Stella knew the names of the stars before she knew her alphabet. Although Stellaâs mother disappeared when she was too small to remember, she grows up happy beneath bright Indiana stars in the small town of Torrance with her father, her dog, and her best friend. When a meteor lands in her fatherâs cornfields, Stella and her father run after the fallen star. Stella watches as her father touches the star. The moment he does, he disappears in a flash of golden starlight. Stella never sees her father again. From that moment on, Stella is terrified of the stars she always loved. She leaves Torrance, her dog, and her best friend only to discover that the truth she needs is still in Torrance. As a total eclipse approaches, Stella must find the courage to face her stars.
Stella knew the names of the stars before she knew her alphabet. Although Stellaâs mother disappeared when she was too small to remember, she grows up happy beneath bright Indiana stars in the small town of Torrance with her father, her dog, and her best friend. When a meteor lands in her fatherâs cornfields, Stella and her father run after the fallen star. Stella watches as her father touches the star. The moment he does, he disappears in a flash of golden starlight. Stella never sees her father again. From that moment on, Stella is terrified of the stars she always loved. She leaves Torrance, her dog, and her best friend only to discover that the truth she needs is still in Torrance. As a total eclipse approaches, Stella must find the courage to face her stars.
I knew the names of the stars and the constellations before I knew my alphabet. My daddy loved the stars, so I loved them, too. He told me he met my mom under the influence of a particularly bright Mars, and that was why they fought so much. Theyâd met under Mars, heâd proposed under Venus, and Iâd been conceived on a night when every star, planet, and light in the sky blazoned for all they were worth. Thatâs why they named me Stella.
He lost mom on the night of the Torrance Comet. Itâs called the Torrance Comet because thatâs where it landed. Our little town of Torrance, Indiana, not far away from the farm. He and mom had put me to bed. They went out onto the big wraparound porch of the family farmhouse weâd inherited from my daddyâs parents.Â
My dad said that my mommaâs eyes had just filled up with light when she saw that comet ripping the sky in half with its golden knife. He said sheâd jumped to her feet, and whispered, âItâs close.â
Momma had run for it.
My daddy laughed for a moment. He finished drinking his beer. It was the last beer my daddy ever drank. He always said he couldnât remember how it tasted, just that even if it had been the best beer in all of Godâs Kingdom, heâd do anything to undrink it.
When he ran after her, she had a minuteâs head start. Only a minute, but only a minute is all it takes sometimes.
He never saw momma again.Â
Daddy looked for an hour. When he called the sheriff, everyone came and helped search. Not just the sheriff but all daddyâs friends and the pastor and the OâMalleys and the Thorntons and the Wichitas and even those weird Holcombs. Thatâs why daddy always said I had to be nice to everyone in town. Because when we needed them most, the whole town, no matter how strange or backward I might think them, had gotten up in the middle of the night and looked for momma.Â
They never found her. They didnât find a body either. Or any signs of her at all.
For a long time after that, all those families did the cooking for daddy, at least until he learned how to do it on his own.Â
For about a week, daddy said, he thought losing momma would break him. He thought he wouldnât be able to live.Â
But about a week after, he took me outside in the middle of the night, and the two of us looked up at the stars. I was too young to remember this.Â
He said that I reached up for the stars and said my first word: âStar.âÂ
That saved him, he always said. That woke him up. After that, he was alive again. He was my daddy.Â
I knew he hurt all the time every day, but I also couldnât remember momma or a time when his secret pain wasnât the case. It didnât stop him from smiling. It didnât stop him from laughing. It didnât stop him from loving me.
When we looked at the stars, he always used to say he felt like momma was up there with them, still being his wife, still being my mother. Thatâs why he never dated again. He said momma would know, said that sheâd see and wouldnât like it.
By the time I was in my teens, I knew momma wouldnât have minded, even if she was watching. When you love someone as much as I knew my momma must have loved my daddy, you couldnât begrudge them a little slice of happiness every once in a while.
I knew everyone in town pitied me, but I didnât pity me. I lived in a big house with a daddy and a great big golden retriever named Mercury, and I didnât really know what I was missing.
2
The summer I turned sixteen was the summer that all ended.
I spent that summer the same way Iâd spent all the summers before. I helped Daddy on the farm. I played with Mercury. I read books in trees. I hung out with those friends that still preferred soda to beer, and I went about the business of being sixteen and being alive.
I was happy.
Bobby OâMalley and I had grabbed dinner at the Shack-mine loaded with everything, Bobbyâs with nothing but ketchup. Bearing the brown sack in one hand and balancing our shakes in between my arm and my torso, I climbed into Bobbyâs truck.
