Читать книгу Follow the Stars Home - Luanne Rice - Страница 6

Conscious only of bright light and searing pain in her arm and head, Dianne moaned. Her eyes tried to focus. Shapes swam before her, green beings saying her name over and over.

“Dianne?” she heard. “Dianne, can you hear me?”

“Mrs. McIntosh, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Amy …”

“Hold steady, that’s right.” She felt the pressure of a hand on her forehead. The Plaza, Christmas lights. Headlights came at her, and she cried out. But they weren’t headlights. A man in green was standing there, shining a light in her face.

“Dianne, do you know where you are?” came a woman’s voice.

“She’s lost so much blood,” a male voice said.

“Her pressure’s dropping,” came another voice.

“Please, help,” she murmured. Was this a nightmare? She could not move, and her thoughts swarmed in her mind. “Julia,” she mouthed, but she had been with Amy, hadn’t she? Julia was at home with her mother. Alan should be here … if he came, he would know what to do. He would save her. Memory fragments began to materialize, shifting around like parts of a terrible puzzle.

“Mrs. McIntosh,” the nurse said gently. “Amy is being taken care of. Everything we can do is being done. You need to be strong. Stay with us.”

Dianne’s mind was fuzzy with pain and injury and blood loss and whatever drugs they had given her. She felt herself losing consciousness. She wished she could open the door and walk through the snow to the marsh. Trying to see, her eyes would hardly focus. She was in New York. That’s right, they had come to New York to see The Nutcracker.

Shivering, thinking of Amy’s imagined terror, Dianne cried out in anguish.

“Stay with us, Dianne,” one voice said. “Mrs. McIntosh!” called another.

She thought of her home by the Connecticut marshes, her mother and daughter, and Alan. The nurse had called her “Mrs. McIntosh” as if she were still married to Tim. A long time ago Dianne had dated both McIntosh brothers. They had both loved her, and at different times she had loved each of them. Alan was day, Tim was night. Dianne, for whom life had always been gentle, fair, and kind, had chosen the brother with a dark side. She had married Tim, and she had paid a price.

But over the last three magical seasons, she and Alan had started to come back together. For the first time in eleven years, Dianne had just started to love again, and now she lay in this strange bed in a New York hospital, so far from home, feeling as if she were starting to die. She spun back: winter, fall, summer, all the way to last spring.…

It was April, and the scent of flowering pear trees filled the air of Hawthorne. The trees had been planted one hundred years earlier, along the brick sidewalks around the waterfront, and their blossoms were white, fragile, and delicate. Looking up as she passed underneath, Dianne Robbins wondered how they survived the fresh sea wind that blew in from the east.

“Flowers, Julia,” she said.

Her daughter slept in the wheelchair, unaware. Reaching up, Dianne stood on her toes to grab hold of the lowest branch and break off a twig. Three perfect blossoms curved from thread-fine stems. The petals were pure white, soft pink in the center. Dianne thought they were beautiful, the more so because they lasted so short a time. The flowering pears of Hawthorne stayed in bloom less than a week.

Julia had once seen a flower and said “la,” her first word. So Dianne placed the twig on her sleeping child’s lap and continued on. She passed White Chapel Square, named for the three churches that surrounded it. The sea captains’ houses came next, gleaming white Federals with wide columns and green-black shutters, overlooking the harbor and lighthouse. Dianne had always dreamed of living in one of these houses, ever since she was a child.

She slowed in front of the one she loved most. It had an ornate wrought-iron fence surrounding the big yard and sea-flower meadow. At age nine Dianne had stood there gripping the black fence rails and imagining her life as a grown-up. She would be an architect and have a wonderful husband, beautiful children, two golden dogs, and they would all live blissfully in this house on the harbor.

Glancing at her daughter, Dianne pushed the wheelchair faster. The breeze had picked up, and it was cold for April. Low clouds scudded across the sky, making her wonder about rain. They had been early, with time for a walk after parking the car. But now it was almost three o’clock, time for Julia’s appointment with her uncle, Dr. Alan McIntosh.

Alan McIntosh sat as his desk while Mrs. Beaudoin went through Billy’s latest pictures in search of the perfect one for the Wall. She was a very young mother – Billy was her first baby – and Alan had long since learned that every patient’s mother’s goal was to see her child properly enshrined in the collage of photos hanging behind his desk.

“In this one he’s drooling,” she said, smiling and proudly handing it over nevertheless. “And in this one he’s squinting. He looks just like an old man!”

“He is one,” Alan said, cradling Billy in one arm while he wrote out a prescription for ear drops with his other. “Six months on Tuesday.”

Martha Blake, his nurse, appeared at the door. She raised her eyebrows, as if to ask whether Alan needed help in hurrying Mrs. Beaudoin along. He’d had an emergency at the hospital that morning, so now he was backed up with a packed waiting room. He’d been so busy, he hadn’t had time for lunch, and at that moment his stomach let out such a loud grumble that Billy’s brown eyes flew open with surprise.

“I like this one where he’s squinting,” Alan said, glancing over for permission to hang the picture on the Wall. “He looks like he’s thinking deep thoughts.”

