Follow the Stars Home (46 page)

Walking over, Lucinda saw that it was empty. She glanced around. Sometimes bird-watchers came down here. There was always a lot of ornithological activity in the marsh, with herons, plovers, blackbirds, terns, and songbirds-especially during the spring and fall migrations. Artists also favored the spot, setting up their easels in the reeds. But Lucinda didn't see anyone around.

Sticking Tim's check in her pocket, she strolled toward the house. Dianne was inside with Julia. They had been inseparable lately, ever since Julia had
caught that cold. Alan would come over every night, examine Julia, set Dianne's mind at ease. Lucinda tried to stay out of their way.

She let herself into Dianne's studio. She didn't know why, but she felt like being alone. Lately, with Alan around so much, with his and Dianne's relationship deepening, Lucinda had begun feeling like a third wheel. Maybe it was time she moved to Florida, joined all the other retirees. Or maybe she should fly back to Nova Scotia, listen to dolphins with Malachy Condon.

Lucinda didn't like getting old, but she accepted it. She had heard sixty-five-year-old women say they felt exactly the same as they had twenty or forty years earlier. That when they looked in the mirror, they expected to see young women. That wasn't true for Lucinda. She had earned every wrinkle, every gray hair. Maybe that's why she liked Malachy: He had seemed unapologetically seventyish, every minute of his age showing. He seemed like someone she could talk to.

Lucinda missed talking. The library had been good for that. True, they had talked in whispers, but she and her young librarians had passed the days with gossip and book talk and deep sharing of their lives. For a while Lucinda had thought that was how it was going to be with her and Dianne: more friends than mother and daughter. But that wasn't turning out to be so. She was Dianne's mother to the core, and that was better than friends any day.

Dianne had Alan, finally! Lucinda had been waiting for years for those two to understand they were supposed to be together. She'd hear them whispering at night, when the house was dark and Julia was asleep. Lucinda would read her books, wondering whether they were planning their lives together. She knew it had to be just a matter of time. Didn't it? What in the world would stop them?

And what would Lucinda do when Dianne and Julia left? Sighing, she sat down at Dianne's desk. Orion and Stella came over to see if she had any food. Reaching into her pocket, thinking she might have a biscuit left from walking Orion, she came up with Amy's poem. Spreading it on the desk, she read it:

The Apple Gardens

On the island, in the sea,
Northward of the gulf stream's flow,
That is where we came to be,
In the spot where apples grow.

Trees of green and walls of stone
Fill the land that I can see
Anne played here till she was grown
Tell me, what will be for me?

Back at home, my mother cries
My father lives beneath the waves
Tell me, does the one who tries
to love, succeed at being brave?

You see, I'm just an apple girl
And someone came and picked me up
She polished me, just like a pearl
And set me in a loving cup

In apple gardens, let me be
Beneath the stars and wind and sky
The constellations in the tree
I'll love my own life, by and by.

Reading Amy's poem, Lucinda's throat ached. She scratched Orion's head. The cat spied the reflection
from her reading glasses, pouncing on the moon of light. Lucinda sighed. She was surrounded by creatures as unloved as she had been. Dianne had pulled Stella from a stone wall, they had all taken Amy and Orion from their dark home until some light could flow in. Lucinda related to Amy's poem so much, her hands were shaking.

Lucinda's early life had been so wretched, and when she'd met Emmett and had Dianne, it was like creating her own heaven. What would happen if Dianne got on with her life? Lucinda had never admired old women who latched on to their grown children instead of getting active, and she felt herself in danger of becoming one.

Or of slipping back into her old state, hurting and afraid. Like Amy, Lucinda had been an apple girl. She knew how it felt to be lying on the ground, waiting to be picked up. Although she was on in years, she felt vulnerable, as if she could fall way back down there if she didn't take care of herself now. She pulled the four withered apples from the shelf and set them on the desk. The dry apples looked like faces.

Little people, little apple girls. Leaning over, Lucinda picked out the one that looked most like her. She had the most wrinkles, but she also looked the wisest. In Dianne's workbench she knew there were fabric remnants left from curtains she'd made for the playhouses. Gingham, pink checks, bright solids.

Lucinda would make dresses, turn the dry apples, the unlovable objects Amy had picked up in the apple garden, into dolls. Maybe she'd shorten a leg of her moose pajamas, sew the dolls some. She and Amy had a lot in common. They both liked tangible reminders of who they were, who they loved.

“It's really amazing that you called me when you did,” Nina Maynard said, shaking Alan's hand. They stood in the circular driveway of the white house, their cars parked by the garage.

“I didn't really expect it to be on the market,” he said, noticing the house's gleaming paint, the neatly tended gardens, the discreet security system stickers. “The lights are always on at night. It looks occupied.”

“The owners inherited it from her parents,” Nina said, checking her clipboard. “They live in Los Angeles, he's in the film business, and they had hoped to use this as their weekend and summer house. They held on for five years, but it just got to be too much. I think they said they made it back for two summers and six weekends.”

“They kept it up though,” Alan said, stepping around a yew bush, examining a clapboard for termites or rot.

“No shortage of money,” Nina said. “The film business must be nice. Anyway, let me figure out the keys…. The owners are very careful, they didn't
want us posting signs or advertising it…. We always get callers asking about these sea captains' houses, but this one just came on the market.”

