The Language of Sparrows

by Rachel Phifer

  She waited for an explanation, but he said nothing else. At last Sierra said a quiet good-bye. “I’ll see you soon, Mr. Prodan.”

  He waved her out the door, as if he were shooing her out. What else was there to do but go home?

  Days passed. Mr. Foster didn’t ask Sierra about her poems. Not only that, but when she saw him in the hall, he turned back into his classroom. Sierra trudged down the stairs outside his classroom, feeling the emptiness inside her widen into a gulf.

  Thursday night she had just drifted to sleep when she woke with a start. She should have thought of it long before. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking at the yellow light that seeped through the curtains. The room seemed all wrong in the jaundiced light. Everything seemed wrong. How could Mr. Foster be Luca Prodan’s son? He didn’t have Mr. Prodan’s name. He wasn’t even Romanian.

  She hardly slept that night. She had crazy dreams about Mr. Foster being a KGB agent and Mr. Prodan being marched through a frozen wilderness with a group of prisoners. She would wake up and nod off, only to have a new thought charge through her. Why wouldn’t a son use his father’s name? And what kind of father didn’t want to talk about his own son?

  Chapter Seven

  April’s sister cajoled until April agreed to come over on her day off. She did owe Hillary a thank-you, after all. The job at the gallery was entirely her sister’s doing.

  Hill insisted it was a mom’s day out. A day out from what? April wondered. Hillary’s sons went to a private school; she had maid service and only worked two days a week as a counselor. Wes kept her sister in style deep in the wooded suburbs north of Houston.

  They sat on the patio, eating Cobb salad and drinking iced tea. The steady rhythm of her sister’s waterfall cascading into a rock pool made for nice background music, but as the conversation drifted, April couldn’t escape a sinking feeling that her sister had invited her here for a life-fix from Dr. Hillary.

  “About that apartment, April …”

  The old Dupree stubbornness crept up April’s spine.

  “Sierra needs a better environment. Wes and I agree on that,” Hill said.

  Of course Wes agreed. Twenty years of marriage had taught him nothing if not to agree with everything Hill said.

  April took a sip of tea. “It’s not forever. Sierra needs to know that when life doesn’t go as planned, you keep going. You keep going on your own two feet, and life gets better.”

  “Look, I’ve found a little house for rent a few miles from here. We’ll foot the bill until you can manage. And with Sierra’s IQ, she could get a scholarship to any private school in the area. I’ve already got a place reserved at the school my boys attend.”

  The offer was oh-so-tempting. A house, a yard, good schools. But Hillary was an expert at arranging other people’s lives. April was grateful for the job, but she wouldn’t be any more beholden to Hill. Not to mention that moving close meant Hill would pop in anytime she felt like it, trying to tweak every detail in Sierra’s day.

  April shoved her salad aside. “Hill, it’s going to take more than a change in economic status to get Sierra back on track.”

  Her sister gave her the Hillary stare. “Sierra can’t get better in that ghetto. Let us help.”

  April looked at Hillary, silent, then away at the waterfall as comprehension lit her sister’s face.

  “Oh my.” Hillary drew the words to a breathless length and widened her eyes in exaggerated horror. “April Dupree Wright! You still haven’t told her about Gary.”

  April had lived several states away until Gary died. Her sister had only caught glimpses of the happy, inquisitive girl Sierra used to be. She had no idea what it was like to watch the life drain from her own child’s face.

  Her sister leaned forward. “What did you tell her? ‘Honey, Daddy went to Italy and the conference went a little long?’” She began counting on her fingers. “Let’s see, it’s lasted over two years now, right?”

  Sometimes April wondered how her sister could conduct therapy with such a blistering personality. As Hillary was only too aware, Sierra knew her father had passed away. She just didn’t have the whole story.

  Hillary gave a dramatic sigh. “She’s going to find out, and if you’re not the one to tell her, it isn’t going to be pretty. Trust me and my professional experience on this.”