Walking Mrs. Beaudoin to the door, he gave her the prescription and told her to keep Billy’s ears dry when she bathed him. His office was in an old brush factory dating back to the early 1800s, and some of the doorways were very low, built for humans two hundred years shorter of bone. Alan, six four since eighth grade, had to duck to walk through.

When he straightened, he saw the waiting room packed with patients: mothers and children everywhere. Children sniffling, huddled at their mothers’ sides, trying to read picture books, their big eyes looking in his direction as if the big, bad wolf had just stepped off the page. Only two children looked happy to see him, and they filled his heart with the kind of gratitude he had become a doctor to feel. They were both young girls, just a year apart in age, and only one of them had an appointment.

Amy was sitting in the big playhouse in the corner. She was twelve, slight, with silky, uncombed brown hair and big green eyes, and she was theoretically too old to be playing there. Hidden in shadows, she ducked down so she couldn’t be seen by any of the mothers, but she gave Alan a wide grin. He gave her a secret smile, letting her know he was playing the game and would find time to talk to her later.

Julia was in her wheelchair. She had huge, eloquent eyes. When she smiled, every tooth in her mouth showed. Seeing Alan, she let out a bellow of joy, causing her mother to lean over from behind and wrap her in a hug. Dianne Robbins laughed out loud, pressing her lips against Julia’s pale cheek. When Dianne looked up, the expression in her blue eyes made her look as happy and carefree as a young girl sailing. Alan started to say he was running late, but something about the moment left him temporarily unable to speak, so he just walked back into his office.

Amy Brooks was invisible. She was as clear as her name: a clean brook that ran over rocks and stones and pebbles, under fallen trees and arched bridges, through dark woods and sunny meadows. Amy was water. People might look in her direction, but they’d see right through her to things on the other side.

Amy felt safe there in Dr. McIntosh’s playhouse, and she wasn’t sure which part was best. Knowing that Dr. McIntosh was in the next room or sitting in the little house itself. Some lady in Hawthorne had made it to look just like one of those white mansions down by the water. Outside, it had glistening white clapboards and dark green shutters that closed. The heavy blue door swung on brass hinges, with a bronze sea horse door knocker.

A little kid knocked on the door, wanting to come in.

“Grrrr,” Amy growled, like the new puppy in the cage at home. The little kid couldn’t see her because she was invisible, but he could hear her. That was enough.

“Mine again,” Amy whispered to the house.

Glancing at her father’s watch, a huge Timex weighing down her wrist, she wondered what time Dr. McIntosh would see her. She had had a good day at school – she was a sixth-grader at Hawthorne Middle, three blocks from his office – and she had purposely missed the bus to tell him about it. Just then she heard a strange noise.

It was a kid: From across the room, some child with its back to Amy started making funny sounds, like water trying to flow through a broken pipe. Its mother was pretty, like the golden-haired mother in storybooks, with silver-blue eyes and a smile meant only for the child. The two mothers on either side bent double like jackknives trying to get a peek at what was wrong. The kid’s ratchety noise turned pretty, like a dolphin singing, and suddenly the kid’s mother joined in.

The nurse called them, and they disappeared down the corridor. The mother caught Amy’s eyes as she passed the playhouse. She smiled but just kept going. When the office door shut behind them, Amy missed their odd song.

“Pretty music,” Alan said.

“Julia was singing,” Dianne said, holding her daughter’s hand as the young girl rolled her eyes. “I just joined in.”

“Hi, Julia,” Alan said. He crouched beside Julia’s wheelchair, smoothing the white-blond hair back from her face. She leaned into his hand for an instant, eyes closed with what appeared to be deep trust. Dianne stood back, watching.

Alan spoke to Julia. His tone was rich and low, the voice of a very big man. But he spoke gently to Julia, tender and unthreatening, and the girl bowed her head and sighed contentedly. He was her uncle; he had been her doctor for the eleven years she had been alive. In spite of their history, the awkwardness between them, Dianne would never take Julia to anyone else.

Alan encircled Julia with his arms, easily lifting her onto the exam table. She weighed very little: twenty-nine pounds at the last visit. She was a fairy child, with a perfect face and misshapen body. Her head bobbed against her chest, her thin arms flailing slowly about as if she were swimming in the bay. She was wearing jeans, and a navy blue Gap sweatshirt over her T-shirt, and Dr. McIntosh must have just tickled her because she suddenly gasped. At the sound, Dianne turned away.

She let herself have this fantasy: Julia was healthy, “normal.” She was just like all the other kids in the outer office. She could read books and draw pictures, and when you took her hand, it wasn’t ice cold. She would jump and dance and demand her favorite cereal. Dianne would know that her favorite color was blue because Julia said so, not from hours of watching for slight changes of expression as Dianne pointed at colors on a page: red, yellow, green, blue.

Blue! Is that the one you like most, Julia? Blue, sweetheart?

To be a mother and know your own child’s heart: Dianne couldn’t imagine anything more incredible. Could Julia even distinguish colors, or was Dianne just kidding herself? Julia could not answer Dianne’s questions. She made sounds, which experts had told Dianne were not words at all. When she said “la,” it did not mean “flower”; it was only a sound.

