Charles walked out the front door of the Dayborn Bed and Breakfast with his suitcase in hand. The other guests had deserted the porch following the evening bat races. Only Darlene Wooley remained. She was slumped in one of the wicker chairs lining the rail. The porch light was being unkind to her. Harsh shadows deepened all the lines of worry and stress common to the caregiver of a special child. Even Darlene’s hair seemed strained and tired, falling to her shoulders in halfhearted attempts at curls.

“Hello again.” He had spoken softly, but even so, she was startled into better posture. Her back was stiff and straight when she smiled a wan greeting.

He set his suitcase down beside her chair. “I ran into Ira in the cemetery today. I tried to speak to him, but I’m afraid I may have upset him. I am sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She made an effort to sustain her smile, but it slipped away as she looked down at her folded hands. “I’m so pleased that you did stop to speak to him. Some people in this town don’t believe Ira can talk anymore, let alone think.”

“Well, I can tell them different.” Betty pushed open the porch door. Neatly balanced on the flat of one hand was a tray laden with a china coffee service. “Ira used to talk a blue streak when he was a little boy.”

Betty’s white hair had taken on a yellow cast from the porch light. The same lamp which had aged Darlene made the innkeeper seem younger than her sixty-five years. The flesh of her arms jiggled beneath the flower-print sleeves of her dress as she waved off Charles’s attempt to help her with the tray. She placed it on a small side table between an empty wicker chair and her own wooden rocker. “I brought an extra cup for you, Mr. Butler.” Betty settled into the rocking chair and filled it to overflowing. “No need to run off this minute. Sit yourself down for a bit.”

“Thank you, I will.” He settled into the chair beside Darlene and addressed the usual problem of what to do with his long legs. He elected to leave them sprawling on the floorboards between the two women. “I understand Cass Shelley was Ira’s doctor.”

Darlene nodded. “Cass started his therapy when he was two. He could read when he was only five years old.”

This was a tribute to a dedicated doctor. And it spoke well of Ira. He must have been highly motivated to participate in the world. “That’s amazing progress.”

“I thought so. But his behavior wasn’t improving quick enough to suit his father. One night, my husband took Ira to a faith-healing service. Have you ever seen one of those sideshows?”

“Yes, a faith healer’s tent show.” This had been a professional courtesy – the evangelist had been to Cousin Max’s tent the night before.

The religious showman had put on an extraordinary performance – gospel music and howls of damnation, elements of carnival and magic, voodoo and Christ.

Charles tried to imagine the terror of an autistic child standing up in front of a thousand screaming people, going through the faith healer’s laying on of hands. In such a setting, the forced contact alone would have driven the boy wild. “I imagine that experience set Ira back a bit in his therapy.”

“More than a bit,” said Darlene, with a faint reserve of anger. “If I hadn’t been working late that night, I could’ve stopped it. Ira was never the same after that. And then, after Cass Shelley died, he got worse – never talked at all for the longest time. My husband took him to another doctor in the next parish. That one tried a new therapy – gave him shots for allergies.”

“Well, allergies can create additional problems for the autistic. They – ”

“That may be,” Betty interrupted him as she finished pouring out the coffee. “But the shots didn’t help one bit. He never did improve until his father died, and Darlene got Ira into a state school program.” She spooned cream and sugar into a cup and handed it to Darlene. “I remember the days when Ira would talk your ear off. That child was talking since he was how old, Darlene?”

“Eighteen months. But he would talk at you more than to you,” said Darlene, almost as an apology.

“But he did have a lot to say,” said Betty, more magnanimously. “Mostly, he would go on about his lists, and his stars. I believe you take your coffee black, Mr. Butler – and three sugars? Oh, yes, Ira was always counting things and memorizing things.”

“One time,” said Darlene, more animated now, “he memorized all the stars he could see from the window of his bedroom. He made himself a star map that even showed the window frame and the curtains.”

“And the things Ira knew about stars,” said Betty. “To this day, I can’t get some of Ira’s facts out of my head. Do you know about the old stars, the cold stars? Just a bit of one in the palm of your hand could weigh as much as a ton.” She leaned toward Darlene. “Remember the night the sheriff took down Ira’s missing-star report?”

“That was a time, wasn’t it?” Darlene’s gaze was focussed on the sheriff’s office across the square. One yellow light burned late tonight. “I should go over there and apologize to Tom for blowing up at him. The day he took up Ira’s side – ”

“Let me tell it, Darlene.” Betty began to lightly rock her chair. “Ira was just a little thing back then. Was he five years old?”

Darlene nodded, and Betty went on. “We were sitting out here, like we always do after supper. Old Milton Hamlin was here, too. He was a steady boarder in those days. Dead now and good riddance. I never liked that fool. Milton was one of those people who have to advertise their superior education every damn minute of the day. You know the type, Mr. Butler?”

Charles nodded.

“So little Ira was sitting on the steps right there with his star map,” said Betty. “Suddenly, he looks up at his mother and says one of his stars is missing – winked out in the dark. And he couldn’t have been more upset if it was a lost puppy. So then Milton Hamlin commenced with a lecture. He said stars didn’t just wink out – they went up in a ball of fire, don’t you know – and Ira couldn’t have seen any such thing.”

“Milton was a retired librarian,” said Darlene. “I guess he figured sheer proximity to all those books made him about the smartest man in the world.”

“Turned out later, he didn’t know the first thing about astronomy.” Betty sighed, as though her aggravation with the deceased Milton Hamlin might be ongoing.

“I thought maybe Ira might’ve miscounted his stars. But Darlene had never known him to miscount anything, so she took the boy’s side, and then so did I. Well, Milton was livid. He went on and on about how Ira was just an ignorant little boy, and he had certainly not seen a star go nova. The old fool embarrassed that child no end.”

Betty was warming to her story now, leaning forward to touch his arm and alert him that this was the good part coming up. “Well, the very next evening, Tom Jessop shows up on the porch after dark, with his clipboard and all these official-looking papers. Bless him – he wrote down Ira’s account of that missing star. Tom was dead serious. Asked Ira if he could borrow the star map.”

Betty smiled at Darlene. “Tom was a handsome man in those days, wasn’t he?” She turned back to Charles. “But I’m digressing.”

She rocked a little faster as she picked up the pace of her story. “Milton came out on the porch just as Ira was showing Tom the place where he had last seen his lost star, and the sheriff was writing down every word. Well, Milton laughed at the pair of them, and it hurt Ira all over again – poor little thing. So the sheriff says, ‘You’re right, Ira. Any fool can see that star is gone.’ Now he said that to the boy, but he was staring straight at Milton Hamlin, and it was a look to freeze blood. Milton didn’t say another word – not that night anyway.”