A Good Night For Stars

By R. L. Keller

The sound of the back screen door slamming on the house next door to theirs caused Naomi McDonald to pause and glance out the window over the sink as she cleaned up from the light lunch she’d fixed for herself and her husband, Lawrence – who pretty much everyone called Cap’n Mac. “Looks like Helen just told Lee that she had to leave for an assignment and won’t be able to take him to the new aquarium in Boston this weekend, like she promised.”

“Taking it badly, is he?” Mac sighed as he finished his coffee and set the cup on the small kitchen table, where he was still sitting.

“Uhm,” Naomi confirmed. “Took off on his bike like the devil was after him.”

“Teenaged demons are the pits,” Mac told her.

She sent him a frown. “How would you know? You haven’t been a teenager for fifty years.” The pair shared a loving grin, despite the seeming reprimand, before she got thoughtful. “Lee’s had to put up with so much in his fourteen years.”

Mac nodded. “And he’ll no doubt deal with this much the same way he deals with life in general. He’ll get ticked, work it off, be back in a couple hours and act like nothing out of the ordinary happened. He’ll take care of everything at the house that he can, check with us if he needs something that he can’t handle – which would be rare – feed and take care of himself in the process, and not say a word – to anyone – about the disappointment he has to be feeling. He’s been planning this trip for weeks.”

Naomi nodded, picking up her husband’s cup and carrying it to the sink. “Helen herself was upset that she was going to have to cancel, when she told me this morning that she had to leave. But its just one of those things – either she goes right now or she misses the story. And she can’t afford to do that. What she gets from Lee’s dad’s Navy death benefits only go so far.”

“Which Lee understands,” Mac said. “But…”

“He’s still fourteen,” Naomi finished the thought.

“Yep,” Mac confirmed. They were both quiet for a bit.

“We could take him,” Naomi said softly.

“We could,” Mac nodded. “But it wouldn’t be the same.”

It was Naomi’s turn to nod. “Helen tries so hard to support Lee in his love for anything to do with the Navy, and oceans. Well,” she smiled, “water in general.” The pair shared another grin. “Even though she cries a little inside, because that’s what cost her her husband.”

“And Lee, for all his youth, understands that she has mixed emotions about how he sees his future.”

“But, he’s fourteen,” they said together.

“When does Helen leave?” Mac asked. “And did she know how long that she’d be gone?”

“In time to catch the 3 o’clock commuter flight to New York. And she wasn’t sure, but hoped to be back in six or seven days. She said that she should be able to take Lee to the aquarium the following weekend. But there was something special happening, that’s why Lee wanted to go this Saturday?”

Mac nodded. “There’s some sort of dedication to one of the exhibits – Lee was all excited because of the guy who was doing it. Can’t remember his name. Some Navy captain who’s heavy into marine research, according to Lee.”

“We could take him,” Naomi said again.

And again Mac nodded. “I’ll suggest it,” he told his wife. “But I can just about guarantee what he’ll say.”

“He doesn’t want to be a bother. He’ll go when his Mom has time to take him. End of discussion,” Naomi muttered. She looked at Mac. “He’s never a bother,” she told him adamantly.

Mac grinned. “I’m constantly reminding myself that he’s fourteen. I’ve had forty-year-old deck hands act less mature than him.” Mac was a retired commercial fisherman.

“He’s had to grow up way too fast to be healthy,” was Naomi’s evaluation.

“And you’d want him any different?” Mac asked all too innocently. Naomi threw her hand towel at him and they both laughed.

They’d been surprised when they bought the house next door to the young widow and her son. They both enjoyed children, although they’d never had any of their own. The boy had been a bit shy at first. But when summer rolled around he’d asked if they would like him to mow their yard when he mowed his own. They’d quickly learned the family dynamics: Lee’s father had been killed on active duty with the Navy when Lee was five; his mother was a freelance writer who traveled more and more; Lee’s grandfather, Helen’s dad, who looked after Lee when his mother was gone had passed away almost two years ago.