“How are you, Dianne?” Alan asked.

“Fine, Alan.”

“Julia and I were just having a talk.”

“You were?”

“Yep. She says you’re working too hard. Every kid in Hawthorne wants a playhouse, and you’re backed up till Christmas.”

Dianne swallowed. Nervous today, she couldn’t manage the small talk. She was at her worst during Julia’s exams. Her nerves were raw, and just then Alan reminded Dianne of his brother, of being left, and the worst of everything that could happen to her child; waiting for him to examine Julia made her want to scream.

Julia had been born with defects. A blond angel, she had spina bifida and Rett syndrome, a condition similar to autism. No talking, no for-sure affection. There was the maybe affection, where she’d kiss Dianne’s face and Dianne wasn’t really sure whether it was a real kiss or just a lip spasm. Dianne tended toward optimism, and she gave each smooch the benefit of the doubt every time.

Since birth Julia had had thirteen surgeries. Many trips to the hospitals – here, in Providence, and in Boston – had produced wear and tear on the spirit, sitting in those oddly similar waiting rooms, wondering whether Julia would survive the procedure. Hydrocephalus had developed after one operation, and for a time Dianne had had to get used to a shunt in her baby’s brain to drain off the excess fluid.

Dianne, so desperate to lash out at Tim, would often talk to herself.

“Hello! Darling! Kindly bring me a sponge – I seem to have spilled this little bowl full of our daughter’s brain water. Oh, you’ve left for good? Never mind, I’ll get it myself.”

Dianne’s heart never knew which way to twist. She teetered between hope and rage, love and terror. She hated Tim for leaving, Alan for reminding her of his brother, all doctors for being able to keep Julia alive but not being able to cure her. But Dianne loved Julia with a simple heart. Her daughter was innocent and pure.

Julia could not walk, hold things, or eat solid food. She would not grow much bigger. Her limbs looked jumbled and broken; the bones in her body were askew. Her body was her prison, and it failed her at every turn.

Her organs were hooked up wrong. Most of those early surgeries had been to correctly connect her stomach, bladder, bowels, and to protect the bulging sac on her smooth little baby back containing her meninges and spinal cord. Julia was the baby every pregnant mother feared having, and Dianne loved her so much, she thought her own heart would crack.

“You okay?” Alan asked.

“Just do the exam,” Dianne said, sweating. “Please, Alan.”

She took off all but Julia’s T-shirt and diaper. They had been in this very room, on this exact table, so many times. Alan was frowning now, his feelings hurt. Dianne wanted to apologize, but her throat was too tight. Her stomach was in a knot: She was extra upset this visit, her fear and intuition in high, high gear, and it wasn’t going to get better till after Alan did the exam.

Unsnapping Julia’s T-shirt, Alan began to pass the silver disc across Julia’s concave chest. His wavy brown hair was going gray, and his steel-rimmed glasses were sliding down his nose. He often had a quizzical, distant expression in his hazel eyes, as if his mind were occupied with higher math, but right then he was totally focused on Julia’s heart.

“Can you hear anything?” she asked.

He didn’t reply.

Dianne bit her lip so hard it hurt. This was the part of the exam Dianne feared the most. But she watched him, restraining herself and letting him work.

Julia’s body was tiny, her small lungs and kidneys just able to do the job of keeping her alive. If she stopped growing soon, as the endocrinologist predicted she would, her organs would be sufficient. But if she sprouted even another inch, her lungs would be overtaxed and her other systems would give out.

“Her heart sounds good today,” Alan said. “Her lungs too.”

“Really?” Dianne asked, although she had never known him to tell them anything but the truth.

“Yes,” he said. “Really.”

“Good or just okay?”

“Dianne –”

Alan had never promised to fix Julia. Her prognosis since birth had been season by season. They had spent Julia’s whole life waiting for that moment when she would turn the corner. There were times Dianne couldn’t stand the suspense. She wanted to flip through the book, get to the last page, know how it was going to end.

“Really good?” she asked. “Or not?”

“Really good for Julia,” he said. “You know that’s all I can tell you. You know better than anyone, any specialist, what that means.”

“She’s Julia,” Dianne said. The news was as good as she was going to get this visit. She couldn’t speak right away. Her relief was sudden and great, and she had a swift impulse to run full tilt down to the dock, jump in his dinghy, and row into the wind until she exhausted herself.

“For so long,” Dianne said, her eyes brimming, “all I wanted was for her to grow.”

“I know … How’s her eating?”

“Good. Great. Milk shakes, chicken soup, she eats all the time. Right, sweetheart?”

Julia looked up from the table. Her enormous eyes roved from Dianne to Alan and back again. She looked upon her mother with waves of seeming joy and adoration. Her right hand rose, making its way to Dianne’s cheek. As always, Dianne was never sure whether Julia meant to touch her or whether the movement was just a reflex, but she bowed her forehead and let her daughter’s small fingers trail down the side of her face.

“Gaaa,” Julia said. “Gaaa.”

“I know,” Dianne said. “I know, sweetheart.”

