The Feathered Bone

by Julie Cantrell

  “Has Jay found any more information about that woman? The one in the photos?” I ask this as we make our way back to Beth’s car.

  “Nothing you haven’t heard. Bridgette Gallatino. She’s got a criminal history. But nobody can find her.”

  “Yeah, Jay mentioned something about drug charges, robbery, and—”

  “I know.” Beth interrupts before I say “prostitution.” “They’ve got undercover guys looking for her too, but—” She stops midsentence and then begins again. “I don’t know, Amanda. How hard can it be to find somebody like that? I don’t understand why no one has seen her. Or Sarah. It’s as if they’ve both vanished. Up in smoke. Either people aren’t paying attention, or they’re afraid to get involved. Or they . . .”

  Her lip quivers, and she bites back tears.

  I give her a hug. “Beth, listen. We’re going to find her. If she really did leave the café with that lady, at least she’s got a young woman with her. That’s a good thing. Someone to mother her. She’s probably taking care of Sarah right now, watching over her.” I try to convince myself this is a reasonable possibility.

  “I can’t understand. Forgive me, Amanda, but why weren’t you there? With them? In line? I’m not blaming you. I just need to know. Why’d you leave them? It’s not like you.” Beth begins to cry, repeating, “I don’t understand.”

  With each heart-wrenching syllable, my denial gives way. I lost Sarah. I lost my best friend’s daughter. I lost my daughter’s best friend. I turned my back when I was supposed to be on guard. I am the one responsible for all of this. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t fix it. Sarah is gone.

  Chapter 9

  Hello Sparrow,

  It’s Christmas Eve! The Lady brought me some math work-books and a new pen. She found them at a garage sale. She’s got short blond hair now and she wears big sunglasses when she goes anywhere. She wants me to do my schoolwork so I won’t end up like her. I never thought I’d be happy to do math!

  Hello Sparrow,

  Last night I heard firecrackers. The room turned colors, so I bet they were pretty. We always pop them for New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July. I write my name with sparklers. Ellie likes Roman candles. Nate likes Black Cats and bottle rockets. Those hurt my ears.

  I hope the noise didn’t scare you. It sounded like bombs. Mom used to say, “Don’t be scared. Then you can see how pretty they are.”

  That’s what I’m trying to do now. I’m trying not to be scared here, so I can find something pretty about this place. You know what I found that’s pretty? You!

  Hello Sparrow,

  When I was in the box, I could only hear you. I didn’t know what kind of bird you were. I thought you might be a sparrow because my grandmother taught me birds. Plus, the palm reader had that sparrow. And her bird sang a song like yours.

  Are you the same sparrow I held that day? Did you come to get your feather back? I still have it. I’ve been guarding it, just like the palm reader told me to do.

  I like it when you sing to me. Like my grandmother used to say, “Softly sings the sparrow.”

  Hello Sparrow,

  The Man doesn’t make me stay in the box at all anymore. So now I can see every time you come to the window. It’s the best part of my day. The pretty part.

  He did put a chain on my ankle, so I can’t reach the window or door.

  Fly to Mom and Pop, please. Tell them I love them. And I miss them. Tell them I’m sorry I went with The Lady at the café. Tell them I want to come home.

  Friday, December 24, 2004

  Christmas Eve

  “I GUESS YOU’RE TOO OLD TO SET OUT COOKIES FOR SANTA AND carrots for his reindeer?” I ask, half hoping Ellie will burst into a fit of giggles and say, “No, let’s do it!”

  Instead, she rolls her eyes and plugs tiny white earbuds into her ears. Where are you, Sarah?

  I get the hint and leave my daughter to her music. Then I head to the carport, where Carl is tinkering with his compound hunting bow. “Help me. Please. I can’t get through to her no matter how hard I try.”

  “That’s your problem,” he says. “You try too hard.” My husband doesn’t look up from the fletching jig as he repairs several faulty arrows. I move closer, and he slaps my rear. “Mm-hmm! Nothing better than a woman who knows what she’s made for.” He pulls me close with hungry desire and leans me back against his workbench. “You ready to give me my Christmas present?”