There had been absolutely no hesitation in them stepping into the role of ‘grandparents’ to the young boy, and allowing Helen a bit more freedom to take assignments that took her away from home. There was no doubt in either’s minds that Helen didn’t love her son unconditionally, and knew that it bothered her to be away from him so much. But it was also a great relief to her that the MacDonald’s were willing to help, as she and her son did need the money her writing brought in. Lee’s maturity and independence had taken some getting used to, for sure. And they sometimes chuckled to themselves – very carefully behind the young boy’s back – at his occasional surprise that they treated him as if he were their own grandchild. But the relationships had eventually become comfortable, all the way around.

The couple noted when Lee’s mother left, waving and wishing her a productive trip, and not to worry about Lee. Both noticed a very quick look of sadness cross Helen’s face, but she covered it quickly and drove off.

And they noted when Lee returned – as predicted, about two hours after he left – looking tired and sweaty, like he’d ridden his bike hard and fast during the intervening time. But like his mother, he’d waved with a small smile before heading into his house. They thought that he might come over, once he’d cleaned up. Naomi thought about inviting him over for dinner. But she knew that Lee was perfectly capable of taking care of himself and didn’t like, although he was always careful to keep it covered, if they showed any indication that he needed ‘being watched over.’ So she and Mac ate dinner alone and left Lee to his thoughts. He’d come over when he felt like it.

They were just about to head for bed when Naomi saw the young boy sitting quietly on the grass in his back yard, looking up at the night sky. She pointed him out to Mac, who smiled and told her that perhaps he’d get a little fresh air before he went to bed. She nodded, and Mac slipped quietly out the front door. He meandered slowly between the houses until he was about ten feet behind Lee. The boy didn’t seem to have heard him, appearing lost in his own thoughts, and startled when Mac told him gently, with humor in his voice, “Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus.” When Lee sent him a look of total puzzlement for the weird phrase, Mac laughed. “Always did think that ‘penny for your thoughts’ got way overused.”

Lee finally relaxed and sent the older man a shy smile. “Just looking for constellations,” the boy told him. “For so long it was all that sailors had to navigate by.”

“Still use them,” Mac told him, and carefully settled his old bones down beside Lee. “Not saying technology is a bad thing.” Lee sent him a quick grin. “But there’s nothing wrong with a little reliable back-up. The stars keep a steady course, not messing you up with sudden changes in direction like a mal-functioning compass might.”

He saw Lee nod, but wasn’t surprised when he remained quiet. That had taken both he and his wife a little getting used to, that such a youngster was still capable of keeping so much bottled up inside. Naomi didn’t like it, and often teased until Lee would start to tease back. But Mac had spent enough years on the oceans that he recognized the comfortable silence Lee often slipped into, content with his own thoughts. Mac didn’t interrupt. Lee would express himself – or not – on his own timetable. So the pair sat quietly for some minutes. When the boy did speak, Mac was surprised at the touch of anger noticeable in his words.

“Why did it have to be this weekend?” It was said softly as Lee wrapped his arms around knees that he’d drawn up against his chest.

Mac answered carefully. “Sometimes we get to choose our own course. Sometimes it’s chosen for us.”

“It’s not fair,” came miserably back.

“No, it’s not,” Mac agreed. “But sometimes you have to stand back and look at the entire map to see what the proper options are for a safe journey.”

Again there was silence until Lee said softly, without the earlier anger, “She had to go. Really good story ideas don’t come along all the time. She needed to get to it quick before someone else stole the idea.”

“Very true,” Mac agreed.

“The timing still sucks!”

Mac very carefully didn’t laugh – that was not a phrase that he’d ever heard the ever-correct young man use. “Yes, it does.” He hesitated and almost didn’t make the suggestion, knowing what the answer would be. But he did want Lee to know that he and Naomi cared. “Mrs. Mac and I would be more than happy to take you to the aquarium on Saturday.”

