Edwin knows three chords at most, can play five tunes. He has always, always wanted to be an actor and everyone knows this. One of his early memories is of sitting with Mother in Father’s dressing room, asking her what that sound was, the thunder four thousand people make when they all clap their hands at the same time.

Father dislikes being opposed, so Edwin says nothing, even as his dreams cry out in their dying. The more Father talks of it, the more fixed it will become.

Edwin doesn’t expect Mother to argue with Father. She never has. She never will. All he expects of her is silence. Silence, and maybe, after Father has quit the room, sympathy. Instead, his mother speaks. “Jesus was a carpenter,” she says.

Now Edwin is so angry he can hardly swallow. As if Jesus is remembered for his woodwork! “June gets to be an actor,” he says throatily.

It’s enough resistance to set Father off. His hands smack down on the table, making the plates rattle. He begins to rail about the sacrifices he makes, the long hard touring, the exhausting falsity of it all. “All so that you can have a real life,” he says. “What pleasure you will take in making something fine, something you can touch and smell and see, the product of your own hands. I envy you, by God I do.”

There is a long silence in which Asia stares at Edwin balefully. Father was in such a good mood; they were having such fun, and then Edwin had to go and ruin everything. “ ‘A man must rule his family in his own way,’ ” Father says.

But what about Edwin’s meteor and caul? What about the more than 240,000 meteors falling over the East Coast and all the way to the Rocky Mountains at his birth? Will no one here speak up for the stars?

More silence. Father pulls his bread apart with his hands and puts a corner of it into his mouth. His teeth have been paining him for some time now. He shifts the bread about, seeking a place where he can chew comfortably. Edwin takes a small, grim satisfaction in seeing this. “June acts,” Father says finally, swallowing. “But June is no actor.”

The conversation is over. The decision is made.

In fact, it’s been a long time since anyone remembered Edwin’s stars. They’ve been superseded by Johnny’s fiery arm. Even though Edwin’s stars were seen all over the city while Mother was the only witness to Johnny’s magical fire. Edwin’s stars were in the paper!

At my nativity

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes.

And why does Johnny get to be an avenger while Edwin has to see ghosts? Why does June get to be an actor while Edwin has to be a cabinetmaker? It’s the unfairness that Edwin objects to.

iv