Waiting for a Star to Fall

by Kerry Clare

  Ann returns for this part of the story, because she knows it best. She spent the next year at Derek’s hospital bedside, advocating for his care, while Jim and the church community held down the fort at home.

  “He’d suffered burns to 40 percent of his body,” Ann explains. “The skin grafts were agonizing and seeing him like that—I thought at that time—would be the worst thing I’d ever experience.”

  “It changed everything,” says Derek. “I mean, it changed my life, our family, it changed the way I’ll always look. But most important, it changed the way I see the world, because it made me realize: What are we here for, if not to take care of each other?” He’s not just talking about his heroic action, but he also means the firefighters who responded to the call, the care he received in the hospital, the medical staff who, he says, “went beyond the call of duty,” and the community fundraisers—car washes, bake sales, and a benefit concert—that raised thousands of dollars to support the family.

  “Society is all we have,” says Derek. “And those of us who can, have an obligation to lift each other up.” It’s an idealism at odds with the individualism that had been his father’s political foundation, which has certainly led to rifts over the years, slamming doors and emotional spats, but that’s standard for any family with teenagers.

  Jim explains, “I’m proud of him. I am. I don’t agree with everything he says, and I think the world is going to teach him a lesson or two, but I really do see him as a testament to our family’s values. He goes out into the world and does good. He chooses to do that. Nobody makes him.”

  “And after what happened to me—the mercy and the blessings I received,” says Derek, “how could I not want to pay that back?” As a teenager, he started working with the church youth group, doing outreach to the city’s poor and downtrodden, helping to establish addiction counseling services, an employment assistance program, a co-op day care, and a food bank with a cooperative garden and nutrition programs. Derek was leading the group in 1997 when they came under fire by the church for their work on sexual health programs, which were seen as promoting promiscuity and being contrary to religious doctrine.

  “It was awful,” said Derek. “St. Stephens was my home. My parents were married there. It’s where I was baptized. They were my family, my community. But they were asking me to compromise on something I knew in my heart was true, and people would suffer if I followed their advice. I couldn’t abide by that.”

  “We’re proud of him,” Ann says. “Like his dad says, we don’t agree on everything. I don’t think we ought to be giving kids license to be sexually active. That’s not how I was raised. That’s not how we raised our own kids. But I know that what Derek’s doing comes from the very best place. It’s a real kind of faith, what he’s got, really, to think we can get along in a world without rules.”

  “We’ve learned,” adds Jim, with a chuckle, “that there’s no telling Derek what to do.”

  Derek ultimately left St. Stephens, but continued his work in social justice.

  “My faith is important to me,” Derek says. “My parents instilled that, and it’s never faltered. But I needed to be part of a community whose mission was to bring hope to the hopeless, health to the sick, and food to the poor. To not let dogma keep us from seizing every opportunity to do good.”

  It was a difficult period for the family. “Derek leaving the church was a loss,” says Ann. “St. Stephens was our center, and when one of us isn’t there anymore, the center is broken. That was really hard to deal with.”

  At the same time, their youngest son Carl was experiencing his own challenges, eventually seeking solace in drugs and alcohol. “It was like he became a different person,” Jim says. “Overnight, really.”

  “He was my baby,” says Ann. “My sweet baby boy—and then suddenly he was a stranger, and it was like living with a time bomb—you never knew what was going to set him off.”

  “And we just weren’t equipped to handle it,” said Jim. “Used all the tools in the toolbox, you know. At the church, at school. He was in rehab. It cost a fortune.”

  “It was Derek who never gave up,” explains Ann. “Helped the rest of us keep going, like somebody who sets the pace. I don’t know where we’d be today without him.”

  Carl passed away at the age of 17, when Derek was in his second year of law school.

  “And he put the whole thing on hold,” says Jim, tearing up. “He came back here, and he held us all together, and he made us go to church even though it was hard to find a reason. He made sure his sisters didn’t have to pay a price, promised them that he’d be here to take care of us. And he did. He really did.”

  When Derek Murdoch blushes, the scars that have faded to become part of his healthy tanned complexion are more prominent, standing out in pink. He pats his father on the shoulder, and says, “You pick yourself up again. What else can you do? You’ve got to find the light.” The family did this by establishing an annual fundraising drive for the rehabilitation center whose staff worked so hard to give Carl the support he’d needed. The Carl Murdoch Fund supports low-income families whose loved ones are battling addiction and who would otherwise be unable to access the programs that might save their lives, the programs the Murdochs had hoped might save their son.

  “We re-mortgaged our house,” remembers Ann. “And the church helped. St. Stephens was there when we, when Carl, needed them. And at least we have the peace of knowing we tried everything. I can’t imagine the agony of parents who can’t do that. No one should ever have to be put in that position.”

  This principle should not suggest that Derek Murdoch’s parents have shifted their long-held perspectives on socialized healthcare, however. Jim says, “I’ve seen the bureaucracy firsthand, all the wait-lists and the red tape. It doesn’t work. It’s not the answer.”