  April cocked her head. “What I hear you saying is you’re uncomfortable with my parenting style.”

  April’s therapist jokes never amused Hillary. She flashed pity April’s way as she stood to refill their glasses. “Well, April, you might as well cover your ears so you don’t hear the time bomb ticking.”

  “Hill, the bomb’s already gone off. Sierra can’t cope now. If I tell her—”

  “If you tell her Gary committed suicide, you think she’ll follow him,” Hillary finished for her.

  Suicide. The word sliced through her. April didn’t think she would ever get used to hearing it thrown around in a sentence.

  Hillary softened her voice. “You tell her you’re going to pull through together. She’ll believe you. No one can motivate people the way you do.”

  April coughed on a bitter laugh.

  If only she had talked to Sierra when Gary died. But after the first few words about Gary getting run over, Sierra fell into such a cataclysm of grief—hysterical sobs, closing herself in her room, refusing to talk to anyone. It had felt best to wait a few days, maybe even a few weeks, until she was stronger, to explain that he’d intentionally walked into oncoming traffic. But Sierra never did grow stronger.

  Hillary answered the unspoken words. “Sierra’s not her dad. She’s bewildered and scared, but she’s strong.”

  But that’s what terrified April. Sierra was so much like Gary. Was she strong too?

  As April let herself into her apartment, Ricky Salinas called up to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”

  He supervised a couple of teenage boys in the parking lot as they carted bags of lawn fertilizer from a truck. She waved and smiled.

  “Hold up,” he called. “I’ve got something to tell you.” He left the boys and jogged up the stairs to meet her. “It’s not good. I live in the neighborhood.” He waved his hand in the direction of the bayou. “And I have friends a few streets over. One of them saw Sierra going into an old guy’s house. She doesn’t have a grandpa over there, does she?”

  The hair on April’s arms stood on end. “In someone’s house? You’re sure?”

  April found it hard to believe Sierra would be brave enough to speak to a stranger, let alone go into his house.

  He nodded. “Yeah, not a guy many of the neighbors like either. Mrs. Cisneros, she’s got two teenage girls. So she said she didn’t like girls entering a stranger’s house, especially a weird old man like this guy. She walked right over there and told him he ought to send her away. And he said to her, ‘I don’t believe this is your concern.’” Ricky put on his best la-di-da accent for the man’s words.

  April stared bleakly into the sky. Sierra knew better. So much better.

  Ricky leaned his hand against the brick wall. “I thought you should know. Especially since Mrs. Cisneros is talking about maybe calling Child Services.”

  April swung her head up. The air was suddenly suffocating.

  “You all right?”

  “Yes,” she said weakly. “Thanks for telling me, Ricky. I needed to know that.”

  Only the hum of the air conditioner greeted her inside. She checked in Sierra’s room.

  It was empty. Again. She went back outside to ask Ricky where this man’s house was, but he was nowhere in sight. She started to ask one of the boys where he’d gone but then saw Ricky’s truck pulling out of the complex.

  She paced and waited, waited and paced. Sierra didn’t come home. April’s skin crawled at the thought of Sierra in a strange man’s house. Surely it was all a mist
ake.

  She was about to pick up the phone to page Ricky when the front door opened.

  Her daughter had color in her cheeks and a glint in her eyes. April held on to the back of the couch, taking in her little girl’s appearance. With Sierra’s dark eyes and ivory skin, she was stunning, at least when she didn’t hide behind that veil of hair.

  “Been for a walk?” April tried to say it without accusation.

  The light faded from Sierra’s face. “Mom,” she started, but didn’t say anything else.

  “And a visit?” April asked quietly.

  Sierra cringed but didn’t deny it.

  April smoothed Sierra’s hair behind her ear. “A stranger’s house, baby?”

  Sierra’s eyes glazed, and she found a spot on the sofa to stare at.