Dianne believed her daughter had a sensitive soul, that in spite of her limitations, Julia was capable of deep emotion. Out in the waiting room, with those mothers staring at her, Dianne had started singing along with her, to help Julia feel less alone and embarrassed.

Eleven years earlier she had given her deformed baby the most elegant, dignified name she could think of: Julia. Not Megan, Ellie, Darcy, or even Lucinda, after Dianne’s mother, but Julia. A name with weight for a person of importance. Dianne still remembered a little boy looking through the nursery window, who started to cry because he thought Julia was a monster.

Julia sighed, long and low.

Dianne touched her hand. When she had dreamed of motherhood, she had imagined reading and drawing and playing with her child. They would create family myths as rich as any story in the library. Dianne’s child would inspire her playhouses. Together they would change and grow. Her baby’s progress, her creative and intellectual development, would bring Dianne unimaginable joy.

“That’s my girl,” Alan said, bending down to kiss Julia. As he did, his blue shirt strained across his broad back. And now that the exam was over, other feelings kicked in, the other part of why it was hard to be around Alan. Dianne folded her arms across her chest.

She could see his muscles, his lean waist. The back of his neck was exposed. Staring at it, she had a trapdoor feeling in her stomach. She thought back to when they’d first met. To her amazement, he had asked her out. Dianne had been a shy girl, flattered and intimidated by the young doctor. But then she had gone for his brother instead – dating a lobsterman made much more sense, didn’t it? Life had thrown Dianne and Alan together for the long haul though, and she couldn’t help staring at his body. Oh, my God, she thought, feeling such an overwhelming need to be held.

“I can’t believe Lucinda’s retiring,” Alan said. “Lucky for you and Julia – you’ll have a lot more time with her.”

“I know.” Her mother was the town librarian, and even though she wasn’t leaving until July, people were already beginning to miss her.

When he looked over his shoulder, Dianne bit her lip. This was the crazy thing: She had just been staring at Alan’s body, wishing he would hold her, and now she had the barbed wire up, on guard against his familiar tone, against his even thinking he was part of the family. She couldn’t handle this; the balance was too hard.

“The library won’t be the same without her.”

Dianne glanced at Alan’s wall of pictures, catching her breath. He and her mother shared the same clientele: Alan’s patients learned their library skills from Mrs. Robbins. Julia couldn’t use the library, had never even held a book, but many nights she had been lulled to sleep by her grandmother, the beloved and venerated storyteller of the Hawthorne Public Library.

“We’re lucky,” Dianne said to Alan, half turning away from Julia.

Alan didn’t know what she meant; he hesitated before responding.

“In what way?” Alan asked.

“To have that time you mentioned.”

Wringing her hands, Julia bowed her head. She moaned, but the sound changed to something near glee.

“My mother, me, and Julia,” Dianne continued. “To be together after she retires. Time to do something important before Julia …”

Alan didn’t answer. Was he thinking that she had left him off the list? Dianne started to speak, to correct herself, but instead she stopped. Holding herself tight, she stared at Julia. My girl, she thought. The terrible reality seemed sharper in Alan’s office than it did anywhere else: The day would come when she would leave them.

“Dianne, talk to me,” he said.

He had taken off his glasses, and he rubbed his eyes. He looked so much like Tim just then, Dianne focused down at her shoes. Coming closer, he touched her shoulder.

“I can’t,” she said carefully, stepping away. “Talking about it won’t change things.”

“This is nuts,” he said. “I’m your friend.”

“Don’t, Alan. Please. You’re Julia’s doctor.”

He stared at her, lines of anger and stress in his face.

“I’m a lot more than that,” Alan said, and Dianne’s eyes filled with tears. Without his glasses he looked just like his brother, and at that moment he sounded as dark as Tim had ever been.

Stupid young woman, Dianne thought, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks. She had been full of love. She had chosen the McIntosh she had thought would need her most, take every bit of care she had to offer, heal from the sorrows of his own past. Tim had been brash and mysterious, afraid to open his heart to anyone. Dianne had thought she could change him. She had wanted to save him. Instead, he had left her alone with their baby.

“A lot more than that,” Alan said again.

Still, Dianne wouldn’t look at him. She bent down to kiss Julia, nuzzling her wet face against her daughter’s neck.

“Maaa,” Julia said.

Dianne gulped, trying to pull herself together. Kissing Julia, Dianne got her dressed as quickly as possible.

“It’s cool out,” Alan said, making peace.

“I know,” Dianne said, her voice thick.

“Better put her sweatshirt on,” Alan said, rummaging in the diaper bag.

“Thanks,” Dianne said, barely able to look him in the face. Her heart was pounding hard, and her palms were damp with sweat. He kissed Julia and held her hand for a long time. She gurgled happily. The adults were silent because they didn’t know what else to say. Dianne stared at their hands, Alan’s still holding Julia’s. Then she picked up Julia, placed her in the wheelchair, and they left.

By the time Alan finished seeing all his patients, it was nearly six-thirty. Martha said good-bye, rushing off to pick up her son at baseball practice. Alan nodded without looking up. His back ached, and he rolled his shoulders, the place he stored the pent-up tension of seeing Dianne. He knew he needed a run.

