Nine
349 Days Out
"How many boxes left, Jack?"
"Just a few, dad," Jack managed through staggered breathing as he hauled gear from the trunk of the flashy ruby red sports car Corregan had bought once spring had arrived. His wife had been extremely vocal with her disagreements, but Jack's jaw falling open at the sight made the strife worthwhile. A few co-eds were ogling the car's curves—Corregan gave the engine two gnarly revs, eliciting giggles as they rushed into the pale limestone dormitory.
"Y'know, you could not do that, and help me instead."
"Where's the fun in that?" Corregan embellished with another turbocharged kick. He caught Jack's smile in the rearview mirror. "Hey, which girlfriend of yours picked this school?"
"Hah, nice one. None of 'em, actually. All on my own here…not necessarily a bad thing." A sly wink, and Jack raced inside with an armful of cardboard.
While he waited for his son to return, Corregan flipped off the engine and let the late summer breeze pour into his new ride. A wave cascaded through the zoysia grass covering the quadrangle. Jack had applied and been admitted to half a dozen universities, and had selected the one his father absolutely did not expect. Jack had also chosen not to commit to a track of study—a decision about indecision that sent Corregan's heart fluttering. Whenever that fluttering commenced, like it was in the driver's seat of his new car, he remembered the comment floated between guffaws in a long corridor far away from Earth.
Corregan glanced up through the sunroof. They had made excellent time in their journey to the campus, beating the sun to its August zenith. Twinkling stars materialized in the clear blue sky. He traced his finger along pretend constellations, pausing at one particular diamond around which revolved a world he had ached to revisit ever since he had plopped down on his couch, eyes locked on the stark black OLED TV screen, and dissolved into banality. His wife's note taped to the screen had enumerated her expectations for a grocery trip. Jack's first university application—a scribbled mess—had laid askew on the adjoining cushion. The quiet solitude of the empty house had frightened Corregan. He had risen from the couch to go stare out the window and be mesmerized by the capitol, set across the manicured lawn and under another field of stars. I'm sorry, Senior. He had hurriedly dried his tears when his son slammed the front door, returning after another day at a menial summer job he claimed he loved, shouting, "I haven't finished the game yet! Let's get to it—heard it was a good one!"
It was. A car door popped open. Corregan restrained his gasp as Jack's hair, tousled by the rousing breeze, rustled around the rearview mirror's edge. "So, Dad," Jack said as he hefted the Styrofoam cooler from the floor and nestled it between a flexed bicep and his torso, "meant to ask—how did you manage to get a recommendation letter from the President—well, former president?"
His pen had hovered over the signature line of the non-disclosure agreement long enough for the lawyer to clear his throat testily. Concerned at what his balking may sound like when it would undoubtedly be reported back to the President, who had been "out on tour" that day, Corregan scribbled his name and shoved the document away. He had asked about them, about their Hawaiian family, and about the world and the reality they faced. The lawyer had only grunted, much as he did now as he folded up the paper and shooed Corregan out the Oval Office door. The President's assistant stood at the exit, with a thin manila envelope in hand. She made a motion to hand it to him, but pulled back at the final moment. In a warbling soprano, she teased with, "Mr. Corregan, before you depart, the President had one question he wanted me to ask."
Corregan, weary from the lengthy debriefing session, clenched an eager fist. "And what would that be?"
"How was the water up there?"
The envelope tilted his way. Corregan smirked. "Bland." He snatched away his manila prize, and pried it open to unsheathe a glowing recommendation imprinted on White House stationery.
"Need to know, bud."
"Hmph, yeah, sure." Jack slammed the car door. "Can't even tell your ʻohana…but can you at least tell me where ya found that word?"
Corregan shrugged. "Around."
Jack sighed dejectedly. "Probably the same place as that postcard." After another of his father's shrugs, Jack huffed, then carted the batch of supplies into his limestone dormitory.
The postcard had slid through the mail slot before Jack left to revel in his last summer's day. In between cardboard boxes replete with an eighteen-year-old's imagining of school supplies, it rested atop a pile of coming-due bills. Jack had discovered it first, and had taken it into the kitchen, drafty with a cooling breeze sluicing through open windows. Corregan broke from the morning newspaper splayed across the granite countertop to find his son flipping the card back and forth, scrunching his face more concertedly with each turn.
"Hey, Dad, who do you know in Hawaii?"
"Hawaii, eh?" Corregan snatched the postcard from his son, who gave a sharp shout of dismay. The noise awoke the seven-month-old Australian Shepherd, who bounded over to investigate the commotion. On the front of the card was painted a waterlogged beachfront with a scarlet sun setting below distant whitecaps and a palm tree waving in some ocean breeze. "Aloha from Hawaii!" was emblazoned in excited block letters in the corner. Corregan turned it over to his name and address, and a mark he had seen before. He smiled.
"I mean, the return address isn't very helpful, and there's no message. Just a…a paw print. Did you work with some animal shelter, or welfare group, or…?" Jack trailed off while distractedly scratching the top of the puppy's head, right between his pink-lined ears.
