The Language of Sparrows

by Rachel Phifer

  Sierra closed her eyes. She didn’t want to let go. “Can you tell me one thing we did?”

  Mom grew quiet, her gaze drifting. She was searching. Why did she have to search so hard for a memory? There should have been lots of them, right?

  Mom’s gaze lit on a book sitting on her dresser, and her eyes went soft. “Your dad was a great storyteller. He never read you bedtime stories. He told them. You’d cuddle up in his lap, from the time you could talk. You grew out of the cuddles, but he was still telling you stories even when you were in middle school.”

  Mom brought her knees up to the bed and curled beside her. “He told you ancient folktales or something from the history books. He could paint a picture with words like no one else. When I listened in, I could feel the salty ocean air on my face or smell the hot swords smelting over a fire. You would look up at him, your eyes wide, and I could tell he’d carried you away. He threw in foreign words—Greek or Persian, Aramaic, Latin, wherever the story came from—and you seemed to pick up what he meant.”

  Mom looked into her face and seemed to see something. She frowned, putting her hand on Sierra’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay, baby?”

  “Just a headache.”

  “I’ll get you an Advil.”

  Sierra reached out and touched Mom’s arm. “Tell me more.”

  Mom smiled again, and this time it reached her eyes. “Why don’t I brush your hair like I used to? And we’ll talk.”

  Sierra sat on the floor in front of Mom. The strokes of the brush did seem to ease the band of pain. A nice feeling tingled down her neck as the brush massaged her scalp. But it wasn’t Mom’s words she heard, but Dad’s, in her memory.

  “Many years ago, before the age of towns or farms, when nomads moved from place to place looking for fresh berries and wild growing grain, a girl about your age, Talar, slept with her clan under an open sky. The stars glittered with a fierce light, because it was the night of the new moon.…”

  His voice had lilted up and down as he told the story to her. In the memory, she was lying on her bed in the house in Glendale, so she must have been about nine. Sierra could almost feel her father there with them. She closed her eyes, resting back against Mom’s knees.

  He would lower his voice. “The camp was too quiet when Talar returned before dawn. The fire had died, and the night watch didn’t call to ask who approached.”

  Sierra remembered the way he stopped as if that were the end of the story. She refused to believe it, and he laughed, finally telling her the rest.

  On one level, she listened to Mom’s soft cadence as she told her about old birthday parties when Dad was still around, but on another level, she recalled Talar’s story word by word. It was as if she were spending the evening with her family still together.

  The next afternoon, a gray sky loomed and winds blew. Sierra pulled on a hoodie and went outside. She dribbled a long ribbon up and down the stairs. Zana looked at the ribbon with her sharp blue eyes, but it took a few minutes before she approached for a pounce. Sierra raised the ribbon higher, still swinging it.

  “Come for it, Zana,” she called softly. She’d get to pet the elusive cat yet.

  Zana eyed the ribbon with a jealous eye but didn’t move closer.

  Sierra was so intent on Zana she didn’t notice Carlos come through the gate. He strolled up the walk toward her and she moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, you got yourself a fur ball.”

  The kitten sidled up next to his ankle.

  Sierra stared, openmouthed. “How did you do that? How did you get her to come to you?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the cat, making friends with him as if she did that with every stranger passing by.

  Carlos shrugged. “Animals know who to trust. That’s all.”

  “She won’t get near me.”

  He picked the kitten up and placed her on his shoulder. “Girl kitties like men. That’s just how they are.”

  Sierra sat down on the stairs. Carlos pried the cat’s claws from his shirt and freed her into Sierra’s lap. With him standing close by, Zana stayed, but she kept her eyes on him, ready to leap.

  “Make friends with her. Somebody’s probably scared her along the way. Show her she can trust you next time.”

  Sierra petted Zana’s long silky body. “Hey, Zana,” she whispered, feeling shy with Carlos watching.

  He laughed. “Zana. Couldn’t of named her better myself. Sounds like some exotic princess.”

  Sierra closed her eyes, letting the sound of Carlos’s voice wash over her, deep and sure, his laugh like a roll of faraway summer thunder.

  “I’m sixteen today,” she said, her eyes still closed. She didn’t know why she said it.

  “Sweet sixteen, huh?”

  Thank goodness he didn’t say something stupid about never been kissed, even if it was true.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  She shrugged.

  “No birthday party?”

  “Dinner out with my mom, maybe.”

  As she listened to his voice, she watched the shifting light through her eyelids. A shadow blocked the light and the air stilled next to her. She opened her eyes to find Carlos beside her on the step. Zana leaped from her lap and watched them from the sidewalk.

  He offered a self-conscious smile and a lift of his shoulder. Oh no. He was thinking that stupid sweet sixteen thing. She could tell. “Don’t you dare say it, Carlos.”

  He laughed. “Say what?”

  He knew what. She could tell by the goofy smile on his face.

  She looked at her fingernails. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. Don’t say it.”

  “I didn’t say it.”

