Sparrow

by Mary Cecilia Jackson

  “Lucas, what is it?”

  I pull over on Main Street, near the gazebo. I don’t trust myself to say this next part without driving us into a ditch.

  “So, when he didn’t get better after a couple of days, my mom took him to the emergency room. She was afraid he was getting dehydrated, because he couldn’t stop barfing. Turns out it wasn’t too many Big Macs. It’s pancreatic cancer.”

  Her hand flies to her mouth, and her eyes go wide and fill with tears.

  “Sparrow, please, please don’t cry. I can take it from anybody but you.”

  “Oh, Lucas,” she says, the tears spilling down her cheeks. “Oh my God, no, no, no!” My face feels like it’s about to cave in on itself. I am one nanosecond away from losing it.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. Hang on.”

  She fishes in her purse for a Kleenex, blows her nose, wipes her eyes hard, then looks at me, not quite dry-eyed, but completely focused. Her chin is trembling.

  “So, what, does he have to have chemotherapy or surgery or something?”

  “The doctor says they can do some chemo to try to shrink the tumor, but it’s super-aggressive, and the chemo will only buy him some time. It’s too far gone. It’s in his liver, too.”

  “Oh my God, Lucas. I don’t know what to say. I’m so freaking sorry.”

  She unbuckles her seat belt, kneels on her seat, then leans over the console and puts her arms around me. She rocks back and forth, holding on all tight and fierce. I wrap my arms around her.

  “What can I do? Can I tell Sophie? She’ll want to cook dinners for you guys so you don’t have to worry about food. My dad will want to help, too.”

  I’m quiet, remembering my mom telling me how she didn’t want it all over Hollins Creek. But this is Sophie and Mr. Rose. I need somebody to know what’s happening. I need one place to go that hasn’t turned into a shrieking nightmare.

  “Okay, yeah, you can tell Sophie and your dad, but they have to keep it on the down-low, okay? Seriously, I don’t want the entire town gossiping about our family.”

  “Don’t worry about that. They’ll keep it quiet. But, Lucas, how come you didn’t tell me? All this time, keeping something like that to yourself? Pretending like everything is okay? It must have been so hard.”

  I stare out the windshield at everybody else’s lives going on just like they always do. People getting takeout from Thai One On, having coffee and pie at Nora’s, picking up their clothes at the dry cleaner’s. Laughing. It feels wrong, like nobody should be happy. Like everyone should be falling to their knees and screaming and tearing out their hair.

  “I didn’t tell anybody because I thought maybe if I didn’t say the words out loud, then they wouldn’t be true. If nobody knew, then I could go to school and dance with you and hang out with the guys, and nothing would change. Except I didn’t know that I’d carry it around with me, all the time. It’s like grief walks with you, sits beside you in calculus class, asks you to pass the salt at the dinner table.”

  “How’s your dad now? How’s your mom? Anna?”

  “Well, that’s the hell of it. He’s doing the chemo, and the doctor gave him a bunch of other medicine. He’s lost a lot of weight, and he looks like somebody kneed him in the nuts, like he just can’t believe this is happening to him. But he’s still smiling and joking around. Trying, you know, to still be himself. When his hair started falling out, he put on that stupid hat from Williamsburg. He wears it all the time, so it’s like living with a bald minuteman. My mother, on the other hand, is completely destroyed. She keeps disappearing into the nearest bathroom and running the shower so we won’t hear her crying. I want to help her, but I’m afraid if I go in there with her, I’ll start crying, too. And if I do, I’ll never stop. Anna doesn’t know anything, only that Dad’s sick and has to take some medicine. She’s still so little.”

  “Do you know—oh, this is such a terrible thing to ask—do you know—”

  “How long he has?”

  “Yes.”

  “The doctor said anywhere from six weeks to nine months, best case.”

  “Oh my God. Lucas.”

  She hugs me tighter, and I can feel her hot tears slipping down the side of my neck and into my shirt. I pull her closer. I don’t have any more words.