Corregan ran his hand over the ink print. Even with the cooling breeze wrapping its way through the kitchen, he felt its warmth. "Yeah, something like that." His smile faded as he pocketed the postcard. "Now, make sure you get yourself packed up! We leave for school at dawn…ish."
Jack emerged from the arched doorway and stopped on the second step up from the lawn. Some garbled speech followed him out, and he responded with something of his own. Corregan beamed as a wide grin broke out on his son's face, chased by a sonorous laugh that bobbed through the crowded move-in day air and swirled around the car's interior. Pleased with his son, he let his eyes wander.
Above, a lone wispy cirrus was breaking apart, and the stars were twinkling, brighter in magnitude than he remembered. One especially noticeable star winked out, replaced with a dark occlusion. He squinted, and the outline of the starship that brought him home appeared. The spot shifted, and Corregan sat dumbfounded as it slithered its way through the sky, only to pause over the limestone dormitory. As it moved, it divided, and divided again, and again, until an armada was bearing down. His heart fluttered and his eyes were wide, lambent in the dying light of fading stars.
"Dad…." It wafted from the dormitory. Guns were trained. Ships were poised. He gasped.
"Dad!"
"Huh?" Eyes pulled back to the car, to Jack. Corregan dabbed his forehead. Cold beads of sweat came away on his fingertips. A quick upward glance confirmed a clear blue sky. He clenched his fists and breathed. Jack looked perplexed as Corregan offered, "Sorry, what's up?"
"Um, well, I was just gonna say—this place is perfect! I love it."
"Great, I'm glad you're a fan, Jack. But y'know, you might be singin' a different tune in four years." If we have four years.
"Yeah, we'll see," he glibly responded. "But Dad, before I go…" Jack turned somber. "Are you feeling alright?"
"I—y-yes, of course. Why do you ask?"
Jack exhaled loudly as he popped open the car door and inserted himself into the passenger bucket seat. Two sets of piercing blue eyes met. "It's just that since you…disappeared…for those three days, you've been acting strangely. Very unusual for you."
"I, I hadn't noticed."
"It's okay, Dad. You don't have to hide it. I think I know what's going on."
Corregan reeled. The nylon seat belt rubbed against his goosebumps. A warm paw rested on his knee. "You do?"
"Yeah. I mean, it's not too terribly difficult to figure out. And you don't have to worry."
Corregan blinked. "I don't?"
"No. I'll be fine here. It's scary sending your only kid to college—I get it, you're new to the empty nester thing. Plus, I figured you'd want me to pick something to study, to have that all planned out from the start…but I'm not there yet. I'll find something I love to do, don't worry about it! And don't worry about me…especially since you'll be the one keepin' Mom calm."
Relief and guilt battled in Corregan's stomach. He felt sick, like every other day since he had again dissolved into banality. The congenial eyebrow raise and smile belied the roiling pit deep within him. "That's great, son. I…I'll always worry, but I'm glad to hear you have, well, at least some semblance of a plan. And don't talk about your mother like that…even if it's true." He tousled Jack's hair, eliciting a refulgent sheen in blue eyes. "Now, you best be gettin' outta here. Can't be seen hanging around too much with your dad." With a grin, Jack exited and then carefully latched the polished rear door.
The car rumbled with barely bridled power as Corregan ignited the engine and pulled down the drive, watching Jack in the rearview mirror. His son sauntered back to his new room and his new friends, disappearing into the dormitory. Corregan flipped on the radio, and tuned it to the local news station, which was in the midst of wrapping up coverage of the local city's baseball game. The half-filled water bottle rolled wildly in the leather-clad passenger seat, frustrating Corregan's efforts to slake a nagging thirst.
His hand grasped futilely for the bottle until the marbled university gates passed. The sultry voice of the afternoon news announcer had replaced the game on the airwaves. After a few local stories of little significance, she began her report on federal matters. Corregan turned up the volume. With a voice now drowning out the rumblings of the engine, she relayed her story.
"President Welton today continued dodging rumors of a covert military operation launched into outer space nearly a year ago. Though his predecessor is thought to have ordered the original operation, critics of Welton are concerned by their beliefs that an ongoing militarized presence in space is both present and has been cloaked by a top secret designation. Members of the United Nations delegation in New York have also recently voiced their concerns, citing the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, ratified by the U.S., which prohibits the weaponization of outer space by any one nation. Despite these persistent grumblings—and some concomitant and serious speculation on the potential involvement of extraterrestrial beings, some of whom are thought to currently reside on domestic soil—the White House has firmly maintained its stance that none such activity has been, nor is planned to be, undertaken…."
With welling schadenfreude, Corregan changed stations. It's his problem now. The "golden oldies" channel he settled for was in the middle of the refrain from a Fifties rock ballad. Bobbing his head to the tune, Corregan reached the edge of campus, and merged with the surprisingly sparse traffic leaving the area. Ahead, the narrow bridge spanning a babbling brook—lower than usual after the summer's drought—had oxidized. Pale green streaks of once-copper were interspersed with ferrous flecks. In the rising wind, the flecks left the bridge and dallied in the aerial current, glinting lazily in the afternoon sun, before gently landing in the sluggish stream below.