  Ricky was right. Her daughter had gone into a stranger’s house. April would like to believe the man wasn’t dangerous. But he’d done nothing to earn her trust. Nor his neighbors’, apparently.

  April’s mouth went dry at the thought of what might have happened. “Don’t go to his house again. I love you too much. Okay?”

  Sierra shook her head, backing away. “He’s not like that.”

  “Maybe not.” Despite herself, her voice rose a notch. “But we have no way of knowing. He’s a stranger. Promise me, Sierra.”

  Sierra looked at her in disbelief. “Mom!”

  When April didn’t give in, Sierra stormed to her room. April sank onto the couch, resting her face in her hands. The distance between them was growing into a yawning gap. Letting Wes foot the bill was starting to sound like a life buoy. Even if it did mean putting herself and Sierra under Hill’s iron will.

  Sunday afternoon, April looked out her bedroom window. Sierra casually walked down the stairs. April made it outside before Sierra could take another step.

  “Where are you off to, sweetheart?” She said it with all the nonchalance she could muster.

  Sierra turned a pinched face up to her. “I have to see him, Mom.”

  “Why?” April walked down the steps to meet her, searching for her best listening voice. “What is it about this man?”

  Sierra shook her head, her hands outstretched in front of her. “I just do.”

  “I need more, Sierra. I don’t know him.”

  “He’s real, Mom. And deep.”

  April looked off at the drooping branches of the willow tree. “He sounds intriguing. Maybe we can arrange a meeting. But you can’t go into his house alone. I will not allow it!” A shiver ran down her back. She sounded like her own mother.

  Sierra drew back as if she’d been slapped, but in an instant, her face cleared of all emotion. She stood so placid, so regal, she might have been Queen Nefertiti. Sierra turned back up the steps, closing the apartment door behind her with far more gentleness than required.

  Just like that, she was gone before the conversation had even started. There was no mother-daughter talk. Not even a teenage storm.

  Things were stiff and stilted between them the rest of the day, and when she went to bed that night, April slept restlessly in thirty-minute snatches, her mind whirling the whole time. Her alarm clock seemed to mock her—12:37 a.m., 1:05 a.m., 1:24 a.m. Finally, she fell into a sleep of wild dreams.

  When she woke, it was to the echo of a scream. She sat up, burying her face in the tangled sheets. She looked around for a few seconds, afraid the scream had been real. But it was only him. His scream, threading around her and choking her.

  Slowing her breathing, she looked around, through the dark, hoping she hadn’t cried out. Gary was always there, in her dreams, in her unspoken thoughts, chiding her, as he never had in life. If she’d kept trying, kept believing, he might have made it one more day and then another, until they found help.

  It was a pervasive thought—what she could have done, might have done, for Gary. Major depressive disorder, the doctors labeled his condition. But even they admitted that the severity of his depression left them bewildered.

  April believed in him for a long time. She stayed by Gary’s side during all the therapists and clinics and prescriptions. She created a positive environment for him. The one thing she never did was admit the truth, not once in fourteen years. It seemed too harsh to suggest that he might not ever get better. She wondered now if keeping a picture of a recovered and fully functional Gary alive had only been one more impossible burden for him to bear.

  In the emptiness, April’s Bible called out to her. Stress used to send her flying to the book. She’d prayed. Oh, how she had prayed and sought the God of mercy through its pages.

  She rested her head on her knees. Now she worried one more prayer, one more scripture, one more broken dream would crush her completely.

  “When God feels farthest away, that’s when He’s closest.” Gary’s friend, Joe, had told her that after Gary had his first breakdown. She’d considered his counsel words of wisdom at the time, and over the years she repeated them to herself, an unchanging refrain.

  But tonight, looking at the Bible on her bedside table, she felt a lightning bolt was surely contained in its pages, that if she were brazen enough to open it, God would strike out at her as He had at the children of Israel when they spurned Him in some idol-worshipping way.

