The Same Stuff as Stars (23 page)

Dread was weighing down her chest like an iron bar as she searched above the doors for the number the volunteer had given them. “This is it,” she said, more to herself than to Grandma. She took a deep, shuddering breath and stepped into the room.

Bernie was propped up in the bed nearest the window, watching television. His right leg was dangling from the ceiling in a kind of pulley. Intent on the screen mounted on the wall, he didn't see Angel until she was right next to his bed.

“Hi, Bernie.”

His head whipped around. “I thought you wasn't ever going to come. I waited and waited and waited.”

“We came as soon as we could, Bernie. We had to get a ride, you know.”

“I bet you don't know how I got Grandma's number.”

“No, I was wondering about that.”

“I called nine-one-one.”

“Bernie! That's for emergencies only!”

“It
was
an emergency. I didn't know your number. The lady was very nice, too.”

“I'll write it down for you.”

“Too late. After you made me call the nurse, they took the phone away.” He stuck his lip out in a pout. “Now I can't call you again.”

“Well, don't worry We're here now.” Angel reached out to touch his thin arm. “Say hello to Grandma.” Grandma was still standing in the doorway as though afraid to come closer.

“I was just going to, Angel. You don't have to tell me everything, you know. Hi, Grandma,” he called out over the sound of the TV “My leg's all busted.”

She took a baby step into the room. “Yeah.” She straightened up and came toward the bed. “Eh-yup. I knew there must be some explanation. Nobody would have thought you was pretty enough to hang up like a picture.” Bernie started to giggle but stopped himself. “I got hurt really bad,” he said. “They won't even let Mama come visit me, I'm so bad off.”

“You just bad, period,” Grandma said.

“I am not.”

“Hoo, boy, don't you try to fool me. I know you. Hand me that chair, Angel.” When Angel got the chair and put it close by the head of Bernie's bed, Grandma plopped down in it. “So's this TV any good?”

Mama.
Angel'd almost forgotten in her relief on seeing Bernie. She hoped they'd let her into the ICU without a grownup, but anyhow, she had to try. “You guys behave, okay? I'll be back in a minute.” She slipped out of the room without waiting for an answer.

 

“Excuse me. I need to see my mom,” she said to the bowed-over head at the nurses' station. When the nurse lifted her head, Angel remembered her. “You took care of my uncle Ray,” she said. “Ray Morgan?”

“You're the little Morgan girl, aren't you?” The nurse shook her head. She got up and came around the circular desk. “Sometimes trouble comes piling in, doesn't it, honey?” She put her arm around Angel and took her gently down to where Verna lay.

Maybe seeing Verna in Intensive Care wasn't as big a shock as it had been when the star man had been lying there like someone out of a science-fiction horror movie. Though it seemed worse to see Verna with no makeup, her face swollen and bruised as if she'd been in a prizefight. She'd dyed her hair red sometime since summer, but it lay lank and greasy against the white pillow. Wires and tubes grew out of her body like strange colored vines. There were green ones coming out of her nose.

“Just a few minutes, okay, honey?” the nurse said. “We don't want to wear her out.”

Angel nodded. She forced herself close to the bed. “Mama,” she said.

Verna turned toward the sound. It looked as though it took all the strength she could manage just to turn and open her swollen eyes, so there was none left for her voice. “Angel?”

“Yeah, it's me. How you doing?”

“Not so good. You seen Bernie?”

“Yeah. Just now. He's doing fine. He's watching TV and talking to Grandma.”

“How—how did you know we—?”

“Bernie called. We came as soon as we could get a ride.”

“I'm sorry, Angel. About everything...”

“Don't worry about it, Mama. I'm doing okay, and Bernie's gonna be all right. You just think about getting better yourself.”

“I keep messing up, don't I? You and Bernie would be better off if...”

“Me and Bernie need you, Mama. You don't know how much I been missing you.”

“I didn't want to leave you, Angel, but this guy I was with, well, he wasn't crazy about having one kid, much less two.” She turned her head away. “I should have left Bernie with you. You'd have kept him safe.” Verna's cracked lips parted into a half smile. “You always was a better mom than me.”

“You want some water?” There was a glass with a bent straw on the table near the bed. Angel got it and put the straw between Verna's lips. Verna raised her head a few inches and took a sip.

“Thanks, baby,” she said, lying back, her eyes closed.

She's going to give up! She thinks she can just let go and leave everything to me. Well, she can't. Not this time.
Angel put the glass down. She cleared her throat. “Mama, listen. We'll take Bernie home as soon as they let him out. But you gotta promise to come, too—as soon as you can. We all want you to come.”

“Even Grandma?”

“Especially Grandma. She's so worn out trying to be the grownup she don't know what end's up.”

“I thought you was the grownup, baby. You always have been.”

“I'm even more tired of being the grownup than Grandma is. I'm not even twelve years old, Mama. I'm not supposed to be the grownup. That's your job.”

