Sparrow

by Mary Cecilia Jackson

  “I’m not blaming you, Daddy. I never have. I know you loved her and tried to help her. But sometimes I wonder why a super-smart lawyer like you didn’t notice that I was terrified all the time. I wonder why you weren’t there for me, why you didn’t save me. I love you, Daddy. But could we please, please throw it all out into the middle of the room and look at it? For once?”

  It’s the scariest, most honest thing I’ve ever said to my father, and I totally expect him to lose his mind. I wait for his eyes to blaze, for him to stand up again and pace around the room and tell me very calmly all the reasons why I’m wrong.

  But he doesn’t. He bursts into tears.

  Dr. Gray hands him the box of Kleenex she keeps on the coffee table.

  “I think what happened long ago has a great deal to do with what happened last August,” she says quietly. “For that reason, I am going to ask Sparrow to talk about her mother, Avery. She’ll never be whole if we don’t, and you have to be strong enough to hear her. But as I’ve told her often, it’s safe here. It’s safe for all of you.”

  Sophie starts to cry. “I knew it, Avery,” she sobs. “We should have talked about it! We should have gotten therapy for her when she was little. We let it go too long, and now look where we are!”

  “Sophie,” says Dr. Gray. “It’s not going to help Sparrow or you to second-guess the decisions you made years ago. Let’s hear what she has to say today, and move forward from there.”

  She turns to me and says, “I know how hard these conversations are, Sparrow, believe me. You’ve come such a long way since the days you sat in my office and didn’t speak a word. You’ve already talked to me about your mother, and we’ve discussed that last day. Today I’d like to go back to those last days again, all of us, together.”

  She stands up and cracks the window behind her desk. “You can do this, Sparrow. Remember the hope you told me you’re beginning to feel. Look how far you’ve come. I’m right here. And just like always, if it’s too much, we’ll stop.”

  I breathe in the cold. In and out. Three times. Three times more. Nine in all.

  One, two, three, count with me.

  Dr. Gray returns to her seat. “I’d like to begin with Carolina’s funeral.”

  * * *

  I am wearing a new dress. White with pale blue flowers that look happy, because their insides are bright pink, my favorite color. My sandals are new too, shiny and white. My toes can feel the sunshine. My father bought me new things yesterday, to wear for my mother’s funeral. There are lots of people at our house, and everybody is bringing food. Food that nobody eats. Everybody downstairs looks sad, but I can tell some of them are only pretending.

  Sophie sits behind me on my bed and braids my hair. Her eyes are all red. She’s good at braiding, and I like the way her soft fingers tickle my neck. She ties a wide blue ribbon on the end of my braid, but I don’t like it.

  “No, Sophie, a red one.”

  “Sweetie, red doesn’t go with your dress. Don’t you like the blue ribbon? I thought it was your favorite.”

  I feel my lip start to quiver, the way it does when I’m trying not to cry. “No, I don’t like blue ribbons anymore. I hate them.”

  She looks at me funny, then wraps me up in her arms and kisses the top of my head. Her freckles are like cinnamon sprinkled on milk. I love Sophie. I love her so much. She smells good, and she’s safe. Nothing can hurt me when she’s here.

  “Okay, baby girl. We’ll do red.”

  She finds the ribbon and ties it in a bow, then takes my hand. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”

  “For what?”

  “We’re going to St. Monica’s now, to say some prayers for your mama.”

  “I don’t want to say prayers for Mama.”

  “You don’t have to say a single one, my darling. But maybe other people would like to. So we’ll go for them, and I’ll bring your new crayons. You can color until we’re all finished, and then we’ll come home. How’s that?”

  “Can I have Beauty and the Beast? And will you bring A Little Princess, so I can look at the pictures?”

  “Whatever you want, love. Whatever you want.”

  When we go downstairs, there are lots of ladies from church in the kitchen. Sophie calls them the St. Monica Meddlers. The ladies stop talking when we come in, but I hear some of them whisper, “Poor little thing.”

