Where the Stars Still Shine (28 page)

I hand her my glass and pour a second. “Maybe they should build me a shrine.”

“Save feeling sorry for yourself for some other day,” Yiayoúla scolds. “He’s been living at home ever since we took Evgenia on the tour. Look at them, Callista. Really look. She is finally at peace.”

I watch Alex laughing as his mother writes
something on her whiteboard and I can almost see the love between them, gold and shimmering, and I know she needs him more than I do.

Greg taps his glass with the edge of a knife, calling for everyone to take their places at the table. There are cards lettered with all our names. My seat is beside Alex. The soft fabric of his shirt brushes my bare arm, and a shiver runs down my spine. We don’t speak to each other at all during dinner, and afterward he goes outside to the deck with the men, while the women clear the table and do the dishes. Tucker is underfoot, asking over and over when we’re going to open presents, and in the post-dinner chaos, we almost miss the doorbell.

“Callie, will you get that, please?” Phoebe asks.

I open the front door, and Kat barges through with two shopping bags like the ones Alex brought in earlier.

“I come bearing gifts,” she announces. “Phoebe, this bag is from our family to yours. It’s cookies and all kinds of other Christmas treats. And, Callie hid all her presents at my house so none of you would peek, and then forgot to bring them home.”

She hands me the second bag, then pulls me up the steps to my bedroom, our heels tapping on the wooden risers.

“Oh my God, Callie, this dress looks even more
amazing tonight than it did at the store,” she says. “Alex is probably outside right now plotting a way to get you under the mistletoe.”

“Why did you do all this?”

“I told you,” she says. “I love Christmas. And I hated the idea of you sitting here feeling bad that you didn’t have any presents to give. Besides, someday I’m going to need you and you’re going to come through for me in a big way. Because that’s what friends do, right?” But before I can answer, Kat just keeps talking. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She rummages through the shopping bag and produces a tiny Christmas-colored envelope. “This is for you.”

Inside is an evil eye bead knotted on a black cord, just like the one she’s wearing.

“I can’t guarantee it will keep away evil,” she says, as she loops it around my wrist and tightens the knots until it’s a perfect fit. “But maybe it will remind you that you’re not alone. You have me. You have Greg. You have this whole big, crazy, annoying Greek family and we all love you.”

This time it’s me who hugs her. “You’re the best.”

“And I will
never
let you forget it.” She looks at her watch. “But now, I gotta jet. My mom’s waiting and she’ll kill me if I linger too long.”

“Merry Christmas, Kat.”

She kisses my cheek, then wipes the gloss off my face with her thumb. “You, too, Callie. Love you.”

Her heels clomp on the stairs and she calls out “Merry Christmas!” as she dashes out the door. From the office dormer I watch as she runs down the walk to her mom’s car. After they’ve driven off, I find my phone and send her a text.

Love you, too
.

The Christmas Eve presents are unwrapped and Tucker is thrashing around in the discarded papers as if they’re autumn leaves—his new toys already forgotten—when Phoebe suggests pie. In the dessert rush that follows, I go upstairs and trade my Christmas dress for a pair of jeans and the red cashmere sweater that Yiayoúla gave me as a gift. No one notices when I slip out the front door.

Outside the air is crisp, the night silent, and only one car passes me in the time it takes me to ride my bike to Ada Street. I can’t help wondering where my mother is tonight. Did she leave Tarpon Springs? Is she safe? I imagine her out West somewhere, maybe in the desert where the Christmas lights are real, scattered across the night sky, and I imagine her missing me as much as I miss her.

The old house looks sad in its emptiness as I prop the bike against the porch. Old Mrs. Kennedy next door spies me through her kitchen window and waves as I pass, and somewhere in the neighborhood someone is listening to “O Holy Night.” The sound is thin, diluted by distance, but it walks with me as I cross the yard to the Airstream.

The first thing I see when I open the trailer door is the worn-away velveteen of my mother’s black ballerina flats, and my brain just cannot process this because they’re on her feet. And she’s lying on the floor.

“Mom?”

I rush inside and switch on the overhead light. Her skin is waxy white and as I drop to my knees beside her, I notice that the edges of her lips are tinged blue and she’s barely breathing.

“Mom!” This time I shout, but she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t move. “Oh, God. Mom. What did you do?” I give her shoulders a violent shake, but she remains limp and she won’t wake up. Hysteria bubbles up from my chest and out of my mouth as I shake her again and scream. “
What did you do?
”

My hands are trembling so badly it takes me two attempts to get to the keypad screen on my phone.

“Why would you do this?” I talk to my mom as if she was conscious, as if she can hear me. “If I call for an
ambulance, everyone will know where you are. You’ll go to jail. But if I don’t—” I look at her again and this time she doesn’t appear to be breathing at all. “No. You can’t do this to me. No, no, no, no …” I say the words over and over as I dial 911.

The female voice on the other end of the line is calm as she asks about my emergency, but I am running on pure panic.

“It’s my mom. She’s unconscious and I can’t tell if she’s breathing.” The words fall as fast as my tears. “I don’t know CPR and her lips are blue and—please help me. I don’t want her to die.”

“Calm down, sweetie. Can you tell me where you are?”

I give her the address and explain that we’re in an Airstream behind the house.

“Is your mother taking any medications?” she asks.

“I don’t think—” I look around. Beneath the table is a crumpled plastic bag containing a single green tablet. I crawl under and grab the bag. “I found a pill.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It’s green,” I tell her. “With an 80 on one side and the letters
OC
on the other.”