  But he kept looking at her. An intense quiet settled between them, making her all warm, and he leaned toward her.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Okay.” He drew back, his jaw clenched.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” His words had sharp edges. “Look, I know I’m not good enough for you, Sierra. Never have been. I can’t help it. I’ve always liked you anyway.”

  “Not good enough? What does that mean?”

  “I’m the guy who lived on the streets, the one who takes care of your lawn, right? You’re the girl who knows all these strange alphabets and languages. You said your dad was a professor, right? I get it. You need your own type.”

  His words seemed to swallow her. She looked straight at him so he’d believe her. “No,” she said faintly. “That’s not it at all.”

  “What then?”

  She shook her head “It’s not you.”

  He placed his hands on her knees, making her heart beat too fast. “If it’s not me …?”

  She didn’t know what to say, and his gaze grew black.

  “It’s not you,” she insisted.

  He dropped his hands, but he stayed beside her. “Sierra, you look in the mirror, and what do you see? Because I have to wonder why this pretty girl I know is working so hard not to be seen or touched or even talked to.”

  “I don’t know.” Sierra felt herself rocking. “It’s me. I’m all wrong.”

  He put his hand over hers, lacing his fingers through hers. Sierra went still. He kept her gaze. “You’re not all wrong, Brown Eyes. I think you’re all right.”

  Sierra wanted to believe him.

  “You sure it’s not me?” he said.

  “I’m sure, Carlos.”

  After he left, Sierra felt the impression of his hand over hers, the air calm as if he were beside her still. Zana blinked at her curiously, as she lay on a rail all the way across the complex licking her snowy fur.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three weeks into January, Nick passed Cindy Velasco in the staff lounge. She carried a stack of first semester finals under her arm. Out of curiosity, he asked, �
��Have you looked at Sierra Wright’s yet?”

  Cindy’s face told him she didn’t have good news before she slid a paper from the stack of English II papers.

  The multiple-choice section formed a window. Rows were bubbled in with multiple answers, and connected with lines to form the panes. In the bottom margin, a penciled cat napped on a ledge. The essay on the next page bordered on illegible. What was that in the middle? It looked like ancient Greek. The last paragraph was a poem—in Spanish. This paper wasn’t a final. It was a cry for help.

  Cindy held out her hand for the final. “I know this girl’s smart, Nick, but I don’t think she’s going to pull through. Honestly, I think she belongs in your class.”

  Nick laughed. “Fat chance of that. Liza’s on my case for ‘departing from the scope and sequence’ as it is. She’s not about to let me have another kid to mess with.”

  Cindy gave him a playful punch to the shoulder. “You’ll win Liza over by May. You win them all over eventually.”

  Nick held on to the final. “Do me a favor? Give Sierra an incomplete. I’ll talk with her.”

  She pursed her mouth. “Only for you, Nick. But if she doesn’t come to retake it by Friday, I’ll have to give her the grade she earned.”

  He watched her as she left the lounge. There was still hope. The year was half over, but there was still hope for Sierra, and he would find out what it was.

  That night, he stood on his back deck inhaling the crisp pine-scented air, still thinking of Sierra’s final. April was doing everything she could for her daughter. His father was chipping in. When Sierra was with him, her face came to life. She talked to his old man and didn’t try to hide who she was.

  But at school she was the old Sierra, hiding her face behind a sheath of dark hair.

  The girl put all her effort toward failure. There was a way to get her cooperation, but as Nick pounded his palms against the railing, he couldn’t find the solution. He closed his eyes in silent prayer.

  Ask her.

  Nick looked out at the trees, which shivered in the cold wind. An answer to prayer? But Sierra Wright wasn’t going to tell him what would make school turn around for her. He doubted she knew herself.

  He remembered all too well being seventeen and his world coming apart at the seams—his mother fading to a skeletal version of herself in her fight against cancer; his father, a stranger who rejoined their family only because of Mom’s impending death, insisting on a new set of rules for him. He hadn’t been able to put his angst into words, much less tell anyone what he needed. The only language he knew was to stand outside in the rain, pummeling a tree until he fractured his fist.

  What Sierra was doing was worse. All her anger, silent and scalding, was turned inward.

  Did he have anything to lose by asking her? Not much, he had to admit. But getting her to speak to him at all would require a miracle. Nick looked up at the starry sky, his laugh winging out into the night air. He prayed to the Father of Miracles for one of his own and put his worries aside.

  The next day, Nick watched Sierra leave the hall. He would have to connect with her outside of this place. The school itself was stifling her. Fraternizing with a female student, and after school too—one more thing to grate on Liza, but it was the only way.

  He stepped up beside Sierra as she crossed the street on her way home after school. He handed her the final with Cindy’s “Incomplete” written with a thick red marker at the top. Scrawled underneath were the words, “See me.”

  Sierra glanced at the English test, her eyes dark and miserable. “I’m not retaking it.”

  “Your choice.”

  They strode across the crosswalk and onto the concrete toward a cluster of apartment complexes. Afraid one of them would be hers and his chance would be gone, he jumped into his question. “How do you feel about Cuban?”

  “What?” She stopped and gave him a slant-eyed inspection.

