

  “Ohhh,” her mother whimpered.

  “Mom!” Amy shouted, feeling growing rage. What was her smart, pretty, funny mother doing wrapped up like a cocooned caterpillar in the middle of the day? She should be painting a picture, writing a poem, fixing Amy a snack.

  “Get up!” Amy said, gr
abbing her mother’s shoulder, rolling her over.

  At the sight of her mother’s face, Amy felt relief and disgust. The skin was unmarked; no bruises or swelling like that horrible time she remembered a few months back. But if her mother was okay, why was she in bed?

  “Amy, I couldn’t sleep last night,” her mother said. “Let me sleep.”

  “Mom, let’s go.”

  “Go?” her mother asked.

  “Let’s leave. Let’s get away from here.” As Amy spoke, she felt many things. She would miss Dianne, Julia, and Dr. McIntosh-miss them like crazy. But she and her mother could escape. They could start fresh, go somewhere else. Her mother would go back to feeling happier, the way she’d been before Buddy came. They could get a motor home like the Winnebago at the picnic area and visit beautiful places, see canyons and mountains and northern bays full of whales.

  But her mother just lay there, staring at the ceiling, while Amy’s enthusiasm gathered steam. “We have our money,” she said, referring to the settlement they’d gotten from her father’s fishing fleet. “We could move somewhere new! Mom, it would be so good. We’d get away from Buddy. …”

  “Last night wasn’t Buddy’s fault,” her mother said. “I started it.”

  “No,” Amy said. “All you did was request James Taylor.”

  “I got stupid and sloppy,” her mother said. “I make myself sick when I cry like that-what can I expect other people to think?”

  “I heard him hit you,” Amy said.

  Her mother shook her head. Was she denying the truth? It made Amy so mad, she yanked back the covers, looking for the bruise. There-on her mother’s upper arm. A rotten black-and-blue oval. And others on her chest.

  “There,” Amy said, pointing.

  “Amy, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Go watch TV.”

  “If you worked, you’d feel better,” Amy said. Staring at her mother lying in bed, she thought of Dianne. With Julia always needing to be adjusted in her chair, or needing to have her diaper changed, or to be fed, Dianne still found time to work hard all day long. Sometimes Amy saw Dianne looking just as troubled as her own mother, but she just kept working anyway. Instead of feeling sorry for her mother at that moment, Amy nearly hated her. Seeing those bruises, watching her just lie in bed … Why doesn’t she get up?

  “You know we’re doing fine, Amy,” her mother said. “The settlement should last a long time.”

  “You shouldn’t give any to Buddy,” Amy said. “For his stupid beer.”

  “You don’t understand,” her mother said.

  “He’s using you,” Amy said.

  “Shhh. You don’t understand.”

  “Why are we with someone so mean?” Amy asked, something inside her melting fast. “We’re not bad, are we? Did I do something?”

  “Amy, let me sleep.”

  “Mama,” Amy began, her chest starting to crack with all the tears she kept inside. She didn’t feel hate, only love. Only love, she wanted to say, sick with guilt for hating her own mother, her very own mother.

  “Go watch TV,” her mother said again, sounding sick and frantic.

  Amy tried to catch her breath. Didn’t her mother notice that today was unusual? That Amy had spent the day at home instead of going to Dianne and Julia’s? Didn’t she miss Amy when she wasn’t there? Didn’t she notice anything at all? But instead of asking those questions, Amy let out one sharp sob and quickly left the room.

  Dianne’s music collection was romantic and out-of-date. Some of it had belonged to her parents, some was the music she had listened to as a young girl, wasting long hours dreaming of boys. Songs of desire, something no man could fulfill, and when she put them on now, she would sing them to Julia: “This Guy’s in Love with You,” “Sweet Caroline,” “If Not for You,” “The Look of Love.”

  Dianne had the Supremes playing. She sang her lungs out. Work was impossible today. This was a mother-daughter moment if ever there was one. Julia, still so tiny and young-looking, was on the verge of womanhood. Dianne smiled, frowned, shook her head, stared out the window, sang, paced, came back to Julia. She took Julia’s right hand.

  “I have so much to tell you,” she said.

  Julia’s head swayed, and her left hand began to drift.

  Diana Ross hit a high note. Dianne smiled.

  “You’re one of us, honey,” Dianne said to Julia.

  “Dleee,” Julia said.

  What’s next, Dianne thought-her period, a bra? Dianne remembered herself at Julia’s age. She had spent hours staring at lingerie ads in her mother’s magazines. One day she and her best friend, Margie, had stayed home from school and tried on Margie’s older sister’s underwear, dreaming of the time they, too, would wear bras.

  Breasts were the main thing. Dianne had them now and barely even gave them a second thought. But back then … Dianne had spent hours obsessing over when she’d get them. Lucinda had sat her down one day. She had told her the facts of life. The talk was straightforward and funny. She had brought library books for diagrams and illustrations.