  I laugh it off, pulling away. “Sure. Right out here in front of the neighbors.”

  This seems to arouse him, and he pulls me close again, even more forcefully this time. He kisses my neck, and my body reacts with flame.

  In the yard next door, children are playing.

  “Carl, there are kids everywhere.” Still, I cave in close against him, enjoying the way it feels to be in his arms. He’s kissing my shoulder when Ellie comes outside, calling, “Mom!” as she closes the door behind her.

  I pull away quickly. Frustrated, he spins his attention back to the arrows, as if I have no right to leave him wanting, even when our child needs me.

  “Change your mind?” I ask Ellie. “Want to make Santa cookies?”

  “I guess so.” She says this with a flat tone, but I take it as a spark of hope.

  “You hear that, Carl?” I can’t hide my relief. “Wanna help us?”

  He responds coldly. “No.” Then he grabs his bow and heads for the full-sized foam deer in the backyard. He pulls an arrow from his quiver, nocking it in place while attaching his release to the string loop. The tense line snaps, the carbon arrow spins through the air, and the shaft slices the target with a loud, clean pop. We leave him to his fun.

  In the kitchen Ellie and I discuss Christmas memories from years gone by. “Remember when you caught me hiding your new bike and I had to confess that Santa wasn’t real?” I hand her the sugar, and she measures while she talks.

  “Yeah, I was glad you told me the truth. One kid in my class still believed last year. I felt kind of sorry for her.”

  “I struggled with the whole Santa thing, actually.”

  “Really?” Sarah pours her scoop of sugar into the bowl.

  “Yeah. I wanted you to have all the fun, but I didn’t want you to be traumatized like I was when I learned he didn’t really live at the North Pole with elves and reindeer.”

  She rolls her eyes again. “You’re so dramatic.”

  “I never told you that story?”

  She shakes her head and reaches for the flour. I point to the next step of the recipe, and she reads the measurements.

  “Well, you know I was adopted, right?”

  She nods.

  “I found out about the adoption just before I learned the truth about Santa.”

  “Ouch,” Ellie says.

  “Yep. Hurtful stuff.” I smile. “Seriously, there’s no comparison between the two. But I was able to express my feelings about Santa Claus. I couldn’t really talk about being adopted.” I pass Ellie the baking soda and measuring spoons.

  “How’d you find out? About Santa?”

  “Friends at school. They’d been teasing those of us who still believed. Our teacher admitted it was all a hoax.”

  “Your teacher told you? That’s harsh!”

  “Yep. Second grade. I locked myself in the teachers’ restroom and refused to come out. For hours. It only had an inside lock. Even the janitor was at a loss. They thought about taking the door from its hinges, but they decided to call my mom instead.”

  “No way.”

  “True. When she got there, I screamed at her through the heavy door, ‘Why did you lie to me?’ ” I act out the part with extra flair.

  Ellie laughs softly. “Like Dad says: Drama Mama.”

  “It really did upset me. I trusted those people to give me the truth. When I found out I had been fooled, my faith in them was broken.”

  “Oh, come on, seriously?” She rolls her eyes, stirring the dry ingredients.

  “You have to und
erstand. In the span of one week, I had learned my mom and dad weren’t my real parents. And that Santa didn’t exist. Took me a long time to learn to trust again. And right when I was beginning to do so, my father left us. That was that.”

  Ellie steals a few chocolate chips before adding them to the dough. “But you trust Dad, right?”

  “Of course. Can’t have a marriage without trust.”

  “So what finally got you out of the teachers’ restroom?” Ellie asks.

  “Easy. All my mom had to do was offer chocolate chip cookies.” I smile, and we continue working together in the kitchen, making our favorite dessert. Mother and daughter. Ellie and me.

  Friday, December 31, 2004

  New Year’s Eve

  Hello Sparrow,

  I’m trying to get The Man to like me. Then maybe he’ll let me go home.

