Seeds of Stars

            Willa’s older brother set a blanket out in the backyard. His name was William, but people called him Billy. Willa’s full name was Willamina.

            “See the dew on the grass?” Billy said.

            It was night. The wet grass glimmered in the light from a streetlamp.

            “The dew is the tears from someone missing someone they love. And in each tear is a seed of a star.”

            Willa was lying on her back. She turned her head and saw what seemed like an infinite field of tears from what must have been an infinite number of people, each missing a person they loved.

            “After some time, the seeds of the stars sprout and then grow into the sky. That’s where stars come from. Both the person who is missing someone they love and the person who is loved can both look up and see the star that grew from a tear.”

            Willa turned her head to the sky filled with stars. So many someones missing so many someones, she thought. So many tears.

            “That’s how it will be with us,” her brother said.

            Their mother watched from the kitchen window until her husband, their father, called to her.

            “Don’t worry yourself sick,” he said. He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. A baseball game was on TV.

            “They’re both so young,” the mother said.

            “He’s only a bit younger than we were.”

            “We got married. Who knows what they’ll do to him? How they’ll change him?”

            Her husband stood behind her and put his arms around his wife’s waist.

            “You have to trust him,” the father said. “He’s a man. He made his choice.”

            “But what about Willa?”

            “We’ll have to help Willa understand.”

            The mother put her hands to her face. Her husband rested his face against her neck and kissed her. A tear fell down her cheek like a falling star. The man took his finger and caught the tear on the tip of his finger. Then he held it up for them both to see. The kitchen ceiling light kaleidoscoped in the tear.

            Outside, on the blanket, under the stars, Billy took his shoulder-length hair in his hands.

            “See this,” he said. “All gone next time you see me.”

            Willa reached for her brother’s hair and took small bundles, sometimes single threads, between her fingers. She ran the strands between her thumb and forefinger as if she were a merchant testing the fineness of filaments of silk.

            “They just shave it right off.” He clenched a fist and hummed electric razor sounds. Willa frowned and held her palms up to her brother. He put his palms to hers.

            “You have such pretty hair,” her brother said. He patted for her to sit between his legs. She leaned her back against his chest as he began to run his fingers like a comb through her hair.

            “Do you want me to braid your hair?” he said.

            Willa nodded and her brother began the delicate task of twisting her hair like yarn, then the over-under pattern.

            “I won’t be gone long. Just a few months, then I’ll visit on leave. I’ll be bald. And thinner. And have a fancy uniform.”

            He bound the hair into its first braid.

            “I don’t have a bow or band,” he said. “I can’t finish your hair.”

            Willa took the braid from her brother’s hands and quickly, without looking, undid part of the lower braid, then wove the ends together into a loop.

            “Look at what you can do on your own,” her brother said.

            She looked at him and smiled.

            “You look beautiful,” he said and wrapped his arms around his sister.

            Just then, a small cloud, just one, covered so many of the stars, not all, but enough to bring a deeper darkness to the night, like forgetting does loss, not gone, simply unremembered for a time. The cloud passed and the stars bloomed above the earth.

            Billy leaned back, his face to the sky, and rested his head on his hands.

            “The stars are beautiful,” he said.

            Willa threw herself onto her brother, her only brother, the one she loved, and he held her. She began to cry. He did, too. And their tears, one by one, fell onto the grass.