Follow the Stars Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 atwhat 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 justtickled 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