“I might not get the chance, Angel.” She lifted a hand, with a tube attached, about an inch and then let it drop weakly onto the sheet. “I'm messed up pretty bad inside—”

“You get well, you hear? You don't have any right wimping out on us. You're the mother!”

“Okay, baby,” she said. “I'll try. Promise.”

Angel wanted to cry. The tears were burning in her eyes, but she wasn't going to go soft. Verna
had
to get well, and tears might make Verna think she could give up, quit trying. Angel wasn't about to give her leave to do that.

“I'm telling you, Verna Morgan, I don't want any of your promises. You
gotta
get well and come home. I'm not going to let you do anything else. You hear?”

“Okay,” she said, a flicker of a smile on her dry lips. “Okay, baby. You're the boss.”

“I am
not
the boss. I'm just the kid. Hear?”

“I hear you.” She was really smiling now, her eyes open, with a spark of something like life in them.

***

An inch or two of snow had fallen during the day, lending the junk-filled yard a frosted elegance. After she had shoveled a path a few feet from the house into the yard, Angel carried a kitchen chair out and put the quilt from Bernie's bed on it. Bernie's leg was still weak, and he couldn't stand for too long at a time, but it was going to be a night starry enough for Galileo Galilei, and she needed to share it with him. She helped him hobble out the door and sit down. Then she wrapped the quilt around him.

“You're not too cold, are you?”

“Nah,” he said. “I like it out here.” He looked around him at the snow-covered humps of discarded junk and then up at the star-spattered sky. “Wish on the star, Angel!” he said, pointing.

“That's not a star, Bernie. It's a planet.”

“It is, too, a star, and I'm going to wish on it, and you can't stop me.”

There was no need to give Bernie lessons in astronomy tonight—no use, really. “What are you wishing for, Bernie?”

“That when Mama comes home tomorrow, she won't ever go away again.”

“That's a good wish.”

“What do you wish for, Angel?”

“I wish we'd all be happy together—you and me and Mama and Grandma and Miss Liza and Eric and—”

“And Daddy, too?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah,” she said. “Daddy, too.”

“You 'member when I wished he wouldn't ever come home?”

“Yeah.”

“That was bad, wasn't it?”

“Well, you hardly know him. He's been in jail so long.”

“I bet he likes me better than Jake did.”

“Who's Jake?”

“The one that made the wreck.”

“Oh.”

“He was always mad that Mama come and got me.”

“Was he mean to you?” she asked fearfully.

“Some. I didn't like him.” She didn't dare ask him what he meant. She couldn't stand it if some strange man had beat up on him. “Would Daddy be mean to me?” he asked.

“He never hit me a single time when I was little. Remember? I told you he was the one gave me Grizzle.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“He messed up a lot, maybe he still does sometimes, but he was never mean to me or you, either. I think—I know he really loves us.”

“That's good,” Bernie said, stretching out his leg.

“Your leg hurt?”

“Some,” he said. “When Mama gets all well, we should go back to the jail and see him, shouldn't we?”

“Yeah, after she's all well and strong, yeah, we ought to ask her about that.”

“Angel?”

“Yes, Bernie?”

“I missed you when I was gone.”

“I missed you, too, Bernie.”

“I thought it would be nice to have Mama to myself, but it was all wrong. I didn't like it without you there.” Angel swallowed hard. “We need to stick together, Bernie. We're a family.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Are you cold?” she asked again. She'd wrapped him up as best she could, but the December air bit and stung. “Some,” he said.

“Want to go in?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.” They were both quiet for a long time, looking at the sky. “Angel,” he said at last, “what makes the stars shine?”

“They're on fire, Bernie.”

“Oh,” he said, the fire of the stars sparkling in his eyes.

Special thanks must go to Kathy Searles, for sharing her knowledge of the Vermont correctional system and of the families whose lives are bound up in the system, and to Bob Merrill, who acted as my star man for this book. Any errors that remain are mine alone.

The books on stars that Angel loves are: H. A. Rey's
Know the Stars,
originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1954. Angel checked out from the library an abridged paperback edition published by Scholastic Book Services in 1969.
Starry Messenger
by Peter Sis was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1996 and received a Caldecott Honor the following year.

Bernie's favorite books are by Harry Allard with pictures by James Marshall.
The Stupids Step Out,
the book Miss Liza first reads to him, was published in 1974 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Robert Frost's poem, “Take Something Like a Star,” is from
The Poetry of Robert Frost,
edited by Edward Connery Lathem and published by Henry Holt in paperback in 1979.

And, as ever, thanks to Virginia Buckley and John Paterson, without whose help and encouragement this book would never have been published.

Katherine Paterson
is a renowned author of international acclaim. Her many books include
Bridge to Terabithia
and
Jacob Have I Loved,
both Newbery Medal winners, and
The Great Gilly Hopkins,
a Newbery Honor book. She has twice received the National Book Award for Children's Literature and was a recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award for her body of work. Mrs. Paterson and her husband live in Barre, Vermont.