  I’m scared of him, but he brings me food and water. And he takes me outside to use the bathroom. I have to keep a pillowcase over my head out there. And my leg feels weird without the chain. I think I got used to the heavy.

  The other girls have to stay chained, but I’m his favorite. That’s what he says. I don’t know the other girls. I only know The Lady, and she says I ask too many questions.

  The Man says he’ll keep giving me food, water, clothes. Even an iPod. As long as I’m good. He says I shouldn’t be scared. But I am.

  Saturday, January 1, 2005

  New Year’s Day

  Hello Sparrow,

  Happy New Year’s!

  I bet Mom is cooking black-eyed peas and cabbage. She says they make us healthy and wealthy. They really just make the whole house stink. She’s probably making cabbage rolls. I always hold my nose while I eat those. But now I miss Mom so much, I’d eat all her cabbage rolls and never complain.

  I bet The Lady won’t cook cabbage. She seems to be as scared of The Man as I am. I asked her why they would want to take someone else’s kid. She said, “Asking why won’t change nothin’. You might as well get that through your head.”

  Sarah’s New Year’s Resolutions 2005

  1. Go home.

  Hello Sparrow,

  The Lady said we’re in a place called Chalmette. I don’t know where that is. Sometimes I hear cars go by, so maybe I could run for help.

  I’m in a shed. There are holes in the floor, but all I can see is dirt. There’s one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, like in our attic at home. Sometimes The Man keeps it on all night. Sometimes he keeps it dark for days. I like it to be on, but he won’t let me touch the switch. If The Man wants the light on, it stays on. If he wants it off, it stays off. He is in charge of everything. Even The Lady knows that. She says, “What LeMoyne wants, LeMoyne gets.”

  LeMoyne is what she calls The Man. I don’t call him a name because he won’t call me mine. He doesn’t call The Lady a real name either. Just Baby or Woman or the really bad B-word, depending on if he’s in the mood to be nice to her or not.

  The walls here aren’t finished. Pop would laugh and say, “That’s what we call a stud. Like me.” I like to help Pop build things. But now it feels like none of those things ever happened. I don’t want to forget who I really am. So I will keep writing everything I remember.

  Hello Sparrow,

  I like to look for patterns in the ceiling, like when I was a little kid. I find elephants and tigers. Even dinosaurs. My favorite is a nest of birds. I pretend you’re in there, but I’m glad you’re outside instead, flying free.

  The nest makes me think of our field trip. Miss Henderson showed us pelicans on the Louisiana flag. She said the mama pelican didn’t have anything to feed her babies, so she let them drink her blood.

  Miss Henderson told us that we should always think of that mama pelican. And that we should know our parents would do anything to save us. Mrs. Amanda said, “That’s true. Anything.”

  The Man says my parents don’t want me. That they aren’t looking for me. But I don’t believe him.

  Monday, February 14, 2005

  Valentine’s Day

  “Happy Valentine’s Day.” I snuggle against Carl’s warm chest, drinking in the woodsy smell of his aftershave. It makes me want to curl next to him in a flannel sleeping bag beneath a world of stars. I try not to let my mind drift away to Sarah, the search. “I have a surprise for you.”

  “Let me get my coffee.” He shuffles into the kitchen, and I trail him, laughing, holding his mug.

  “I already fixed it, honey. Set it down by you? When you were shaving?”

  He takes the warm cup, a tacky souvenir from our summer road trip out west. It shows a picture of Hoover Dam with shiny black letters that declare I took the dam tour. We spent the night on a houseboat, sleeping in the middle of Lake Mead. One of my favorite vacations. I can still picture Ellie plunging into the clear, cool waters of the lake. She felt so proud.

  Carl pulls the sugar bowl from the shelf and adds another scoop, stirring with hard, rapid clanks of his spoon.

  “It’s not sweet enough? I put two. How you always like it.” He ignores me, so I try another approach. “You ready for your surprise?” I add a flirtatious tilt at the hip, trying to give Carl my undivided attention. He’s grown weary of the emotional roller coaster this trauma has caused all of us, telling me again and again that life goes on.