  Derek blushing again, but this time with a smile. “But there’s never just one answer,” he says. “There’s lots of answers, and expanding access to mental health services—more beds, more doctors—is a huge part of it. But also alleviating poverty, creating jobs and better support in schools, helping families in crisis. These are the tools for progress.” He’s got his arm around his father’s shoulders now, each of them offering different solutions to the same puzzle.

  Derek dismisses the idea that such family harmony is remarkable. “This is what family is,” he says. “My parents gave me their values, but they also gave me the freedom to go into the world and make my own choices. Nothing was learned by rote in our home. All of it—the faith, commitment to service, the relationship with God—it had to mean something. Because if it doesn’t, what’s the point?”

  Derek’s sisters testify to him being “the best big brother ever.”

  “He took the load off the rest of us when Carl passed away,” says Tracey, an elementary school teacher. “And he’s been there for us ever since.” Her sister, Heather, is a local real estate agent, and lives around the corner from her parents. Heather’s three children love spending weekends with their uncle at his house in the country, just outside of Lanark.

  Has his high profile changed things? The sisters laugh.

  “We used to always go to the Santa Claus Parade,” says Heather. “It was a really big deal, but Derek doesn’t come with us anymore. He doesn’t need to wait on the curb. Because he’s in it. He’s basically more important than Santa. They should probably change the name to the Derek Murdoch Parade.”

  “But he’s the same guy he always was,” Tracey explains. “He’s had the same friends since he was in school, and they all still go out together like they always did, before the politics happened. He still likes to have fun. He’s still my big brother.”

  Heather is nodding emphatically. “None of it has gone to his head.”

  This is his town, though, and when he walks down the street, people stop to say hello, and he asks them about their grandchildren, t
heir kitchen renovations. When they want to talk to him about hip replacements and problems with hospital wait times, he listens attentively. He keeps a spiral notebook in his pocket where he writes things down, reminders. He wants to be accountable. He says, “I do my best to follow up on everything.” And it’s a commitment that’s served him well in his work. The common perception is that Derek is not one of those politicians, the ones who are only in it for themselves.

  “He’s one of us,” says Audrey Ames, who owns the Delicious Donuts store on River Street. “He’s never forgotten where he came from. In fact, where he came from is the reason for everything. Nobody loves this town like Derek does. He really walks the walk.”

  Wednesday Morning

  Brooke could have made things easier for herself—she could have just moved home. Her parents would have welcomed her, and her childhood bedroom had been preserved like it was a museum, her Obama “Yes We Can” poster still blue-tacked to the door—but that was the problem. To arrive back at the place she’d started from—the same floral comforter, too-flat pillow, tattered blinds—as though the past five years had never happened, nothing to show for it. So instead she went online and found listings for roommates, filtering out the college students because she was so over that, and ended up with Lauren, who worked at Jean Machine and whose fiancé was heading out west for a job in the oilfields.

  Her apartment was one in a row of buildings Brooke had always seen from the car as a child, intrigued by the rows of gas meters and multiple doorbells at the entrance. What kind of people lived in houses like that? Everyone she knew lived in a proper house, with a big green lawn and a two-car garage. As Jacqui Whynacht had noted, Lanark was a buyer’s market, and holing up in a rental unit was a last resort for the down and out. While Brooke wasn’t there yet, buying a house required a commitment she wasn’t willing to make, as well as money she didn’t have. And of course it was scary, having all her pieces up in the air with no idea where they’d come down again—but she tried to take heart in the fact of still not knowing, in all the possibilities. Which was the way she attempted to tell herself that having had the world torn out from under her might prove edifying in the end—though in her darker moments she found the arguments unconvincing.

  But the pieces in the air were the reason she now awoke to dim light from narrow rectangular windows tucked in just below the ceiling. When she forgot to close the curtains at night, she could see shoes and sandals passing by on the sidewalk in the morning, and the view was strangely compelling. Because where was everybody going? She’d gauge the weather by choices in footwear, since she couldn’t see the sky.

  Her room had been Lauren’s boyfriend Jer’s exercise room, and all his equipment was still there, pushed up against the wall. He’d only taken what he could pack in a bag, and so now Brooke used his bench press to hang her laundry to dry. And when the laundry was put away, there was no sign that anyone lived here, no photos or posters on display, not even a book by the bedside. She had brought nothing but the mattress. Just her phone plugged in, charging, charging.

  She sat up and pushed the hair out of her face and checked the notifications on her phone. There he was, throwing her heartbeat into palpitations. At three o’clock in the morning, which would mean any number of things, he’d texted. Hey B. Can’t tell you what it means to have your support, but then you always know. Am lying low, but hoping to be home on Friday. Just what the doctor ordered, I suspect. x D.

  She began hauling herself out of bed. He was coming back. Not necessarily the best news from a strategic perspective, because shouldn’t he be at work in the city, rescuing his reputation and clearing his name? If he was lying low, it indicated that he’d lost all hope. But even if Derek had lost hope, it would be good to have him close. This was the first she’d heard from him since July, and maybe it would be good for her if his mind wasn’t on his job for once.