  One lady, who’s at the sink washing dishes, doesn’t see us. She hands another lady a plate to dry and says, “You can’t really tell anything happened, not to look at her. I heard Carolina was crazy even when he married her, that she had to go to a mental hospital. Twice! Can you imagine? All that liquor can’t have helped either. Did you even see all the empty bottles in the trash? Bless her heart.”

  Sophie clears her throat and sounds very mad, like she was when she came to visit us and called me Sparrow for the first time. She said I was quick, like a little bird. One night my mama grabbed my arm hard, because I wanted to stay downstairs with Sophie and Mama wanted me to go to bed. Sophie pulled me away, wrapped me in her soft freckly arms, and carried me into the living room. She called my mama a witch and held me on her lap for a long time. We read fairy tales and looked at all the pictures. There are lots of witches in fairy tales, but none of them looked like my mama. She was pretty, even though she was mean sometimes. Even though she hurt me. It would have been better if she’d been ugly, with green skin and a wart on her nose. Then I would have known.

  Sophie says, “She’s not deaf, ladies, so I’ll thank you to watch what you say around my niece and keep your opinions to yourself. We’re leaving for the church now. Thank you for all you’ve done, but I think we’re in good shape. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  A tall, skinny lady with white hair, who looks like one of those birds that stand on one leg says, “Sophie, are you sure? We’re happy to come back and help serve, after they get that woman in the ground.”

  Sophie covers my ears, but I can hear her anyway. “Hush, Madolyn! It’s hard enough, so try to have some decency. If you can’t do it for me, do it for this sweet baby girl. We’ll welcome you as guests when we get home. I’ll serve. Avery will help.”

  “Avery? He needs to rest!”

  “Trust me, he needs to stay busy. Lock up when you leave, please, and put the key under the pot of geraniums on the porch rail. Thank you again.”

  In front of our house, a long black car is waiting. It’s the biggest car I’ve ever seen. My father picks me up and kisses me, then buckles me into my booster seat. A man in a dark suit with nice sparkly eyes says, “Hello there, young lady!” I smile at him, and he gives me a little bear with a pink ribbon around her neck.

  “My little girl has one just like it. She named hers Stella. I thought you’d like to have one, too.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I say, hugging her to my chest. “I’m going to call her Emily. That’s my favorite name.”

  He winks at me, then gets in the driver’s seat. We pull away from the house, and all the church ladies stand on the front porch and watch us. Nobody talks on the way to St. Monica’s, but my daddy holds my hand. He looks out the window the whole time. I think he is sad. And afraid. Sophie wipes her eyes with one of his big white handkerchiefs.

  I love the way St. Monica’s smells, like candle wax and the smoky thing Sophie calls incense, and the perfume of all the ladies mixed together. And I always like the prayers, because the words sound like music. But I don’t like any of it today. It smells like too many flowers, too sweet, like the smell is trying to crawl down my throat. And sad music is coming from the organ.

  There’s a big, long box in front of the altar. It’s made out of shiny wood, and there are golden handles on both sides. Everybody stands up and stares when we walk in behind Father Hammond. I’m between my father and Sophie, and I look down at my new shoes, squeezing Emily tight. I don’t like the way all the eyes feel on my skin.

  When we slide into the front pew, I tug on my father’s sleeve.
r />   “Daddy, what’s that box for, and why are there so many flowers?”

  “It’s called a casket, sweetheart, remember?” he whispers. “We talked about this last night. And people send the flowers because it’s a nice thing to do.”

  “And Mama’s in the box?”

  “Your mama’s body is in there, honey. She died, remember? She had an accident, and she’s gone to Heaven.”

  Under her breath, Sophie says, “Doubt it.”

  “Sophie, hush!” my daddy says.

  The priests are saying some prayers in front of the box. One of them walks around it, swinging the gold incense thing. I can see pictures in the smoke as it climbs all the way up to the high ceiling. A horse, a bird, a lady’s face.

  “Daddy, are you sure Mama’s in there?”

  He looks down at me. His face is so sad.