  She reached out to the Bible, smoothing its leather cover, but she didn’t open its pages. Instead she sat in the chair near the window until the sky lightened to pink.

  In the morning, Sierra ate her cereal in grim silence. April opened her mouth to speak several times, but what could she say? The answer was still no. So she only opened the kitchen curtains to let the morning light in and turned on some quiet music.

  Sierra slung on her backpack. April wanted to run to her, hug her, give her a smile for her to hold on to for the rest of the day. But she could see a hug would be rebuffed, so she only called, “I love you.”

  She might as well have said it to an empty room.

  An hour later, as she was getting ready for work, the phone rang.

  An authoritative-sounding woman’s voice came over the line. “Ms. Wright, this is the tenth-grade counselor at Armstrong High School. We have a situation at the school with Sierra, and I was wondering if you could come by.”

  Chapter Eight

  The long hall and the artificial lighting against the gray floors and red lockers made April feel as if she’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole. Was this how Sierra felt at school every day? After treading acres of tile, she finally found the glassed-in office. The secretary directed her to a plastic chair before she was called into a conference room.

  Inside the room two men sat at a table. A police officer sipping coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and, next to him, a man with close-cropped hair and glasses. At the end of the table, a woman in a suit sat next to a younger woman with an open file before her.

  Sierra sat on one side of the table, all alone, staring at a loose thread in the burgundy carpet. Four adults and one child. Were they trying to terrify her?

  April took the seat beside her. “I’m here, Sierra,” she said softly.

  “Mrs. Wright? I’m Liza Grambling, the principal.” The older woman extended her hand to April and rattled on. “Apparently, one of our students’ parents has noticed your daughter spending a lot of time at an old gentleman’s house.” She looked up to be sure it wasn’t a surprise to April and went on. “There’s no reason we have to get involved, of course. A lot of schools wouldn’t.”

  “I understand.” April’s understood all right. The school barely noticed when Sierra left campus, but they were all ears when she walked into a stranger’s house long after school was over.

  The woman smiled at her as if they were old friends. The principal waved toward the men at the table. “This is one of our campus policemen, Officer Wilkins. Mr. Foster is a teacher at our school, who is here at Sierra’s request. We’ve also asked
a representative from Child Services, Ms. Barnes, to be here.”

  Ms. Barnes nodded at April.

  The introductions complete, Ms. Barnes closed her file folder. “Sierra, now that your mother is here, we’ll get started.”

  April’s stomach had an iron ball in it. Her daughter traced designs into her jeans with a thumbnail.

  “Sierra?” Ms. Barnes said in a velveted voice.

  Sierra nodded but didn’t look up.

  “Do you want to tell us what happened?”

  Sierra shook her head, her eyes wide.

  “Sierra, I know your conversation with the gentleman seems perfectly innocent,” Ms. Barnes said. “And maybe it is. Maybe the gentleman you’ve visited is entirely above suspicion. But we don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Sierra fixed her gaze on Mr. Foster, some kind of challenge in her eyes. The teacher held eye contact, and April had the odd sense that an unspoken conversation was being carried out. She placed her hands in her lap and studied the man. He had a face that meant business. If it weren’t for his starched shirt, he might even pass for the policeman. The only incongruous part of his looks was the pair of rimless glasses that softened his appearance.

  The policeman cleared his throat. “Sierra, I know it feels unfair. But when you’ve seen what I’ve seen …”

  April waited for Sierra’s response, but her daughter turned to Mr. Foster as if the policeman hadn’t even spoken. “Have you talked to him?”

  The teacher opened his mouth to speak, but it was the policeman who answered. “I have. And he understands he is not to spend any more time with you.”

  The teacher held up his hand to halt the conversation.

  “Sierra.” He bent his head toward her daughter. He waited for a painfully long time. Sierra didn’t look away, not once, but she began to tremble. The man’s unwavering gaze made April think of one word: power. It probably gave him quite an edge in the classroom.