  She rests her forehead against mine. “You call me, text me, come banging on our door any time of the day or night if you need to talk or get out of the house. I mean it, Lucas. Don’t go dark on me. I will come dance with you whenever you need to work it out that way. Sophie will feed you and won’t make you talk. My dad will take you fishing. Even if you want to come over and yell and scream and break things, you do it with us, okay? Anything you need. We are all here. Me, most of all. You got it?”

  I breathe her in deep, smelling her shampoo, her sweat, the fabric softener she uses on her leotards. I have to think quickly about stupid crap, like Monty Python movies and Luis cramming hot dogs into his face, because if I don’t, I will lose my mind right here, and I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to feel everything all at once. I don’t know how to be anymore.

  “Thanks, Birdy,” I say into her hair. “I will definitely talk to you if I need help. But right now, put your seat belt back on and let me get you home. Sitting here in my smelly Jeep isn’t going to make anything better.”

  She puts her head down, rooting through her purse for more Kleenex. I pretend not to see her crying.

  Sparrow’s house is on Larkspur Way, at the top of the cul-de-sac. It’s a bungalow with a deep, wide porch, thick square columns on stone bases, and bay windows on the second floor that let in the afternoon light. Her room looks out across the foothills to Mount Aberdeen.

  When I turn into her driveway, the stone in my heart gains ten pounds, and my eyes blur. It all looks so freaking normal. The mailbox is shaped like a fish, and Sophie paints it every spring. This year, it’s midnight blue, with stars for eyes and constellations on the fins and tail. Purple and pink wisteria wind around the porch columns, and peonies bloom in the beds in front of the house. Sparrow’s father is outside, watering the hanging baskets. Pruning shears are sticking out of his back pocket. When he sees us, he grins and waves.

  When I left for the conservatory this morning, my father was asleep on the couch, his tricornered hat askew on his bald head. His skin is a weird shade of gray, and his cheekbones are so sharp it’s like you can see the skull underneath his skin. But he woke up and smiled at me. Walking out of the house, I noticed the dead geraniums in the flowerpots, my mother’s car thick with dirt and pollen, the green dumpster packed with pizza boxes. There is no wisteria where I live. No carefully tended grass. No father outside, singing “Bungle in the Jungle” at the top of his lungs and watering the plants.

  I stop the car behind Sophie’s bright red Subaru, covered in bumper stickers. Got Books? and Blessed Be, and my personal favorite, When I Want Your Opinion, I’ll Read It in Your Entrails.

  Sparrow makes no move to get out of the car.

  “You going to be okay?” I ask.

  “Are you?”

  “No. I don’t think I’ll be okay for a long time, but I’ll try like a champ to fake it.”

  “Not with me, though, right?”

  “Never with you. How about you? You going to keep pretending everything’s okay with your boyfriend?”

  “Everything is okay with my boyfriend, Lucas. He already feels terrible, I promise you. He’ll come over tonight with flowers. He’ll apologize. He’ll be his normal sweet self, and we’ll talk it all out. Trust me, everything will be fine.”

  She forces a weak little smile.

  “All will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

  She blanches a little, realizing what she just said.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. All will not be well. I’m sorry, Lucas. I’m a nitwit.”

  “It’s okay, Birdy. I know what you meant.”

  Her father looks over at us, probably wondering why
we’re still in the car, why we aren’t laughing and joking around.

  She leans over the console again and gives me an awkward one-armed hug.

  “Bye,” she says. “Thank you for rescuing me. I’m glad you were there. And I’m glad you told me, Lucas. You call me, okay? I’ll keep my phone on all the time. I don’t want you to go through this alone. If you let me, I’ll be your person, the one you can talk to. I’ll walk with you. All the way, Lucas, every step. Okay?”

  “Right,” I say.

  She kisses me on the cheek. “You really are a prince, Lucas Oliver Henry.”

  I hate hearing my entire constipated preacher name.

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s what all the ladies say.”