He had Julia’s chart out on his desk, studying her progress since the last visit. Maybe he should have done an EKG today. But he had run one two weeks before and found the results to be within normal limits.

Hawthorne Cottage Hospital was a great place to have healthy babies, to schedule routine procedures. Few pediatricians did electrocardiograms; most didn’t even own the equipment. Alan had bought his as soon as it became obvious that Julia was going to need frequent monitoring. She had specialists in New Haven, but Alan didn’t see any reason for Dianne to drive all that way when he could do the test himself.

Alan had a picture in his mind. Dianne was standing in the doorway, waiting for him to come home. She wore her blond hair in one long braid, and she was smiling as if she knew all his secrets. Her blue eyes did not look worried, the way they did in real life. She had finally decided to let Alan love her and help her; she had finally figured out that the two things were really the same.

“Ah-hem!”

Looking up, he saw Amy Brooks standing in his doorway. Her brown hair was its usual tangle, she was wearing one of her mother’s pink sweaters over lint-balled red leggings. Her wide belt and turquoise beads completed the ensemble.

“Oh, it’s the young lady who lives in the playhouse,” he said. With his mind on Dianne and Julia, he felt lousy for forgetting about Amy.

“You saw me?” she asked, breaking into smiles.

“With those beautiful green eyes looking out the window – how could I miss?”

“I was hiding,” she said. “Sick brats were pounding at my door, but I put spells on them and sent them back to their mamas. What do they all have?”

“Never mind that,” Alan said. “What brings you to my office today?”

“I like that little house,” she said, turning her back to stare at the black-cat clock, its tail ticking back and forth each second. “I like it a lot.”

“I’ll have to tell the lady who made it,” he said.

Amy nodded. She moved from the clock to the Wall. Scanning the gallery, she found her pictures in the pack. Last year’s school photo, one from the year before, Amy at Jetty Beach, Amy sitting on her front steps. She had given him all of them.

“Are there any other kids with four pictures here?”

“Only you.”

“No one else has more?”

“No,” Alan said.

Wheeling around, she bent down to read the papers on his desk. Alan heard her breathing hard, and she smelled dusty, as if she hadn’t taken a shower or washed her hair in a while. Her forearms and hands were already summer-tan, and she had crescent moons of black dirt under her fingernails.

“Julia Robbins …” Amy read upside down. Gently Alan slid the pages of Julia’s chart under a pile of medical journals. He knew that Amy was jealous of his other patients. She was one of his neediest cases. Alan had the compulsion to help children who were hurting, but he knew some things couldn’t be cured.

Amy came from a lost home. Her mother was sinking in depression, just as Alan’s mother had drowned in drink thirty years earlier. She didn’t hit Amy or give him any clear cause to contact Marla Arden, Amy’s caseworker. But the state had gotten calls from neighbors. There were reports of Amy missing school, the mother fighting with her boyfriend, doors slamming, and people shouting. They had an open file on Amy. But Alan knew the terrible tightrope a child walked, loving a mother in trouble. They were always one step from falling.

Amy had latched on to Alan. From her first time in his office, she had loved him all out. She would clutch him like a tree monkey. His nurse would have to pry her off. She would cry leaving his office instead of coming in. Her mother slept all day to kill the pain of losing her husband, just as Alan’s mother had drunk to survive the death of his older brother, Neil.

“Come on,” he said to Amy. “I’ll drive you home.”

She shrugged.

Alan knew the cycles of grief. They spun all around him, taking people far away from the ones they were meant to love. His mother, Amy’s mother, Dianne, and Julia, even his brother Tim. Alan wanted to save them all. He wanted to heal everyone, fix entire families. He wished for Julia to live through her teens. He wanted Dianne to meet Amy because he believed they could help each other. People needed connection just to survive.

“I’ll drive you,” he said again.

“You don’t have to,” Amy said, starting to smile.

“I know,” he said. “But I want to.” Doctors were like parents; they weren’t supposed to have favorites, but they did. It was just the way life was.

Amy worried that someday Dr. McIntosh would stop her from coming to his office. She didn’t need to be there: She was as healthy as a horse, her fourth favorite animal following dolphins, cats, and green turtles.

“I only got two spelling words wrong today,” she said.

“Only two?” he asked. “Which ones?”

Amy frowned. She had wanted him to congratulate her: She had never gotten so many right before. “Judge and delightful,” she said.

“How’d you spell judge?”

“J-u-j-e,” she said. “Like it sounds.”

“Did you read those books I gave you?”

Amy fiddled with a loose thread. Dr. McIntosh had bought her two mystery books he thought she’d like. Amy had never read much. She kept feeling as if she were missing the key all other readers received at birth. Plus, it was hard to concentrate at home, where there were real mysteries to be solved.

“Do you have a maid?” she asked, changing the subject.

“A maid?”

Did he think she was dumb for asking? Amy slid down in her seat, feeling like an idiot. They were in his station wagon, driving past the fishing docks. This part of town smelled like clams, flounder, and powdered oyster shells. Amy breathed deeply, loving it. Her father had been a long-liner, and fishing was in her blood.

“You know, someone to clean your house,” she said.

“Not exactly,” he laughed, as if she had said something outlandish.