Bobby OâMalley, age sixteen, spoke in poetry and lived in blue jeans, muddy boots, and plaid shirts. A spattering of acne crossed a face just barely sprouting scruff. Shaggy hair he could never be bothered to cut hung past his ears. The eyes, as they glanced at me in the mirror, were the brown of corn stalks in October.Â
The truck still smelled from the fishing trip last week, which was better than when it smelled like deerhide. No matter what, though, I could always smell that peculiar mix of mud and sweat underneath. Just then, though, the smell of burgers and fries filled up the cab as he started the engine and pulled out onto the road.
âPass me a fry, Small Fry,â he said.
âPass yourself a fry,â I said, stuffing at least five into my mouth.
Not taking his eyes off the road, he rummaged in the bag until he found the fries. âGeeze, how many you already eaten?â
âOh, I plan on eating as many of them as I can get,â I said, âespecially as I paid for them.â
Bobby rolled his eyes but grabbed a wad of fries from the bag.
I messed with the dials on the radio.Â
âBe sure to catch tonightâs meteor shower,â the radio dj said. âThe show will start around nine. Astronomers are saying itâll be quite the light display.â
Bobby glanced over at me. I could see that peculiar mixture of concern and interest in that look. It was very Bobby.
âIâll need to be home in time to be with Daddy,â I said.
âSounds fine,â he said. âYou ever feel a bitâŚ?â He trailed off. He knew that Iâd understand.Â
âNo,â I said. âI donât remember anything. I just know that for Daddy, itâs one of those things thatâs terrible and beautiful all at once.â
Bobby frowned, turning from the road to look at me. âAll the best things are,â he said. He pulled into a parking lot off the lake. In front of us, a few trees, a playground, and some picnic tables separated us from the water.
Bobby got out of the car, grabbing his shake, and I followed him out.Â
A warm wind came off the water. The sun nested in wreaths of oranges and pinks that made a flaming mirror of the water as we sat down to eat.
âYou just canât beat sunsets like that,â Bobby said.
âThatâs Torrance for you,â I said.
Bobby smiled. âBest town in the world,â he said.
âHowâs the new poem coming?â I asked.
âWould you like to hear it?â he asked through a mouthful of burger.
âOnce youâve finished chewing,â I said.
He swallowed, and then he jumped up onto the picnic table, nearly knocking over our shakes. A mother with her children on the playground looked over at him in alarm.
He cleared his throat. âThere was once a girl named Stella who was a fun friend for a farming fella, but she ainât no Cinderella. She doesnât work in a cella, but she always forgets to bring a candle of citronella.â
Bobby took a deep bow, and I clapped. âBravo,â I said, âthough in all fairness, is there anyone under the age of forty-five who ever remembers citronella candles?â
Bobby shrugged as he sat back down and finished off his burger. âIt was the only thing I could think of to rhyme with Cinderella,â he said.
âVery graceful,â I said.
âThank you,â he said with a grin. âI knew youâd think so.â
âSeriously, though, I want to hear the real poem,â I said.
He shook his head. âNo sirree,â he said.Â
âIf youâre going to be a famous poet,â she said, âyouâre going to have to let me read your poems at some point.â
âOh, I will,â he said, âwhen Iâm a famous poet. Then youâll be welcome to read along with the masses.â
I laughed and finished my own burger. He rested his hand over his cheek and took a long drink of his chocolate milkshake. âLook how big Doug Carterâs gotten,â he said.
I glanced at the kids on the playground. Doug Carter had, indeed, gotten big. Somehow, heâd managed to climb on top of the swingset. He was now balancing on the top while his mother (and the two or three others) looked up in horror, while the children looked up in wide-eyed reverence. His orange hair a mess of dirt, his face a blazing smile, his hands extended on either side of him, he took a bow.
âThank you, thank you,â I heard him say.
And with that, he toppled over straight into his motherâs arms.
The other kids all burst into applause. I caught the barest traces of a laugh at the edges of his motherâs lips, but that did not stop the steady stream of reprimands as she hauled him away to the car.
âHeâs kind of insane,â Bobby said lightly.
âKind of?â
Bobby took another long drink of his milkshake. âMeh,â he said. âIâve seen crazier.â
I raised an eyebrow, but his attention was on the sunset now. âPenny for your thoughts?â I asked.
âIâm just wondering how a sunset gets to be soâŚâ
âYeah,â I agreed.