He watched the shining water as he approached the bridge entrance. He smacked his parched mouth. The thirst intolerable, Corregan took his eyes from the road and seized the water bottle with his dominant hand. Triumphantly, he flipped open the spout and brought the bottle to his lips.
He glanced to the road. The creature darted in front. Tires squealed. Gravity disappeared. The water spilled from its container as it tumbled to the floor, the hand uselessly gripping the wheel until knuckles whitened. Below, the ground twinkled with the field of stars.
A moment of blackness, then Corregan was on his feet. His oxfords sunk into the soft sand. The reddened sky complemented the swaying verdant palm trees and the distant oceanic whitecaps illuminated by a descending scarlet sun. Ten paces ahead sat a little blue figure, nestled into a deep divot in the beach. Corregan struggled over the minuscule dunes as he approached the figure. When he went to sit, it spun its head around, its wide dark eyes absorbing the last vestiges of sunlight.
"Aloha!" greeted the creature. It smiled, baring rows of enamel daggers. Though the antennae and a set of limbs were missing, Corregan recognized it. Unflinchingly, he plunked down next to it and sighed.
"Hello, Stitch." Corregan reached out a hand and scratched the top of the creature's head, right between his swooping pink-lined ears. Stitch first furrowed his brow as he waxed quizzical, but he eventually acquiesced to the gesture with a contented murmur. Together, they silently observed the sun dip below the watery horizon. The sky shifted swiftly through magentas and indigos before settling on a vivid violet. A few stars winked into existence.
He settled on one particular star, breathtakingly faint from his spot on the beach. "There's a solace in ignorance," Corregan muttered as he retracted his hand.
An immediate and steadfast reply. "Naga."
Corregan met Stitch's wide dark eyes. The few stars shined within them. "Oh?"
"Better to know."
"For you, perhaps. As for me…."
"Naga. Better for yuuga."
"Why?"
"Because yuuga not alone now." A paw rested on Corregan's knee. "Yuuga have ʻohana."
"No...no, I had ʻohana, Stitch." In his peripheral vision, Corregan watched little waves break on a nearby sandbar and plunge into the shoreline. "But that's gone now. I made a choice. And I betrayed them. I betrayed everyone on our home. I've doomed us. I've doomed our ʻohana."
"Naga. Yuuga chose ʻohana...chose life. Not betrayed. Not doomed. Protected. Saved. And yuuga always have ʻohana. Because ʻohana always here." Stitch slapped a sandy paw against his chest. A heartbeat passed.
Corregan exhaled loudly and longingly. "Y'know, every day, I've wanted to tell my son where I went." He pointed a wavering finger at the star. "And every day, I balked at the chance. Sometimes, he asks. And I lie. I always grit my teeth, and I bear it, because I know what'll happen if I break." Larger waves pummeled the waterlogged sand. The oceanic horizon had swallowed the scarlet sun. "No, ʻohana can't be here, because I won't let it be." Corregan's finger dropped as his head rose to the faint star brightening. "Because I keep it away. Because I choose."
A rustling. Corregan turned to the creature. Limbs and antennae had reappeared. Claws clattered against one another. Wide dark eyes shimmered. "Stitch soka."
"No, Stitch," Corregan soothed as he placed a hand on the furry sapphire cheek. "It's not your fault. It's not your burden to bear. It's my mantle to don. Alone."
A nascent goofy smile as wide dark eyes rose to the sky. Corregan peered into the pools. He smiled. In them, he saw the stars.
A flash of light, then an inverted world greeted his bleary eyes. Corregan fumbled for the belt lock, and groaned as he slipped from the bonds of his bucket seat. He pulled himself through the shattered window and splashed into the stream. As he rose, his navy blue jacket sopping, something warm, slick, ran down his cheek. He wiped. Crimson flecks spattered smooth stones. A postcard, torn and bleeding, floated past, the paw print sinking to the riverbed.
Afternoon sun shone golden through the gaps in the oxidized bridge. He stood. Pain shot through his legs. He grunted and fell to his knees. Sparkling water flowed past. Corregan watched the stars pour by. He pounded a fist. Stars spiraled through the air.
The tall summer cattails along the banks bobbed in the breeze. They waved as the creature moved about. Chilled water, barely reaching Corregan's ankles, permeated his oxfords. He looked to the bank and watched wide dark eyes melt away. Stitch soka.
Corregan rolled onto his back as sirens approached. Eyes clouded, lost in a world, in a galaxy he did not recognize. I'm sorry, Jack. He closed his eyes and breathed, and fell into the field of stars.
END
A/N - Thanks for reading In His Own Stars! I hope you enjoyed your time in this world. It was both fun and challenging to create. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, and of the story as a whole. I look forward to reading your reviews and messages!
P.S. Happy birthday to one little blue Experiment.