  “There’s a place down the street that sells great Cuban sandwiches.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Me neither really,” Nick plunged on. He wondered if her time with his father might be the thing. “How about Romanian pastries?”

  “What do you want?” Her voice was raw.

  “I want to talk to you, Sierra. Away from school.”

  She looked at his feet.

  He sighed. “A conversation. That’s all I want, Sierra.”

  “Where is it?”

  “The Romanian place? A few miles. Give your mom a call. I’ll drive you.”

  She swung her hair. He knew that look. He’d seen it in the mirror a couple of decades ago. She wasn’t about to call her mother for permission.

  Sierra walked back with him to the parking lot, and he let her in his truck. Before he got in, he made a call to April to give her a quick briefing. April sounded surprised, but quickly agreed.

  The Romanian teashop was in a quieter part of town. It was slow this time of day. The small scattering of tables only had one other customer. Nick arranged his silverware on the tablecloth. “I’m not a subtle guy, Sierra, so I’m just going to say this straight out. You’re barely getting by at school, and it’s not because you can’t handle the work. What would turn things around for you?”

  Sierra sank down in her seat, her eyes boring a hole through her bread plate. Nick’s confidence fell at her invisible act. But then she looked up at him, almost startled.

  “I hate school. I hate it and nothing will make it turn around for me.”

  “What do you see yourself doing then? When you’re finished with school.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Come on, Sierra. Everyone has some kind of dream. You don’t imagine yourself writing the great American novel, being an ambassador, or raising kids …?”

  She shook her head slowly, her eyes clouded.

  He leaned in toward her. “Okay. What kind of things do you like to do when you’re not at school?”

  He could almost see her squirm. “Words.”

  Nick nodded at her to continue, but Sierra just looked down at her plate. “I like words.”

  “Explain that to me, Sierra.”

  She bent her head. The waiter stepped up to their table. He knew Nick from past visits and asked Nick in Romanian what they would like. Sierra watched the conversation. Her eyes registered. She understood the waiter, just as she’d been able to read the Romanian newspaper at the hospital.

  When the waiter walked away, Nick asked her in Romanian, “How long have you been studying the language?”

  “Three months,” she answered back in Romanian. “On the computer.”

  He asked a few more questions, and Sierra answered. Her pronunciation was good, not that Nick was the best judge. It had been the language he spoke at home, literally his mother tongue. But since his mother died, he rarely ran across someone to speak it with. It had been his own choice not to speak it with Dad—the twisted terms of an angry teenager first meeting his father after twelve years apart. Now English was their habit.

  She wasn’t fluent yet, but a little practice with his old man and she would be. She spoke as though she’d been studying the language for a year, not only a few months.

  He switched back to English. “Those are the kinds of words you like?”

  She nodded, and he could feel an energy vibrate off her in the silence.

  “Tell me about the languages you know.”

  “Some Spanish. French.”

  “Some, Sierra?” he insisted.

  “I can carry on a conversation in Spanish. I read a little in French.”

  “Which books?”

  “Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.” She said it with the French pronunciation. And then, as an afterthought, “Camus, Baudelaire, Madame Guyon, Victor Hugo, Robbe-Grillet.”

  “And in Spanish?”

 
“Cervantes, Garcia Marquez, Neruda, Borges.” And then quietly, “Teresa de Ávila.”

  Relief washed over her face, and her shoulders drooped as the blistering energy subsided from her. As if she’d been forced to hide all her life in case someone noticed how brilliant she was.

  The waiter laid two plates of jam-filled tarts on the table, topped off their coffee cups, and glided away on the soft carpet.

  Nick cut into a pastry. “You’re taking French in school, I know. Did you study Spanish?”

  “I watched it on TV.” She waved a hand, as if it were obvious that anyone could pick up Spanish by watching novelas on Telemundo.

  He began speaking to her in Spanish this time. Nick had learned to communicate with the parents of his Latino students with a tutor and years of hard practice. But Spanish words rolled off her tongue as effortlessly as if she were a native speaker, and to his ear, Sierra’s accent was flawless. She even had the figures of speech down.

  He switched back to English. “You’re a good writer. Is there anything else you like to do with languages?”

  “I just like to see them on the page. How they look on the page and how they feel in my mouth, what pictures they make me think of. Sometimes I look up the audio Bibles online and listen to a passage in different languages, even the ones I don’t know. You know, so I could imagine how the Beatitudes would sound to me if I were Vietnamese or Polish.”

  She flushed and looked around, as if she couldn’t find a spot to focus on.

  Nick leaned back, rubbing his forehead. Ask her. And he’d asked. Why didn’t April have her in a program for kids—for what kind of kids? For those brilliant in foreign languages? Nick laughed to himself. There had to be something better for her than a typical classroom. Even the advanced classes at Armstrong would be too slow for her.

  Nick would get April’s daughter help one way or another. “Sierra.” He waited for her to look at him. “I think I know. But I want you to tell me: Why do you hate school?”

  She shook her head.

  He didn’t want to put an answer in her mouth, but she wasn’t volunteering, so he asked, “Are you bored?”