  She walks up to the front porch, where her dad is waiting. She puts her hand in his and leans against him. They both wave to me as I back out of the driveway.

  Terrible news spilled like a dark stain into the world. Check.

  Ballerina delivered safely home. Check.

  I head to my house, where I’ll cut the grass and wash my mother’s car. Maybe I’ll even go to the nursery and buy something to replace the dead geraniums.

  Anything to keep from going inside.

  11

  June, After the Funeral

  “There’s no such thing as a beautiful funeral, sweetie. They all suck. I made you a coconut cake.”

  With the June sun shining down bright and fierce on our brown front lawn, Sophie wraps her arms around me and hugs me hard. Sparrow makes her way from the car, holding an enormous cake carrier, while Mr. Rose juggles a vase of his prized white roses. I look over Sophie’s shoulder through the big picture window in the living room.

  The house is packed. People are drinking beers and balancing plates filled with food. I see my mom, walking through the living room like a ghost, wearing a shapeless green dress and the pearls my dad gave her when they got married. Her hair is pulled back off her face into a messy ponytail, and she’s not wearing any makeup. She looks so pale. I watch her stop when people talk to her, nodding, maybe saying a word or two, but I can tell that she’s not hearing anything. Her eyes are faraway, and she walks like she’s floating through a dream. She’s not even halfway here.

  Near the fireplace, Anna is curled up in my dad’s big leather chair. When anyone tries to talk to her, she covers her ears. All these people in our house, eating and drinking, talking and laughing. It’s the biggest party we’ve ever had, but underneath all the noise, the house feels abandoned. Like there should be white sheets on the furniture and cobwebs in the corners and mice scuttling through all the empty rooms.

  Sophie lets go of me, and Sparrow’s father shakes my hand, then pulls me into the one-armed bro hug. “You know you’re part of our family, right?” he says quietly. “Stay close, Lucas, you hear me? The hardest part starts tomorrow, when all this crazy noise and activity go away. Then you have to figure out how to get through the days. We’re here to help you, any way we can. I hope you’ll let us.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Rose. I appreciate that. You guys are the only ones who tell it straight. You should hear some of the things people are saying.”

  “Let me guess. ‘God needed another angel. God never gives you more than you can handle. Your father is in a better place. At least he’s not suffering anymore.’ You want to punch them in the face, am I right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Trust me, I’ve heard it all before, the meaningless things people say without thinking, because they have to say something and need to make themselves feel better. Frankly, if God is going around cutting down good, loving, decent men like your dad just because he’s lonely up there, because he wants to punish us for being strong, then I’m not sure I like him very much.”

  I reach out to shake his hand again. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You hang in there, Lucas. Fight the good fight. We’re with you all the way.”

  Sparrow gives Sophie the cake carrier.

  “Lucas,” says Sophie. “Should I just put this in the kitchen?”

  “Sure, but be careful. My granny Deirdre is in there washing dishes. She’s been in there for two hours. She won’t come out, and she won’t let anyone help her.”

  “She’s your father’s mother?”

  “Yes, ma’am. No one can get her to budge. She says she doesn’t feel like talking to strangers.”

  Sophie heads to the kitchen. “I don’t blame her one bit. I’ll be quick.”

  “Mr. Rose,” I say. “There’s beer and wine and a ton of food in the dining room, if you can make it through the crowd. My mom’s in the living room. I know she’d be glad to see you.”

  “Where’s little Anna?”

  “In the big chair in front of the fireplace.”

  “I’ll visit with them both, Lucas. Remember what I said, okay?”

  “I will, sir. Thank you for coming.”

  Sparrow is standing quietly near the front door. She’s wearing a pale purple dress covered with white lace, and her hair is in a soft bun low on the back of her neck. My mom didn’t want everyone dressed in black and asked me to spread the word for people to wear my dad’s favorite colors. Purple. Citadel blue. Forest green. Sparrow looks beautiful, even though she’s been crying and her eyes are all swollen and red.

  “Tristan’s not here?”

