In Sight of Stars(2)

The man strolls, head down, straw hat shadowing his beard. Scythe in hand, he slices his way through the tall stalks.

On the sill: a crow lands. One, then another, and another. Beyond the sill, the field fills with them: black crows watching, waiting. A noise startles, setting off a frenetic flapping of wings. Dissonant static in my ears.

“Klee, sweetheart. Are you okay?” My mother again, concerned. “I’d like to get you out of here…”

A nurse: “Excuse me, Mrs. Alden. Best if I get in there. There you go, kiddo—”

Sarah.

Flashes of light.

A goddamned knife in my hand …

“Hold steady, son. Atta boy. Much better. You’ll see. We’re going to move you now.”

*

Sun rises on morning. Starlings whistle and trill. The red-bearded man strolls through a manicured garden. A black cat scampers in figure eights around his legs.

A woman appears in the doorway of a white house with a blue roof. She calls for him. A crow watches from the roof, but the man doesn’t answer, and the cat disappears.

The crow shrieks and takes off, and the sky shifts to a brilliant shade of madder red.

The man sits. The yard is peaceful and still.

He lays his hat in the grass and raises a pistol to his head.

Day?—Morning?

“Klee?”

Dad and I are walking through SoHo. The day is bright and brisk. Our breath puffs out in front of us like steam from the street vents.

“Klee?” Not my mother’s voice. The wrong pronunciation. I turn my head back to my dad.

We pass the familiar streets of the village—Broome, Spring, Prince—and head north on West Broadway. Clouds rush overhead, and the sky turns stormy and overcast.

Sarah is with me now, snow falling. Snowflakes catch in her black hair, white stars that shimmer and melt away.

She twirls toward me, smiling. Dad laughs and Sarah takes my hand.

Except, no. That’s not right.

We’re not in SoHo, or uptown.

There’s no snow.

No Sarah.

And, Dad is gone.

“Klee? Are you here with me?”

Just me and this woman, in this room.

I scratch at my ear.

“Try not to do that,” she says. I look up at the mottled ceiling tiles. “Can you talk a bit now, Klee?”

My name. She keeps saying it wrong. Phonetically, with the long-e sound.

I look up at her and drop my hand.

The woman is middle aged, familiar, with her bright cheeks and dark frizzy hair. Slightly overweight. She’s told me her name before.

Andersen.

No. Wrong.

Alvarez.

Dr. Alvarez.

“Are you able to tell me anything?” she asks.

About what?

“About Sarah, Klee. About what happened?”

Right. That’s why I’m here. Because of Sarah. Because of what I did. I shake my head. I don’t want to think about that now.

“About you, then. Whatever you want,” she says.

Art, I blurt, struggling to focus. There’s a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I met Sarah in art class. Is that what you wanted to know?

“Sure,” she says, but when I say Sarah’s name, it breaks into a million soda bubbles that float to my brain.

Time slips again.

I shift my eyes to her wall, to the framed print there. White house, blue roof. Manicured lawn. Van Gogh’s Daubigny’s Garden.

It’s because of that print that I stay.

*

“Really? I never liked it much.”

The man with the straw hat squints at the painting and rubs his red beard thoughtfully. “It’s not my best. Painted it on a goddamned tea cloth. And what’s with the fucking cat?” He heads toward the house, gun in hand.

“Klee?” (Long e.) My eyes shift to Dr. Alvarez.

“Stay here with us!” The woman in the doorway calls.

A crow lands in a tall pine and the black cat skitters across the lawn.

The man turns. His finger twitches on the trigger, and the cat disappears.

“Tell me more about that,” she says.

My eyes dart up.

Dr. Alvarez.

I rub my ear, alarmed.

I don’t feel so great, I say.

“I know. I’m sorry. Hopefully I can help you with that. Tell me what you were saying about art class…”

What was I saying? I don’t even know …

“About your girlfriend—”

She’s not my girlfriend.

I’ve snapped at her. I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears leak out, and the soda bubbles pop inside my head.

“Klee, let me try this.” She lifts a page or two on her clipboard and says, “So, you’re a senior at Northhollow High, planning to major in art next fall? And you only transferred there this school year. Before that, you were at a private high school in the city. Is that right?”

I nod, and try to ignore the man.

“Your mother says it was your girlfr—a friend, Sarah, that went with you to the hospital.” She flips a page. “And, it says here you have applied to go to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.” My eyes shift to hers. “I’d like to help you get well and get there.”

I squinch my eyes shut tight, but more tears slip.