  He ignores my mention of a gift, asking instead, “What’s for breakfast?”

  “I should know better than to talk to you without feeding you first. Let me fix an omelet.”

  “Forget it. I’ll make sausage.”

  “Or sausage. No problem.”

  “I got it!” he says, opening the fridge with a jerk.

  I pull a tea bag from the drawer and put some water on to boil.

  “We’re out of sausage?” He settles for a pack of bacon and slams the door. It’s hard to tell if he’s angry or just moving through the world with force. With Carl, a simmering undercurrent of rage rests just beneath the surface.

  Don’t take it personally, Amanda. He’s hungry.

  And then my mother’s voice: A good wife never lets her husband go hungry.

  Carl fries the bacon, adding two eggs to the grease. Then he fills his plate, leaving a couple slices for Ellie and me. He moves to the counter. I lean in from the opposite side, trying again for conversation.

  “You’re off today, right?”

  He nods.

  “What’s the plan? Want to take a picnic? Hit the river? Maybe go out for lunch or something?”

  “I need to work on the car. Change the oil. Swap out the brake pads. I’ll probably clean the gutters too and knock down that old mailbox.”

  “Need help?” I have no interest in cars or gutters, but I want to spend Valentine’s Day with my husband if I can make that happen.

  “Sure, Amanda. You handle the brake pads. I’ll tackle the oil.” He laughs as if I’m the most pathetic person on the planet, completely useless.

  Half of me wants to call his bluff and march right out to the carport with the maintenance manual in hand. But he’s right. I have no idea how to install new brake pads. So he wins. Again.

  I leave him to his daily tasks and don’t bother telling him he has a new Stihl chainsaw wrapped in the utility room. I figure he’ll find it eventually. If he got me a gift, he doesn’t mention that.

  Happy Valentine’s Day, Amanda.

  Hello Sparrow,

  It’s Valentine’s Day. We always go to the father-daughter dinner at church. Last year Pop played guitar and sang a song for me. Some people started crying. It was one of his favorite songs. “My Darling,” by Wilco.

  When he finished, he asked the dads to teach their children what it means to be a “good guy.” Then he listed ways we could tell if somebody was a good guy. He said the girls should write it down for our brothers. Only I don’t have a brother. So I told Nate.

  I can’t remember all the things Pop said, but here’s the important part.

  My Pop is a Good Guy because:

  1. I’
ve never been afraid of Pop, and I don’t think Mom has either.

  2. He’s always on our side and he’ll stick with us for life. No matter what happens.

  3. He doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal.

  4. Pop always tries to make the right choice.

  5. When he does mess up, he says he’s sorry and he means it.

  6. If we’re hurting, he’s hurting more because we are hurt.

  7. I can talk to him about anything, as long as I’m nice about it.

  Pop is the best guy I know. He always says if Mom and me don’t know how much he loves us, then he’s doing something very wrong. He comes home every day and kisses Mom and tells her thank you for being his wife. And then he kisses me and tells me thank you for being his daughter. And then he says he’s the luckiest man on the planet because of us.

  Chapter 10

  Sunday, March 27, 2005

  Easter

  “HAPPY EASTER, HONEY!” I WAKE ELLIE WITH A GENTLE BACK RUB, hoping to bring a little holiday magic to her morning. I know she’s too old for the fantasy, but I want her to feel joy again. “You’ve got a basket of treats in the living room. Come see?”

  “Don’t tell me. You sprinkled flour in the shape of bunny tracks.” She rolls her eyes. “Or left a pile of half-nibbled carrots on his trail? Or wait, let me guess, he pooped jelly beans in the yard again.”

  “Yep. All of that.” I laugh, grateful she has held on to the memories.

  “At least I have a new outfit.” She leaves the bed to examine the spaghetti-strapped sundress we bought last weekend from Urban Outfitters, her favorite store. She steps into her closet to change, pairing it with a grungy pair of Converse sneakers she’s decorated with various shades of Sharpie markers. Gone are the days of smocked cotton dresses and sweet spring sandals.