Wandering Stars: A Novel

Sean Price doesn't feel he belongs anywhere. He is adopted, and when his mother, Grace, dies, he feels closer to his father Tom, and brother Mike than ever before, though this doesn’t last long. Sean doesn't feel like he belongs anywhere. He is non-binary and of multiracial heritage. Sean has never been accepted by the white people of his community in Oakland, even though he's grown up with a white family. He gets in an accident playing roller hockey, and though he only took medication to help with the pain at first, he continues to use them and develops a substance use disorder. Once Sean realizes he will not be able to get medication from his doctors anymore, he gets it from his father, who has been experimenting with substance combinations in his basement since Sean's mom got sick. In return, Sean decides to sell the substances at school when he returns.

Tom buys DNA tests for everyone in his family for Sean's birthday. When Sean gets his test back, he learns that he is white, Indigenous, and North African. He thinks about a project he did in middle school, describing how growing up as a Person of Color with a white family could be compared to People of Color under patriarchal, white, colonial rule. Sean felt his presentation was truer than the optimistic presentation about race that had preceded his, but everyone in the class seemed to like his presentation less. When Tom and Mike get their results back from the DNA test, they learn that they too have a small portion of Indigenous heritage. When Sean and Tom get into a conversation about bloodlines, Sean is uncomfortable and tries to explain why he may have such heritage in his bloodline, including rape. The conversation goes poorly because his father continues to use false equivalencies when Sean attempts to contradict his points about whiteness. Because Sean and Orvil are enrolled in an online school program while they recover from their injuries, they meet and begin a conversation online about their accidents and their medications.

Opal, who didn’t own a home until she adopted the Red Feather brothers after their mother's death by overdose, feels that, despite all her work trying to keep the boys safe, the shooting at the Big Oakland Powwow has changed everything. She wishes things could go back to how they were as she signs loan disclosures at their home on Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland, enrolling Orvil at a private high school.

Orvil is in therapy after the shooting. He sees a therapist named Dr. Hoffman, who teaches Orvil about trauma responses and ways to process his pain, like writing and meditation. Though Orvil does not understand much of what he's asked to do, he participates. He also engages in group therapy. Dr Hoffman teaches his patients that by telling their stories, they are reframing the events that happened to them. In doing so, they can find community and healing together. Orvil remains skeptical. Orvil remembers waking up in the hospital with his brothers at his bedside. He remembers feeling shame about what had happened to him as Jacquie walks out crying, but he laughs this off with his brothers, who are just glad he is awake.

Orvil, who has had nightmares for much of his life, realizes that the hydromorphone is helping with more than just his physical pain. The drugs help stave off his fear of falling asleep as well as his traumatic reliving of the shooting itself. He notices that he is consuming more medication and becoming more dependent on it. As he walks with Opal, something he's begun to regularly do, he tells her that he likes taking the medication. She tells him not to worry because he will soon stop taking them. Orvil privately resists.

Lony, who has become obsessed with blood since he saved Orvil's life in the hospital, begins cutting himself to bury his blood. He does this because he read on the internet that Cheyenne means “the cut people.” He thinks it is an important ritual. Lony is also making a list of superpowers he thinks an Indigenous superhero would have, if any existed in the popular media he watched. This list includes powers like flying, dance fighting, and super blood. He also feels that he has a power similar to the movie Donnie Darko, where a tunnel of light acts as a portal, extending from the stomach of its characters. He also believes burying his blood is part of his power. Lony feels like he knows the least about being Indigenous than anyone else in his family, which makes him feel angry and powerless, leading him to add more blood to the dirt.

Opal and Jacquie go for a walk at Lake Merritt. Though they both do not directly address the tension they feel, they dance around Jacquie's sudden appearance in their lives and Opal's hope that she stays sober. When they come across a totem pole in the park, Jacquie tells her sister she does not remember it being there. Opal tells her it's been restored and that Oakland is always trying to be better.

Jacquie knows she should focus on her recovery for her family. She goes to meetings and slowly finds ways to avoid alcohol misuse. She meets a man who she really likes, but he does not call her back. Jacquie resists drinking, despite experiencing urges. Jacquie, like Opal, walks a lot. Opal asks Jacquie if they should go to Alcatraz as a family. Though Jacquie hates Alcatraz because of what happened to her there, she agrees it's important to find community for the boys.