We watched the sunset for a while after that. A song blared from a passing car, and for a moment, the deep bass blended with the passage of the sun, the hum of the wind, and the tang of the strawberry shake.Â
With a long slurp, Bobby finished off the last of his shake. With an echoing slurp, I finished mine.Â
Then, wordlessly, we threw out the trash, got in his truck, and we went on driving.
Bobby and I did a lot of that. Weâd take off in his truck and just drive. We wouldnât go anywhere in particular. We wouldnât say anything in particular. We wouldnât do anything in particular. Weâd just drive. Sometimes, weâd talk family or school or God or the universe or everything. Other times, weâd just be quiet together.
That night, the drive took us through town and out of town, out into the wide sea of cornfields of which both our familiesâ farms were only small parts. The rain had been good that year, and so the stalks already stretched their proud necks skywards.
âWeâll have a good harvest this year,â he said.
âIf the gods are good,â I said laughingly.
âTrue,â Bobby said. âGuess you never know.â
The sunâs wild corona faded quickly now as Bobby took the twists and turns of the roads without slowing down. âActually, youâd better take me home,â I said. âItâs going to start soon.â
Bobby grinned. âMomma OâMalleyâll want me home to watch, too,â he said.Â
We were silent for a while after that. It wasnât awkward. It was never awkward with Bobby.
âIâll miss this place when weâre gone,â he said.
âWe wonât be gone long,â I said.
Bobby nodded, smiling. âI donât know, Stell Bell,â he said, âyouâve got the mysteries of the universe to uncover. Something tells me that could take you pretty far away from Torrance, Indiana.â
âMaybe,â I said, âor maybe itâll keep me right where I am.â
Bobby laughed, throwing back his long hair. He let one hand fall out the window and turned up the song on the radio. The music swirled with the wind through that moment in the car, and I closed my eyes and trailed my own fingers through the sharp breeze.
Then Bobby started bellowing out the words to the song with a thick faux-country croon, and I joined in until the song ended and we laughed all the way up to my own house.
When I got home, I found Daddy on the porch. He grinned as I sat down on the old swing beside him and put my head on his shoulder.Â
âHowâs Bobby?â he asked.
âOh, heâs Bobby,â I remember saying.
âHe tell you he loves you yet?â he asked.
I rolled my eyes. âHe doesnât love me,â I said. âBoys and girls can be friends without any of that silly stuff getting in the way.â
âYeah, yeah,â he said, âso you keep saying. Hey, thereâs supposed to be a meteor shower tonight.â
âI know,â I said. âI heard about it on the radio. Thatâs why I came back early.â
âWatch it with your old man?â he asked.
âI wouldnât watch it with anyone else,â I said.
âNot even Bobby OâMalley?â he asked.
I elbowed him in the ribs.
âOkay, okay,â he said. âAhh, there it goes.â
I smiled and leaned back, feeling the cool wind ruffle my hair and pretending it was the tail breeze of the falling stars. The meteors fell thick and heavy, burning through the sky with a color and a celerity that was nearly angry.
âBeautiful,â my father whispered.
âMagnifico,â I agreed.
He squeezed my shoulder, and then he seemed to stiffen. âHey, old thing,â he said, âdo you seeâŚ?âÂ
He trailed off, pointing, but he didnât need to point.
âItâs going to come down right in the middle of our land,â I said.
It was a moment like a scratched record. The song had been playing and the song had been beautiful, and then it skipped. I could feel the tear run straight through my fatherâs heart. On one hand, the excitement and the glory. On the other hand, the memory of that night springing unbidden onto the projector screen of his mindâs eye.
My father hated skipping tracks. When a track skipped, he always got up and moved the spindle without a momentâs hesitation. And so he fixed his own spindle, forcing himself abruptly and mechanically from the swing.
That moment is crystallized for me in memory. My father standing just a few feet away, his back to me. Part of me will always be trapped in that moment, seeing my fatherâs old blue jeans, his plaid blue and orange button-up, the glowing light of the stars framing his whole silhouette like a halo. I can still smell him, that mixture of corn and sweat and summer.
Part of me will always be watching him turn his face almost to me, so that I could see his profile, and he could see me from his periphery.Â
âWho wants to chase a comet?â he asked, his voice filled with the hushed reverence of a cathedral.
And before I had the chance to say a word, daddy leaped off the porch and went sprinting off into the corn.
I rose slowly, watching him go. The whole night was bathed in golden light as those angry burning balls went shredding through the sky. The warmth of my fatherâs arm was still around me, the Shack burger sat heavy in my stomach, and a long drive with Bobby foamed at the back of my thoughts. I leaned against the wood pole of the porch for a moment, and I soaked in the night. I remember thinking to myself that I could never forget that feeling, that it was nights like this at the ends of days like these that could carry a person through all the darkest moments of her life.