  “No. He didn’t think you’d want him to come.”

  “Was he at least at the funeral? To be there for you? You loved my dad crazy-hard.”

  “He doesn’t like funerals. He thinks they’re depressing.”

  “Right. Because most people think they’re a real laugh riot. What a guy.”

  “Lucas,” she says softly. “Maybe give it a rest today.”

  I sling my arm around her shoulders. “You’re right. Come on, let’s go out back. I can’t breathe in there.”

  We walk around the house to the patio, where Delaney and Luis, Israel, Caleb, and Sam are sitting in a circle, drinking beers from the ice-filled tub near the grill. I grab one and hand Sparrow a Sprite. Some of the adults give us the stink eye, clearly disapproving of our underage drinking. But I’m the dude with the dead father. They wisely choose to remain silent.

  “How long have you guys been out here?” I ask.

  Delaney says, “I was the first one out. This sweet old lady started telling me about how she contacted her dead husband with a Ouija board. She was super-calm, like she was talking about what she had for breakfast. A Ouija board! I mean, hello, nice lady? Have you ever seen The Exorcist? Everybody knows that’s how you end up with your head doing a three-sixty and spewing green puke on a priest. I came out here to get some air.”

  “It’s so sad and weird,” Caleb says. “Like some people are crying and talking about how great your dad was, and other people are having totally normal conversations about work and their kids and where they went to dinner last night. I don’t get it.” He grabs another sweating beer from the tub.

  “I don’t even know who half those people are,” I say. I pull out a chair for Sparrow and squeeze her in between Delaney and Sam, then sit on Delaney’s other side, perching on one of the low teak tables. I loosen my tie and take a deep breath. All day long, I’ve felt like I was choking.

  “For real, man,” says Sam. “It’s bizarre. People are totally chowing down in there. And getting super-drunk, too. Strangest social gathering I’ve ever been to in my life. Like ‘Hey, somebody died, let’s party.’”

  “Truth,” says Israel. “You know what would have been way better?”

  I take a long swallow of my beer, suddenly remembering how my dad loved to have a couple of cold ones after he’d worked up a sweat cutting the grass. I wonder if this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, gut-smacked by memories every minute of every day.

  “No, Iz, what would have been way better?” Delaney asks.

  “A Viking funeral.”

  Sparrow says, “Israel, come on, don’t.”

  “No, seriously, man,”
Luis says. “Instead of us all packed like sweaty sardines into Blessed Sacrament, we’d be standing outside. On the riverbank, in the sun. Everybody who loved your dad would have gotten together when he passed to build him a sweet raft out of logs, like in Huckleberry Finn. He’d be all stretched out under the big blue sky, wearing shorts and a Citadel T-shirt, or maybe his Marine uniform, looking up at the mountains. He loved outdoorsy stuff, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “He did.”

  Delaney snorts with laughter, then covers her mouth with both hands, eyes wide, shoulders shaking. The sound is so unexpected, so happy, so normal, that a smile tugs at my mouth. It feels weird, like my face is broken.

  She wipes her eyes and takes a sip of her beer, then points the bottle at Luis. “Which one of you clowns would shoot the flaming arrow? You can barely walk and chew gum at the same time. And all y’all have that little problem with your knuckles dragging on the ground.”

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” says Sam. “We learned archery in Boy Scouts.”

  “When you were what, ten? You think maybe those skills might have gotten a little rusty over the years? I’m just saying.”

  “Well, maybe,” says Luis. “But I’ll bet Lucas’s dad would have picked the Viking funeral option if he’d had the choice. Way to go out in a blaze of glory, right, Lucas? Everybody would remember a funeral like that.”

  “He was definitely not the most subtle guy.” I picture a flaming wooden barge floating down the New River, everything burning to ash, my father carried on the wind all the way to the sea. He would have loved it.

  “So,” Delaney asks, fiddling with the beads around the neck of her navy-blue dress. “How are you doing, for real? And don’t say you’re fine, because there’s no possible way.”