Amy tried not to feel hurt. He was rich, a doctor – he could afford it! He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and once she had asked him whether he was married and he’d said no. So he was alone, he needed someone to take care of him. Why shouldn’t it be Amy?

“I love to clean,” she said.

“You do?”

“It’s not exactly a hobby, but I’m very good at it. Mr. Clean smells like perfume to me – why do you think I like your office so much? Can you think of many other people who like the smell of doctors’ offices?”

“It’s a rare quality,” he said. “And I appreciate it.”

Turning inland, he drove onto the so-called expressway. In Hawthorne they had three kinds of roads: the beautiful ones down by the harbor, this one-mile highway leading away from downtown, and the ugly streets near the marshlands, where Amy lived.

“I could do it part-time,” she said.

“What about schoolwork?”

“I’d fit it in.”

Dr. McIntosh was pulling onto her street. The houses here were small and crooked. Hardly anyone had nice yards. Broken refrigerators leaned against ramshackle garages. Stray cats – half of which Amy had tried to save – roamed in packs. It was a neighborhood where kids didn’t do their homework and parents didn’t make them. The air was sour and stale.

“You know I want to help you,” he said, looking at her house. “Is it really bad, Amy? Do you want me to call Ms. Arden?”

“No,” Amy said with force.

“I know you worry about your mother. Maybe it would be good for you to stay somewhere for a little while, see if we can get her some help.”

“I’m not leaving,” Amy said. The whole idea filled her with panic. Her mother might die if she weren’t there. She would fall asleep and never wake up. Or her mother’s boyfriend, Buddy, might hurt her. Or – and this was the worst fear – her mother might just run away with Buddy and never come back.

“Do you have friends? Girls you hang out with?”

Amy shrugged. He didn’t get it. Her best friend was Amber DeGray, but Amber smoked and wrote on her legs with razor blades. Amy was scared of her. Other kids didn’t like Amy. She believed she wore her life on her person, that good kids would look at her and see her mother depressed in bed, Buddy’s angry fingers plucking out “Midnight Rambler” on his expensive electric guitar, Buddy’s new dog cowering in the back of its cage.

“I’m asking,” Dr. McIntosh said, “because I know someone you might like. She’s a young mother with a daughter. Do you ever baby-sit?”

“No,” Amy said. Who would ask her? Besides, Amy wanted only Dr. McIntosh for her friend. He already knew her and didn’t think she was gross. He was kind and funny, and she trusted him.

“It’s my sister-in-law and niece,” Dr. McIntosh said.

Amy gasped. She hadn’t known he had a family! Suddenly she felt curious, excited, and horribly jealous all at once.

“Julia’s disabled. She needs a lot of attention, and sometimes Dianne gets pretty worn out. They live nearby – I know they’d like you.”

“You do?” Amy said, feeling so happy he thought she was worth liking, her eyes filled with tears.

“Sure I do,” he said.

Amy swallowed her feelings. Disabled, he had said. Was Julia one of those children with braces and crutches, hearing aids and glasses? Amy sometimes saw kids like that and felt just like them: different, set apart, very badly hurt.

“I used to be special …” Amy began, wanting to say something about her father and mother when they were young, when Amy had been their beloved newborn babe in a dark blue pram, when they had lived in the fishermen’s park, where the air was always fresh and the smells were of saltwater, spring blossoms, and fish.

“You’re wonderful just the way you are,” Dr. McIntosh said.

My mother’s depressed … she cries and sleeps all day … no one wants to come to my house … I’m so lonely!

Those were the thoughts running through Amy Brooks’s mind, but since she couldn’t begin to put them into words, she just jumped out of the doctor’s car and ran straight up the cement sidewalk into her house without a look back.

Dianne built playhouses for other people’s children. Tim had run a lobster boat, and Dianne had set up shop in the oyster shack, where they lived, on the wharf. During their thirteen months together, her playhouses had smelled a lot like shellfish. By then she had orders pouring in from everywhere. She advertised in magazines appealing to parents, romantics, and lovers of New England. Word of mouth did the rest. Her houses were big enough to play in. They had gingerbread, dovecotes, eaves, peaked rooftops, and cross-and-Bible doors; her company was called Home Sweet Home.

Dianne’s HMO paid for several hours each week of physical therapy and nurse’s aides. If Julia were left alone, she would spend all day in the fetal position. She would curl up, drawing herself inward like the slow-motion nature films of a flower at dusk. Therapy helped, but Dianne didn’t like strangers in her home. She preferred to work with Julia herself. No one loved Julia like Dianne did.

Many people had suggested Dianne institutionalize Julia. She could go to St. Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital or to Fresh Pond Manor. They had told Dianne that Julia would be too much for anyone, even a saint. Sometimes Dianne felt guilty, imagining those people thought she wanted credit for her sacrifice and devotion. She asked herself: Wouldn’t Julia get expert care in a place like that? Wouldn’t she be exercised and changed and fed and monitored? Wouldn’t Dianne be set free to live a less burdened life, be lighter of heart during the time she spent with Julia?