And then I heard my dad give a whooping battle cry of freedom and meteor light. And I shouted out an echo. And only one breath later, I went sprinting after him into the night.
That long moment on the porch. That long minute that I took of writing the night onto my soulâs skin. That was my can of beer.
I was a faster runner than my father. He was fit and strong and still young, but I was sixteen and ran track and cross country during the year. And the light of stars blazed in my veins.
I thought Iâd catch him up.
I laughed as I ran. There was something about running below a sky like that.
When I reached the corn, I plunged in without pause as Iâd done a thousand times before. The wet summer had grown the corn high above my head. The stalks scratched at me, and cobwebs caved in as I ran.
Somewhere ahead, I could hear the sound of my father amid the corn.
The great light intensified.
I stopped and looked up. For a split second, I saw the dark core of the meteor before the ground gave a rumble and a shake to welcome it to Earth.
I yelled out, and I could hear my father yelling too. I donât know what we yelled. We were swept away on the current of this moment.
I started running again.
I broke through into the first lane when my father called out my name.
âI found it!â he yelled. âIâŚâÂ
âDaddy?â I called out, hesitating there. There were still meteors flashing through the sky. There was still much light to see by.
âDaddy?â
My father made no response.
I ran hard.
I got there just in time to see what my father did not the first time.
A small crater pockmarked our field. Down in the center, a boulder hunched in its epicenter. My father stood next to the boulder, his hand on the rock.
He was frozen, and a golden light passed all over and around him, spinning a chrysalis around his body even as I stifled a scream.
The last thing the light took was his face. I saw him mouth my name. And then the light covered that, too.
I sprang, bolting down the crater toward him, my hands outstretched. I would pull him free. I would save him. I wouldâŚ
The light faded to nothing before I reached the rock.
I stood where heâd stood, and I screamed.
I looked up at those falling stars. They really did look angry.
I donât know how long I stood there under the burning sky, but Bobby OâMalley found me out there.Â
He appeared through the corn, and with one look, he understood. Nothing needed saying. He put an arm around me and guided me back to the OâMalley family farm.
The OâMalley house hulked on a piece of land about half a mile from where I lost my father. Like my own house, it had a wraparound porch, but this house was about twice the size. The OâMalley family owned the largest and most successful of all the farms in Torrance. They also had the most children.
As soon as we broke through the corn, dogs and siblings came running toward us. Bobby had five siblings, three of them younger. Clad in overalls, they sprinted toward us with all the wild joy of the meteors above.
When they saw our faces, though, the stardust burned cold in their veins.
âWhere are Momma and Pa?â Bobby asked.Â
The youngest answered. âOut back,â she answered, her eyes gone sharp.
âGet them now,â Bobby said. âTell âem it happened again.â The youngest, Martha, was the first to move. Her pigtails flying after her, she tore back across the yard, dogs and siblings yapping at her heels.
âWhat did you see?â Bobby asked me for the first time as we were left alone.
If I had paused to think, I might not have told him the truth. If I had paused to consider the lunacy of what happened, I might have said nothing at all. If it had been anyone but Bobby, anyone but the person I trusted the second most-no, now it was not the second most-the most in all the world, I might have lied.
But I turned to Bobby. âIt was the meteor,â I whispered. âIt wrapped him up in this cocoon of light and then he was justâŚâ
âGone?â Bobby asked, his voice a shallow wind.
âGone,â I said.
âWe wonât tell anyone what you saw,â he said. I remember nodding, realizing for the first time how insane my story would sound. âAfter all, maybe it didnât happen quite the way it looked.â
âYou donât believe me?â I whispered.
âNo, no,â Bobby said. âIâm just saying that cornfields in the middle of meteor showers can be deceptive places. Come on.â
As we started back up to the house, Bobbyâs parents burst through the front door. Mr. and Mrs. OâMalley had at least a decade of life on my own father. Unlike her six children, Mrs. OâMalley grew low to the earth. Red-faced and dark-haired, she was soft and robust where the other OâMalleys were lean steel.Â
Mr. OâMalley was tall as the corn but wired for strength. He had a rifle in his hands as he rushed toward us.Â
âYou see anything, Stella Katherine?â he asked me, putting one hand on my shoulder.
âNothing,â I lied. âHe was justâŚâ
âGone?â Mr. OâMalley asked.
âGone,â I agreed.