  “Okay, honey,” Lucinda said, pointing at a red and blue drawing of the female reproductive system. She explained menstruation, ovulation, cramps, and bleeding. Dianne stared, aghast at the thought of anything so revolting. Fallopian tubes deep in her very own body? No, thank you.

  “It might look confusing on the page and sound scary in your head,” Lucinda said, “but it’s not. It’s just paying attention to your body. Taking care of yourself, you know?”

  “Like getting a cold?” Dianne asked.

  “No, you’re not getting sick! I’m supposed to tell you it’s wondrous and miraculous and amazing, but it’s mainly just annoying. That’s all. You go to Lay-ton’s and buy pads, you go through them fast and furious the first few days, and then you slack off. I swear, I think the government should subsidize sanitary napkins. Why should women get stuck with a whole huge monthly expense that men know nothing about?”

  “Does it hurt?” Dianne asked.

  Lucinda smiled. “I wish I could say it doesn’t, but sometimes it does. It’s a funny feeling, kind of like waiting for a storm. Once the clouds open up, it’s all over and you feel better. You feel fine.”

  “This happens every month?” Dianne asked gloomily.

  “Every twenty-eight days,” Lucinda said, patting her hand.

  “Gross, Mom.”

  “Honey, look at this picture,” Lucinda said, pointing at the headless red and blue road-map body. The artist had given it an hourglass figure, with voluptuous curves and a tiny waist. “That’s the secret of the universe,” Dianne’s mother said. “It’s you-right there. You’re a woman, and you’re amazing. Don’t get mixed up thinking you’re weak or dainty or moody or any of the other things people-men-tell you when you have your period. Don’t be one of those girls who has to miss gym and go to the nurse.”

  Dianne listened.

  “Don’t let people tell you your feelings aren’t real, just monthly blowups. Don’t be someone who blames every little thing on your period, because you’ll only trivialize yourself if you do. And you are not trivial, my darling.”

  “Oh, Mom.”

  “Some women call it the curse,” Lucinda said. “Or my little friend. I don’t see it those ways. It’s just a period. Like the tide’s the tide and the wind’s the wind.”

  “The curse sounds about right,” Dianne said, staring at the veiny diagram in the anatomy book, still feeling the newfound horror of having a uterus, cervix, and labia. “I really look like that inside?”

  “Yep. So does Margie. So do I. But you know the greatest thing?”

  “What?” Dianne had asked.

  “You came out of there. And when you’re ready to have your baby, so will she.”

  Dianne stared at that baby now: Julia. What would happen when Julia started getting cramps?

  What would she think was going on in there? Dianne wanted to show her a body diagram and help her make sense of it all. She kiss
ed Julia’s hand, then pressed her cheek to Julia’s soft skin.

  “Julia,” she said. “What are you thinking?”

  “Gaaa,” Julia said.

  Dianne had bills to send out, catalogue copy to compose, and a checkbook to balance. The rain slanted down, blowing straight off the marsh with gale force. She wished they could see open water, because she had an idea.

  “This storm is from the south,” Dianne said, carrying Julia to the car. “Feel how warm it is?”

  The rain came down hard, like driving bathwater. Dianne imagined it blowing up from Florida, across Cape Hatteras, over palm trees and barrier islands. She buckled Julia into the truck. She scanned the radio dial, listening for female voices: No men would do today. When she heard Blondie singing “Dreaming,” she left it there.

  They drove straight into downtown Hawthorne. The tide was up, and the boatyards were flooded. Alan’s office was in one of the old brick buildings, and Dianne glanced up. Then she looked out at the storm; taking a deep breath, she held her daughter’s hand.

  Does it hurt? Dianne had asked her mother. A storm, Lucinda had said …

  At thirteen Dianne had felt her body was a storm. She had swallowed a hurricane, and it felt like it would rip her apart. Her period came, she eventually got breasts, she began secretly pining for boys. But her mother had given Dianne words to match to her feelings.

  How was it for Julia? She looked like a tiny child. She didn’t know any boys, and what would she think if she did? Her body was acting just like every other preteen girl’s, whether her head knew it or not.

  “My grown-up girl,” Dianne said.

  Julia made a crying sound.

  “Look, Julia,” Dianne said, pointing at the water. Beyond the yacht club, the harbor was thrashing around. Waves broke over the jetties, sending rockets of spray up into the air. Dianne reached across the front seat. She placed her right hand on her daughter’s abdomen.

  “It’s the same thing,” Dianne whispered. “There … and there.”

  Could Julia understand? Dianne wanted to tell her it was all okay. She wanted to explain the birds and the bees, the sorrows of menstruation, the complicated joys of womanhood.