But Julia needed massage. Her muscles would knot up. Her stomach would tighten, and she’d get constipated. And only Dianne knew exactly how she liked to be rubbed. With baby oil on her rough hands, Dianne would soothe her baby’s woes. Julia liked circular motions on her angel wings. She liked light pressure around her rib cage, in the area of her kidneys, and she hated being touched on her scars.

Who at the institution would know that? Even if one nurse’s aide got used to Julia’s preferences, what if that person got transferred or moved away? Julia would have to go through the whole thing again, getting used to someone new. Also, there was the matter of her constipation. Most newcomers didn’t realize it was part of the territory for Rett syndrome kids. Medical people were always so quick with laxatives, when all Dianne needed to do was gently rub her belly – using a flat palm, no fingers – to help things along.

Julia would sigh. She would gurgle like a baby, and Dianne would talk back in words: “There, honey. Is that better? Let me tell you about the owl and the pussycat.…Ever hear about how monarch butterflies migrate to Belize? …About the otters that live in the marsh and the hawks that hunt along the banks …”

Dianne was no saint. Her anger and frustrations knew no bounds. She banged nails with a vengeance. She’d yell while she sawed, swearing at God, the universe, and the McIntosh boys. Money was tight. She charged huge sums for her playhouses, targeting the richest people possible. But production was limited; she lived rent free with her mother and paid nearly everything she made to insurance and deductibles. When the aides were there, she’d take off on breakneck runs along the beach, rows through the marsh in her father’s old dinghy. Crying and exercise were free.

Her studio was now in the small cottage behind her mother’s house, where she and Julia had come to live after Tim left. The windows overlooked the estuary, the green reeds golden in this twilight hour. Sawdust was everywhere. Like pollen carried on the spring air, it filmed the cottage floor, workbenches, table saw, miter box, and the inside of the windowpanes. Stella, her shy tiger cat, hid in her basket on a high shelf. Julia sat in her chair.

They listened to music. Dianne loved out-of-date love songs that expressed mad longing and forever love; she sang them to Julia while she worked. “The Look of Love,” “Scarborough Fair,” “Going Out of My Head.”

Dianne had been without a man for Julia’s entire life. Sometimes she saw women with husbands and imagined what it would be like. Did they have all the love they needed, was it worth the fighting and disagreements to be part of a secure family? In the dark, Dianne sometimes felt lonely. She’d hug her pillow and imagine someone whispering to her that everything would be okay. She tried not to picture a face or hear any certain voice, but the night before she had imagined how Alan’s back might look under his shirt, how his muscles would strain if he held her really tight.

Measuring carefully, she used a pencil to mark lightly the places she wanted to cut. The table saw let out a high-pitched whine as she guided the wood through. Her father had been a carpenter. He had taught her his craft, and Dianne never cut anything without hearing his gentle voice telling her to mind her priceless hands.

“Home from the wars,” Lucinda Robbins said, walking in.

“Hi, Mom,” Dianne said. “Tough day?”

“No, darling,” said her mother. “It’s just that I can feel my retirement coming in July, and my body is counting the days.”

“How many?” Dianne asked, smiling.

“Eighty-seven,” Lucinda said, going over to kiss Julia. “Hello, sweetheart. Granny’s home.”

Lucinda crouched by Julia’s side. Julia’s great liquid eyes took everything in, roaming from the raw wood to the finished playhouses to the open window before settling on her grandmother’s face.

Dianne stood back, watching. Lucinda was small and thin, with short gray hair and bright clothes: a sharp blue tunic over brick-red pants. Her long necklace of polished agate came from a street market in Mexico, bought on the only cruise she’d ever taken with Dianne’s father, eleven years earlier – the year Julia had been born and he had died.

“Maaa,” Julia said. “Gaaa.”

“She’s saying our names,” Lucinda said. “Ma and Granny.”

“She is?” Dianne asked, dumbstruck by her own need to believe.

“Yes,” Lucinda said soothingly. “Of course she is.”

Julia had hypersensitive skin, and Dianne smoothed her blond hair as gently as she could. Her hair felt silky and fine. It waved just behind the girl’s ears, a white-gold river of softness.

“At Julia’s age, you had the same cornsilk hair,” Lucinda said. “Just as soft and pretty. Now, tell me. What did Alan say?”

“Oh, Mom.” Dianne swallowed hard.

Lucinda touched her heart. “Honey?”

Dianne shook her head. “No, no bad news,” she said. “No news at all, really. Nothing definite one way or the other.”

“Has she grown?”

“An eighth of an inch.”

“Isn’t that a lot?” Lucinda asked, frowning. “In so short a time?

“No!” Dianne said more sharply than she intended. “It isn’t a lot. It’s completely normal, Mom.”

“Good, honey,” Lucinda said, striking what Dianne had come to consider her Buddha pose: straight back, serene eyes, hands folded in prayer position under her chin. She might have the same turmoil inside as Dianne, but she hid it better. “Were you nice to him?” she asked.

“Nice?” Dianne asked.

“To Alan,” her mother said. “When you saw him today …”

“Well …” Dianne said, remembering the look on his face as they’d left his office.

“Dianne?”

“Why does he have to remind me so much of Tim?” she asked.