“Do you have any idea how long she’s been unconscious?”

“I don’t know. I just found her.”

“An ambulance will be there shortly,” the dispatcher says. “Is there someone nearby who can wait with you?”

My mind goes immediately to Greg. “Yes.”

As always, he answers on the first ring.

“Dad?”

“Callie, what’s wrong? Where are you?”

“At the Airstream,” I say. “Mom is here and she’s not—I need you.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I sit down on the floor and lift my mother’s head onto my thigh. Her skin is damp and cold, and her hair feels coarse under my hand as I stroke her head. “I’m here, Mom.” Tears and snot mix on my face and I wipe the mess on the sleeve of my sweater. “I’m so sorry I left you, but I’m here now and I’m not going to leave you again. We can go to Oregon, if that will make you happy. I promise. Just stay with me, Mom. Don’t go.”

The ambulance arrives first, and the world grows fuzzy around the edges as the trailer fills with people using medical terms I can’t understand. They feel my mom’s neck for a pulse and speak in numbers. They pull back her eyelids to shine a light into her vacant eyes, and their voices are replaced by the hum of bees in my ears. One of the paramedics says something to me, but the buzzing is too loud and all I can do is blink in reply. They take Mom away from me, lifting her onto a gurney and
sliding a needle into her vein that attaches her to a bag of clear fluid. And then they leave. I scramble to my feet to go after them as Greg comes into the Airstream and catches me up in his arms.

“I have to go with her.” Even my own words sound as if they’ve been dredged through maple syrup, and I’m shivering. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. “I told her I wouldn’t leave.”

“I’ll drive you.” Greg says, taking a blanket from the backseat of the SUV and wrapping it around me. Beyond him, the paramedics are closing the doors of the ambulance and the flashing red lights blend in with the Christmas decorations on the house across the street.

“But—”

“We’ll be right behind them,” Greg says, opening the passenger door. “I promise.”

My eyelids are thick and sticky as I open them, and the only familiar sight is Greg, sitting in a chair beside me. I’m not sure where I am, but his presence is comforting. The worry lines on his forehead relax and he smiles. “Hey, hi,” he says softly. “You’re awake.”

“Hi.” My throat is dry and it takes almost too much effort to speak. “Where—?”

“We’re at the emergency room.”

Everything rushes back in bright flashes of memory. Airstream. Mom. Paramedics. Overdose. I try to sit up, but my body is heavy with a weariness that feels as if I’ve lived too many lifetimes. “Mom? Is she okay?”

Greg nods. “She’s in recovery right now. Stable condition.”

“I promised I would stay with her.”

“You wouldn’t have been allowed, Cal. They had to, um—pump her stomach. And you were in shock, so I had one of the nurses administer a sedative to help you relax until they let us see her.”

“Can we?”

He nods. “Soon.”

There are dark circles under his eyes and I wonder if he’s slept, or if he kept vigil beside my bed all night.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For everything.”

“We don’t have to talk about this now.”

“I want talk about it,” I say. “I love it here with you, and Phoebe, and the boys, and—I love you, Dad. I don’t want to leave.”

He brushes my hair back from my forehead the way Mom does and I allow myself to take comfort from the gesture, instead of feeling as if I’m betraying her. I’m doing what Kat suggested. This is what I want. He smiles. “I don’t want you to leave, either.”

The privacy curtain around us slides open, and a
doctor comes in. His name, Dr. Labasilier, is embroidered in blue on his white lab coat. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Better.”

“I like the sound of that.” His accent is French Caribbean, and it reminds me of the vending-company guy who used to collect the money from the machines at the Super Wash. He was one of those people who could whistle high notes without losing the tone, and his smile made me feel as if my insides were made of bubbles.

“Also, I’ve got good news for you.” Dr. Labasilier straps a blood-pressure cuff around my arm and begins pumping the bulb. “Your mother is awake and you may see her in thirty minutes. You’re welcome to wait, but I might suggest you’ll feel more refreshed if you go home, wash up, and have a bite to eat.”

The cuff releases with a whoosh.

“You’re free to go,” he says. “Merry Christmas.”

“I’ve never missed church on Christmas before,” Greg says as we ride the elevator up to the hospital’s third floor, after a quick trip home for showers and breakfast. A note on the kitchen counter from Phoebe explained that she’s taken the boys to Christmas services with her family and that she’ll meet us at the hospital later. I feel bad that all the Christmas Day presents from Santa are still waiting, unwrapped, under the tree, and I don’t know when Tucker and Joe will have the chance to open them.

“I’ll be okay,” I tell my dad. “If you want to join them.”

He shakes his head. “I think God will understand that my daughter needs me more than he does.”

My mom’s room is the first on the left, and a nurse is
checking her chart. My dad hangs in the doorway as I enter the room. Mom’s eyes are closed, but I can see the rise and fall of regular breathing, and a monitor beside her beeps softly along with her heartbeat.

“Mom?” I say it softly so I won’t startle her, and touch my fingers to hers. They’re warmer now and a tube stretches up from her hand to a bag of clear fluid. Her eyes open, and a tear escapes from the corner, trickling down toward her ear.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I reach for a tissue and wipe away the trail the tear left behind. Another follows and I erase that one, too. There’s no strength in her grip as her fingers curl around mine, but I can feel the plea in them. I can see it in her eyes.