  “I’m sure, little Sparrow. I’m sure.”

  “And she can’t get out?”

  Two tears slip down my daddy’s face and his voice is soft and shaky.

  “She can’t get out, honey.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not ever.”

  “Do you promise?”

  He pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me real tight.

  “I promise.”

  At the end, the organ plays another sad song, and the choir sings. Some grown-up boys carry the box with my dead mother outside. They push her into the back of a big car.

  “Tell them to lock the doors, Daddy.”

  “It’s okay, pumpkin. You’re safe now.”

  “No, I’m not. Tell them to lock the doors.”

  We get in our long black car again, and I hold Emily close.

  When the car stops, we get out and walk up a big hill. There are white chairs under a tent. The box is there, still covered with the white flowers that smell bad. Father Hammond says more prayers. My father’s knee moves up and down, up and down. He doesn’t like being here. I sit on Sophie’s lap and breathe in her sweet perfume. She holds me close and rocks me gently from side to side.

  Father Hammond says, “Avery, Sophie, would you like to say anything?”

  “No,” says my father.

  Sophie whispers, “No.” Her arms tighten around me.

  Behind us, the tall bird lady from our kitchen taps Sophie on the shoulder. When we both turn around, she says, “Doesn’t little Sparrow want to go up and kiss her mother goodbye?” Her mouth is mean.

  Sophie’s whisper is fast and sharp, like a knife.

  “You hush your nasty mouth, Madolyn. This little girl isn’t getting near that woman ever again.”

  Father Hammond says another prayer, and we leave. People come up to Sophie and my daddy and hug them. They say thank you, but we go around all the people as fast as bunnies and get back into our black car.

  “Don’t you want to talk to the people, Daddy?”

  “I do not, sweetheart. Not today.”

  When we are home inside our yellow kitchen, Sophie fixes me dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and a big bowl of macaroni and cheese. She doesn’t make me eat any vegetables.

  Afterward, when the people start to come and our house is filled with strangers, Emily and I walk up the stairs and crawl into my toy box. It’s just big enough for me, if I curl myself up into a little ball.

  When my mother gets out of her box, she won’t be able to find me.

  * * *

  When I finish, nobody says anything. I can’t look at my father. Dr. Gray looks straight into my eyes. She does not look away.

  “Oh God, honey,” cries Sophie. “You remembered everything. All this time you’ve been carrying those terrible memories around with you.”

  My father is crying. As in sobbing. He doesn’t even try to wipe the tears away. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so, so sorry, sweetheart. For everything. For all of it.” The box of Kleenex is empty.

  Dr. Gray asks, “Sparrow, how are you feeling?”

  How am I feeling? I have no idea, so I pick the loudest, most familiar one, the feeling that’s with me most of the time.

  “I’m afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of?” she asks gently.

  “I’m afraid of my mother. I’m always afraid of her. I don’t know how to stop.”

  “Honey, she’s gone,” my father says. “She can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “When was the last time you had a dream about her?” Dr. Gray asks.

  “Night before last.”

  “Can you share it with us?”

  “It’s always the same. She has … black feathers. And wings. She says, ‘Come to me.’”

  Sophie cries harder. My father wipes his eyes.

  Dr. Gray says, “Why do you think you’re still afraid of her?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t really thought about why. I’m just always scared, like part of me never really believed she was dead. I mean, I was so little then, I didn’t know what dying meant, that it was forever. So when I was a kid, I was always terrified that she’d show up in the backyard one day and pull me off the swings, or be sitting in the parking lot at school, waiting for me, or just appear in the kitchen at breakfast time, holding a plastic lemon in each hand. I used to hide from her, for years after she died, until I was too big to fit in that cupboard under the stairs. Then I switched to my closet, behind all the pointe shoe boxes.”

  “Oh God,” my father whispers. “Oh my God.”

  “Go on, Sparrow,” Dr. Gray says.