“Are there bedrooms on the first floor?” Alan asked.

“Let me show you,” Nina said, brandishing the key. “Come on inside.”

They entered through the front door. The wide plank floors were waxed and gleaming. Bright light poured in tall windows. There was a brass chandelier in the foyer, original sconces on the white walls. There was a double living room, furnished with antiques, with a fireplace at either end. The artwork was abstract, too modern for Alan's taste. French doors led onto a stone terrace, its ivy-covered balustrade curving around the back of the house. The view was of the harbor, with boats dancing on the gray waves.

“It's a real whaling captain's house,” Nina said. “Built in 1842 by Captain Elihu Hubbard. Notice the windows? They're original leaded glass, mullioned….”

Alan liked the way the glass held the light before letting it through. It seemed thicker than normal glass, like clear silver, throwing small rainbows on the walls and floor. There were bay windows with window seats, and Nina was leaning over to show him something: letters scratched into the glass.

“It says E-L-H,” Nina said. “The legend goes, Elihu's wife scratched it into the glass with the diamond he'd brought her from one of his voyages. I don't know what it means, but—”

“Let's see the rest of the downstairs,” Alan said. He didn't want to hear any legends about men going to sea, women pining at home. The fact that this house had been built by a ship's captain was no selling point
to him; it reminded Alan too much of Tim. If he could keep the story from Dianne, he would.

“Here's the kitchen,” Nina said, “Sub-Zero fridge, Garland stove, tiles brought back from Italy …Look at this great center island, the Jenn-Air grill—”

“Nice,” Alan said, smiling. He couldn't remember seeing Dianne cook, not even once, not in all the years he'd known her. But when Nina pointed out the basement, leading off the kitchen, and Alan went downstairs and saw the workshop and tool bench, the windows and door leading straight out into the yard, he knew Dianne would love it.

“You asked about bedrooms,” Nina said when Alan ran back up. “We'll go up to the second floor in a minute. You'll just adore the master suite up there, but let me show you this first. I've been calling it the in-law wing….” She led him around the kitchen chimney, down a short corridor.

Stepping into the first bedroom, Alan knew the house would do.

“It's quite spacious, as you can see,” Nina said. “Beautiful wood floors, a working fireplace, glass doors leading onto this private terrace …a bathroom over here …” Following her through the bathroom, they entered a study. It was fixed up like a den, with a desk and bookshelves and glass display cases filled with awards and photographs of the owners with people like Lauren Bacall, Gregory Peck, Harrison Ford, and Tom Hanks.

“Everyone loves those photos, a little Hollywood right here in gray old New England,” Nina laughed. “Isn't this a great setup? Bedroom-bath-study? A great place to come if you have a fight with your wife …or to put your parents when they visit. Are your parents alive?”

“No, they're not,” Alan said, picturing where
Julia's bed would go, her bureau, the rocking chair. He and Dianne would take the other downstairs room; they could hear Julia crying if she needed them. The bathroom was right there, it was all on the first floor, Dianne wouldn't have to carry Julia upstairs.

“I'm sorry,” Nina said. “Well, onward and upward. On the second floor—”

“That's okay,” Alan said. Gazing out the window, he wondered whether Dianne would miss the marsh. Harbor views were different: constant action, boats coming and going, the wind whipping up the waves, flags flying at all the boatyards.

“It's not right for you?” Nina asked. “Is there something else I could show you? We have a marvelous listing, just came in, for a stunning contemporary out by the quarries—”

“It's right for me,” Alan said. “I'm making an offer.”

“An offer?” Nina asked. He could see that she was surprised, but she covered it well. She hadn't told him the price yet, he hadn't seen the upper floors or backyard, but he didn't care.

“Right now,” he said. “I want to be in by Christmas.”

“By Christmas,” she said, smiling slowly as she nodded her head. “Deck the halls!”

They shook hands. Alan had a busy afternoon, and he had to get back to his patients. But as Nina got on her cell phone to call her office and get the paperwork rolling, Alan took one last look around-at Dianne's house.

At
their
house.

That night Dianne dreamed of Tim. She'd been standing on the deck of a boat tossing in the waves.
It was a storm, a terrible gale, and the ocean was dark and thick. It seemed more like quicksand than water, trapping everything and everyone that slipped beneath its surface. Dianne felt terror because someone she loved was in there. Although safe in the boat, she was yelling for help.

“Please,” she screamed. “Help me, help me!”

Where were they, all the people she loved? Keeping her boat afloat took so much effort and concentration, she was afraid to take her eyes off the wheel. She had to trust that they were in the cabin behind her. “They” was a mysterious collection, and she hoped, but wasn't sure, that it included Julia, Lucinda, Amy, and Alan.

Someone had fallen overboard. A single hand reached out of the sea. Dripping with muck and seaweed, it scared her so much. Would she be able to save the person? Or would the person pull her in? She was crying and sweating, almost ready to sail away. But a calm voice deep inside told her to stay, to have courage and follow her heart. Taking a deep breath, all fears and doubts melted away. She reached overboard, grabbed the nightmare hand, and felt Tim pulling her into the sludge.