He planted a kiss on the top of my head. âWeâll find him. Iâm heading to your place, and so is Sheriff Donalee and Pastor Bob and the Witchitas, the Thorntons, the Holcombs, everybody. Mommaâll take care of you while we look for your daddy.â
My head nodded. I couldnât understand why I was not more upset. No tears stung my eyes. No fingers shook. No fear encased my spine. I felt nothing at all.
âItâll be okay,â Mr. OâMalley said before he turned and climbed into his truck. From the front door, Bobbyâs two older brothers came in their turns, both bearing rifles and set faces. Each spared me a quick hug before climbing into the truck.
Last of all, Bobby hugged me tightly. âDonât be afraid,â he whispered into my hair.
âIâm not,â I said.
And then Bobby, too, climbed into the truck.
Mrs. OâMalley put an arm around me as the engine of the truck exploded into life with an eager snarl.Â
âIf heâs out there, theyâll find him,â she said. Mrs. OâMalley was not one for false promises or false hope. She must have remembered that other night better than I did. There must have been promises made that night, too, promises that could only have been broken.
Mrs. OâMalley led me inside, wrapped me in an old patchwork quilt that, once upon a time, Iâd helped to stitch. She sat me on the couch in their living room and brought me a glass of milk. My fingers traced the stitches that my hands had once made, hands that had lost a mother but still had a father. Innocent fingers. Happy fingers.
Mrs. OâMalley split her time between me, the telephone, and the kitchen. Martha crawled up next to me and lay her head on my lap. At some point in the night, the other siblings appeared with Mercury. He nuzzled into my side and watched.
All that night, the room bustled with people. They came and they went. When they came, they watched me. And when they went, they whispered about me in voices too loud for their fear not to travel.
But there was nothing to be afraid of. The worst had already happened.
One by one, the OâMalley siblings dropped off to sleep.
âIâve made you up a bed,â Mrs. OâMalley told me at one point.
âPlease,â I found myself saying. âIâd rather just stay here.â
âBut, honey, you need your sleep,â she said. âI promise Iâll wake you up just as soon as we hear something.â
I shook my head. âI wonât be able to sleep,â I said. âItâs better this way.â
Mrs. OâMalley looked at me with eyes older than her years. Eyes that might have remembered my father saying something similar on a night much like this one. âAlright, sweetheart,â she said.Â
Mrs. OâMalley carried her children to their beds one by one, all but Martha who woke when she tried to move her.
âI wonât leave her,â Martha said in a matter of fact tone.
Mrs. OâMalley knew Martha too well to argue, so she let Martha be.
As soon as Mrs. OâMalley left, Martha dropped right back to sleep.
Mercury never slept though, and neither did I. All through the night, his eyes remained wide and staring, watching the front door. Waiting.
I wondered if he knew there was nothing to wait for.
Told through the glittering perspective of its title character, Stella is a fresh, intimate, and lovely story that explores family, loss, and coming to terms with who you are.Â
Stella follows its title character as she tries to understand and accept her motherâs mysterious disappearance. The story picks up after she watches her father disappear in the same way after he rushes outside to see a fallen meteor. When he disappears in a flash of light, Stella must readjust to life under a constellation of painful memories. With the support of her childhood friend Bobby, Stella tries to put the pieces of her life back together.
I appreciated the way the story is structured. Dygert crafts an atmospheric town setting complete with characters who bring the theme of familial loyalty to life. As a reader, I felt immersed in Stellaâs story, and was as curious and frustrated as her trying to figure out what happened to her parents. I thoroughly enjoyed the way her relationships created a well-rounded and multidimensional protagonist.
Even if there doesnât appear to be much âactionâ going on throughout the story, what appeals to me the most in Stella is Dygertâs attention to her interactions, motivations, and development. She is aware of who she is without telling readers exactly how sheâs feeling. I love the following passage, for instance: ââŚmy big file full of clippings and Internet articles about disappearances and mysteries under cosmic phenomena were only the half-crazed rantings of people like me. Sad people full of love and fear who had lost what the mind could not stand to lose.â
The ending is a little jarring, though I think Dygert builds up to the reveal well. I would've loved a bit more explanation for why the disappearance happened the way it did, but I think leaving the mystery open to readers was a great way to end Stellaâs story. We see a changed woman who emerges stronger after she discovers the truth, and I think thatâs the part that stayed with me the most.
Dygert interweaves emotional complexity and an intricate plot in a little over 60 pages, also creating a careful balance between character development, description, and pacing. Readers with a particular interest in the sci-fi/literary genre will find a familiar home with Stella, and readers looking for something with a quieter aura will enjoy Stella's refined and elegant prose.Â