  She went into the kitchen, where Lauren was drinking her coffee before her mid-morning shift. On the table in front of her, two pizza crusts on a plate. “Thanks for that.” Brooke had brought home extra pizza the night before and left it in the fridge with a sticky note.

  “You heard from Jer?” she asked. Lauren’s boyfriend had been gone since his two weeks of leave back in August. Brooke had heard Lauren talking to him on the phone late into the night, her tone hostile and aggressive until he managed to talk her down and she started crying. The walls in this place were basically made of crepe paper.

  Lauren said, “Finally.” She’d been waiting three days for a call, and Jer hadn’t been answering any of her texts. She was beginning to get worried—not even six months into a long-distance relationship, this didn’t bode well. “His battery died. He lost his charger.” She shrugged. “That’s what he said.”

  “It sounds plausible,” said Brooke. How easy was it to pop out for a phone charger in the middle of an oilfield? She was checking her own emails now, considering again what it meant that nobody she used to work with had bothered to reach out. Most of the messages in her inbox were, as usual, offers from brands whose newsletters she’d never signed up for, but there was one message that she clicked on. Shondra Decker, a reporter for the Daily Observer, wondering if Brooke would have a moment for a chat. No comment, she murmured to herself, and deleted the message. She asked Lauren, “So he’s okay?”

  Lauren said, “He’s fine.” She took one last gulp of her coffee. “It’s just kind of hard?” Everything Lauren said sounded like a question.

  And Brooke said, “I know.” She did. Perhaps no one could understand how difficult the last twenty-four hours had been for Brooke better than Lauren, all these things happening to someone you love who’s impossibly far away. In a cultural moment when all communication is so urgent and instantaneous, it only deepens the void when suddenly there’s just none.

  “I mean, it’s not forever,” said Lauren. “And if it’s too hard, I can go out there, or he can come back. We’ve got it better than a lot of people, but I just want to make sure we’re on the same wavelength about where we are, and where we’re going. I thought we were, but now he’s far away—how can you tell?”

  Exactly. And Jer and Lauren had been together for years. So if Lauren didn’t know where she was with her partner, what hope did Brooke have for getting her and Derek back on track? A question that recalled the words of her best friend Carly: “Lady, you’re doing this to yourself.”

  BEFORE

  Brooke kept Derek’s card after their second encounter at Slappin’ Nellie’s, and sent him an email once she was back in the city. They were always looking for young people who wanted to work in politics, he’d said, and Brooke needed a job for the summer so she wouldn’t end up back in Lanark, slinging pizzas. Derek’s assistant followed up on the application, Brooke got an interview, and she was hired. She would be working as a paid intern at his office, doing administrative work and helping to manage volunteers, part of a team performing supportive roles. It would also turn out to be the best summer of her life. She’d already moved off campus into the house she’d live in for the next four years, a place shared with six other students and christened The Den of Debauchery, although the name was purely aspirational. Mostly, she just loved having her own room in the city, and a job that didn’t involve cooking grease. There were five of them in the team hired that summer, all of them girls who were young and pretty, with a bit of cultural diversity among them—Brooke and Nadia were white, but Kelly was Korean, Anjali’s family background was Indian, and Eliza was Indigenous on her mother’s side.

  In the beginning, for Brooke, it had been like playing grown-ups, shopping for office attire, organizing the items on her desk, and practicing her best telephone voice—but then two things became quite clear. First, that there was no “playing” about it, because she was part of a team dealing with real people and real issues, and it was a real baptism by fire in the high stakes of politics. But the second thing was that beca
use of the seriousness, a little “play” was more than necessary among the team, and so every night after work they’d all go out together. Very quickly Brooke felt close and bonded with these people, even the hardened veterans who had been at it for years, and such distinctions fell away during the time they all spent together. Soon Brooke’s roommates were wondering why they never saw her anymore, and her other friends were asking why she was avoiding them. Which she would have to reassure them about, she kept telling herself, as soon as she found the time to return her friends’ calls. But there never managed to be enough time for that, and soon work and politics had become Brooke’s entire world.

  And it was a world that revolved around Derek, even when he wasn’t there, and he wasn’t there at all until her second week in the office. He had been away on a trip to India in conjunction with the Board of Trade, and on his first day back, the difference in the office was palpable, the atmosphere buzzing, everyone speaking in voices slightly hushed and deferential, and Brooke would learn that no one dared profess their opinions on anything until the matter had been cleared with Derek first.

  His office door was closed—he was notorious for coming in early, before anybody else—and he didn’t emerge until halfway through the morning when his assistant, Petra, brought him around for introductions, to acquaint him with the pool of new girls who were going to be his for the summer. He singled Brooke right out of the crowd, giving her a hug. Brooke was the only one in the group who had met him before, which afforded her a kind of status among her colleagues. Later that day, over lunch out in the park, she would tell them all the story of their first encounter and how she thought he was going to have her thrown out of the bar. She liked the way her anecdote complicated everybody’s idea of the kind of person Derek was, and suggested she knew him better than anyone.