As expected, the boy shook his head. “It’s okay. I know that you don’t like to drive that far anymore. I’ll wait until Mom can take me.”

It was Mac’s turn to shake his head gently as Lee went back to watching the night sky. He’d totally forgotten that the boy had heard him muttering one day, after getting back from a trip to Boston, that he was glad that he didn’t have to do that very often; that the traffic was terrible! Leave it to Lee to remember that, he told himself, and the pair once more sat in silence for several minutes.

“Did you know Mom got an award for that last story she published, about the connections between the music and fashion industries in London?”

“No, I hadn’t heard that,” Mac told him honestly. Helen rarely talked about her work. Just like Lee never talked about his own honors at school and with the Sea Scouts program. It wasn’t in either’s nature to brag about themselves.

“She works really hard to make the stories say just what she wants them to.” Lee was thoughtful for a second. “I guess that way she gets more money for them, and that also makes more people wanting her to do more stories.” Again he was quiet for a bit, and Mac didn’t interrupt. “She does take really good care of us,” Lee added so quietly that Mac almost didn’t hear him.

“Yes, she does,” he agreed.

“I know that she doesn’t like to be gone so much.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“I guess…” Lee hesitated. “Sometimes you have to do what you don’t want to, to make things be better.”

Mac was always amazed at the young man’s mature logic. “Life is like that.”

“The first sailors, they probably didn’t want to go off into the unknown, leaving their families.”

“I’m sure that they didn’t,” Mac agreed, although a little puzzled. Sometimes Lee was a bit hard to follow. But given a chance to explain, he always made sense – eventually.

“But if they wanted to make their world better, they needed to explore and expand what they knew. So they took the knowledge they had – the constants of the stars – and used that base to travel and gain more knowledge, and build a bigger base. But they always had the stars to bring them home. Well,” he sent Mac one of his little mischievous grins, “until they hit the southern hemisphere.”

Mac laughed. “But even then they charted as they went, and could read them backwards to get back home.

“What you don’t know can be scary.”

“Only if you let it,” Mac told him. “You can go forward more easily if you have faith in the base of knowledge that you’ve built.” He paused before continuing. “But you also have to be prepared to adjust that base, if further facts bring you different truths.”

“Like they thought if they sailed too far from home, they’d fall off because the world was flat.”

“Uh huh,” Mac agreed.

“So, maybe, they had to trust in themselves enough to be able to handle whatever they found?”

“An excellent way to phrase it.”

“But…what about the regular sailors? I mean, sure, the captain believed in himself.”

“Every good captain instills in his crew confidence that he can lead them safely. If he can’t, well…you get people like Capt. Bligh, and the crew turns to someone they can believe in.” Mac was always fascinated by the direction’s Lee’s brain could take him in. He sometimes found it a task to keep up, but it was always an interesting process. Naomi was right – perhaps Lee had had to grow up too fast for one so young. But he was also well grounded in his grasp of what was important. Mac could speculate that Lee was, in a round about way, referring to his mother as the ‘captain’ and Lee as her ‘crew,’ and he needed to have faith in her to lead their ‘ship’ safely. But, with Lee’s brain, Mac wasn’t totally sure.

Mac saw Lee give his wristwatch a glance, and then send Mac a quick grin. “We have a test on navigation tomorrow morning at the Sea Scouts meeting. Guess I’d better get to bed so I don’t oversleep.”

Mac accepted the change in direction with an easy grin of his own. “Fine thing, have the best scout in the program miss his assignment.” Mac wished that he could match Lee’s ease at getting up, but he wasn’t too far behind. The pair said their good nights, and each headed for their own house.

As Mac entered the bedroom Naomi, who was sitting up reading, sent him a raised eyebrow. “He’ll be just fine,” Mac told her, and they both smiled.