  “There’s not much more, just that by the time I was old enough to know that dead really was forever, it was too late to stop being afraid. It’s not like a switch I could flip, you know? It was part of me, that fear, that terror. When I was in middle school, it changed. It got bigger. It went inside, which was way worse. Instead of always being afraid that I’d actually see her again, it was like I carried her with me all the time, like every minute of every day. Sometimes I feel like I’m so filled up with fear that there’s no room for anything else.”

  Dr. Gray is quiet for a while. Then she comes and sits beside me. She takes my hands in hers.

  “Sparrow,” she says softly, “you are a remarkable young woman. You articulated your feelings, your fear, so powerfully just now. Honestly, you just did amazing work, and it was really, really brave of you to dig so deep and bring those fears out into the open.”

  My father blows his nose. Sophie collects all the balled-up tissues into her lap and mashes them into one huge wad.

  “Is there anything else you’d like to say?” Dr. Gray says.

  There’s more, so much more. It’s like I’ve taken a teaspoon of water out of an impossibly deep well. I am empty and exhausted. But I feel clean, the way it feels when you’re caught outside in a summer shower, the soft rain falling while the blazing sun shines. Whenever that happened on blistering afternoons when the heat was so thick it hurt to breathe, I always saw a rainbow. I’d stand completely still, soaked to the skin, my face turned up to the sky, and wait for the bright arc to appear. It always did. Always.

  “I don’t think so. I’m kind of wiped out, to be honest.”

  “You’ve done hard work today. I’m proud of you.”

  Sophie and my dad are sitting on the edges of their chairs, ready to bolt. I’m still curled up in the red chair, clutching the afghan around me. I wish I could sleep here.

  “But let’s all think about something before we meet next time. First I want you to know that I really do understand the instinct that made you—that still makes you—want to repress the memories of Sparrow’s mother. But what Sparrow just shared is powerful evidence that those memories are still there, whether you acknowledge them or not. They’re not going away. Painful memories rarely do, especially when you don’t look at them or talk about them. They clamor and they scream, because they’re determined to get your attention one way or another.

  “By not talking about Carolina, you haven’t been able to move on, at least not in a way that’s healthy, in a way you c
an live with. She haunts you. If Sparrow is going to heal, truly heal, not just from the assault, but also from her experience with her mother and her toxic relationship with Tristan, she’s going to have to look at all those dark things. And you both are going to have to look with her, to acknowledge them and talk about them. And then you can begin—separately and together—to fashion a way to move on, not just to live, but to thrive.”

  I’m not sure yet. I can’t be sure of anything. But maybe, here in Dr. Gray’s beautiful office, the air still ringing with terrible words, heavy with years of fear and dread and horror, maybe it’s like a summer rain just stopped. Maybe I’m standing outside, drenched and clean, and the sun is shining in the sparkling world.

  And maybe, just maybe, I’ve caught the smallest glimpse of a rainbow.

  * * *

  That afternoon, just as the sun is sinking behind the mountains, Levkova comes to see me. It’s been quiet since we got home from Dr. Gray’s office, but the air feels thick, filled with all the things we’ve never said out loud, all the words we have yet to speak. My father has escaped to his study, nursing a double Scotch, and Sophie’s in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for spaghetti sauce. She always cooks when she’s upset.

  When the doorbell rings, I yell that I’ll get it, but nobody responds. I figure it’s probably Mrs. Cranston, with yet another tuna casserole, so I try to plaster a pleasant smile on my face. But when I open the door, Madame Levkova is standing on the doorstep in the fading light, a lavender scarf draped artfully over her snow-white hair. She’s holding a box wrapped in silver paper and tied with a white ribbon.

  “Hello, little bird. Is this a good time for a visit? I can come back another time—I don’t want to interrupt your dinner or disturb your family.”

  “Oh, no, no, Madame,” I stammer. “I mean, yes, please, come in.”

  I take her coat and scarf and hang them in the hall closet. She follows me into the living room, and we sit on the sofa, in front of the fire. February is the most miserable month of winter, if you ask me, and I am so tired I could sink to the floor and sleep for a year.