“Oh, honey,” Lucinda said.

“They move in identical ways,” Dianne said. “Their voices sound the same. Alan’s hair is darker, but it gets light in the summer. He wears glasses, but when he takes them off …”

“Superficial similarities,” Lucinda said.

“I tell myself that,” Dianne said. “I feel so bad, holding this miserable grudge against him. But my stomach hurts every time I think of what Tim did. I lie awake hating him for hurting Julia, but I also hate him for leaving me too. It’s horrible, like I swallowed a rock.”

“Ouch,” Lucinda said kindly.

“I know. And every time I look at Alan, I think of Tim. He makes me think of all the hurt and betrayal, of how much I hate his brother –”

“No,” Lucinda said sharply. “That I don’t believe.”

“I do, Mom. I hate Tim.”

“But I don’t believe Alan makes you feel that way. He can’t. He wouldn’t-he’s too good. He cares for you and Julia, he’s always been there. Those feelings are yours alone. Wherever they come from, you’re taking them on yourself.”

Dianne thought of Alan’s eyes, how kind and gentle they were when he looked at Julia. She pictured his hands examining Julia’s body, holding her crooked hands as if they were the most precious things on earth.

“I know he’s good,” Dianne said quietly.

“Listen to me, honey,” Lucinda said. “When you talk about swallowing that rock, I can see what it’s doing to you. I can. You’re tough as can be, you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, but those hard feelings are tearing you up.”

The reality of her mother’s words brought tears to Dianne’s eyes. Her stomach clenched, the rock bigger than ever. Once the sorrow over Tim’s departure had gone and the only things left were bitterness and anger and the rock in her stomach, Dianne had realized in a flash that she had made a mistake from the very beginning: She had chosen the wrong brother.

“I’m fine,” Dianne said.

“You say that, but I can see how worried you are. And then when Alan calls, you snap at him – as if it’s him you’re mad at instead of Tim. When he’s just trying to help.”

“Sometimes he gets me at a bad time,” Dianne said.

“With him it’s always a bad time,” Lucinda said.

“I’m tired, Mom,” Dianne said, uncomfortable with the conversation and the way her mother was smiling at her.

“When I retire,” Lucinda said, putting her arm around Dianne, “I’m going to spend some time taking care of you.”

Dianne’s throat ached. It felt so good to be loved. She closed her eyes and let her mother’s strength flow into her. She may have chosen the wrong brother, screwed up her life, but she had the best mother in the world.

“Julia and I have big plans for your retirement,” Dianne said.

“Oh, honey,” Lucinda said. “Not a party, okay? I know you want to do something for me, and I appreciate it, but I’m not the surprise-party type.”

“No party,” Dianne said.

“Besides, there’s the library dance,” Lucinda said. “I think they’re going to give me a plaque or something this year. I’ll have to pretend to be surprised. How’s this?” She made a Betty Boop face: round eyes and mouth, fingertips just brushing her jaw.

“Very convincing,” Dianne said, laughing.

“Not that I’m not appreciative,” Lucinda said. “I am – I love them all and I’ll miss them like crazy. But I’m ready, honey. My feet have been swollen for forty years, and I just want to kick these dumb oxfords right into the marsh and never see them again.”

“Julia and I will come up with something that involves bare feet,” Dianne said.

“Ahhh,” Lucinda said, closing her eyes in bliss, ticking off the time until July fifteenth.

“Gleee,” Julia said.

“Just imagine, Julia. I’ll have all this free time, I’ll be able to read all the books I’ve missed. Will you help me catch up?” Lucinda asked before opening her eyes.

Dianne exhaled slowly. Julia’s life was full of love, but it was so horribly, disgustingly unfair: to have her grandmother be the town librarian and be unable to read, to have her mother make real-life playhouses and be unable to play.

“Do you think she’s happy?” Dianne heard herself ask.

“Well, I know she is,” her mother said. “Just look at her.”

Dianne opened her eyes, and it was true. Julia was rolling her head in slow rhythms, as if she were keeping time with music in her head. She stared at Dianne. Lucinda touched Dianne’s shoulder, and Dianne leaned against her.

“My happy girl,” Dianne said, wanting to believe.

“Maaa,” Julia said. “Maaaaaa.”

Could a person die from loving too much? Could the weight of Julia crush her, squeeze the breath right out of her? Summer seemed like a sweet dream. Her mother would be retired; she, Dianne, and Julia could lie on the beach, feeling the hot sand under their backs, letting the breeze take away all their troubles.

“Go for a row, sweetheart,” her mother said. “I’ll stay with Julia.”

Dianne hesitated. She thought of that perfect white house down on the harbor: Lately all her own dreams went into the playhouses she built. Her own home was broken. Dianne felt hard and frozen inside. Her muscles ached, and she knew it would feel good to pull on the oars, slip through the marsh into open water.

“Thanks, Mom,” Dianne said.

Lucinda held her gaze. She was small and strong. Even without touching Dianne, her support and force were flowing into her. Outside, a light breeze blew through the golden-green rushes. Sea otters slid off the banks, playing in the silty brown water.

“Go,” her mother urged.

Nodding, Dianne ran down to the dock.