The Language of Sparrows

by Rachel Phifer

  “Not anymore?”

  “Later. But I think I’ll make a house for my family first.”

  “What family?” Sierra asked, confused.

  He looked out the window. “I’m not always going to be a yard guy, you know.”

  She laughed. “I never thought of you as a yard guy, Carlos. You’re the only high school guy I know who’s supporting himself. I knew you had a plan.”

  “Yeah, I got a plan.” He coughed and took the binder, shelving it with a row of binders.

  She put her finger on the binders. “Are these all architecture?”

  He nodded and rested his hand against the wall. “Ever think, what if we ran into each other later on? You standing in front of a room of megabrains all day, wowing them with everything you know. And me a big-time architect. Maybe I’d take you out to see my house by the pond.”

  She looked up at him, trying to hear through the words to what he was trying to tell her. She didn’t realize how close they were until she heard a man clear his throat at the door. Ricky boomed out, “None of that now. None of that.”

  “Just showing her my room, Ricky.”

  “Make sure that’s all you show her, mi’jo.” Ricky winked and put a hand on Carlos’s shoulder. “Not used to having girls back here.”

  Ana called them to the kitchen and put them to work setting the table. Dinner was a loud, raucous meal with Ricky and Ana and their two little boys laughing and passing food around. Carlos joined in the fun. Sierra ate her lasagna slowly, watching, taking it all in. The laughter, the fun, the love—it made her go soft inside.

  She thought of sitting at a table with Mom and Dad. What would they have joked about? Would they have joked?

  After dinner, Ricky gave her a pat on the back. “Ana liked having a girl over here among all of us boys. You come on over anytime.”

  As Carlos drove her home, she said, “It must be really nice living in a place like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Everyone so happy and acting like you can do no wrong.”

  “Yeah. I’m lucky they took a chance on me.” He looked straight at her. “That’s the kind of family I want. Loud or quiet, it doesn’t matter; just lots of love.”

  “Me too.”

  He pulled into a parking space and walked her to the apartment. At her door he tilted his head and paused. “The house on my wall. If you want it, it’s for you and me, later on.”

  Sierra went all warm. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “You don’t have to say anything. It’s years away. I know that.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Why me, Carlos?” What a terrible answer, but the words popped out of her mouth before she could pull them back.

  He looked up at the night sky, like he had to think hard. “Why you, Brown Eyes? I don’t know. You might be more trouble than you’re worth.” He laughed and smoothed away a strand of hair from his eyes. The laughter left his eyes then. “You know where I’ve been, Sierra. And another thing. You don’t see what other people see when they look at you. You got a whole world in your eyes. One day, you’ll be able to share it with some guy, maybe me.”

  “Oh, Carlos,” she breathed. What else could she say?

  He unlocked the door for her and flipped on the light. Like an old uncle, he kissed her on top of her head before jogging down the stairs. She stood at the window, watching him get into his car and drive away.

  Her insides thrummed. She was sure everything in her glowed. Carlos Castellano. Who would have thought he would even look twice at her?

  She imagined herself in the house in the picture. She imagined herself sitting on the porch, loving Carlos, being his wife, the mother of his children. Maybe she would be a professor, too, like he’d said earlier. Like Dad. She could almost see herself in that life. Almost.

  Mom came home, and they shared a bowl of sherbet. Neither of them mentioned their earlier conversation, and Sierra didn’t care. Before bed, she checked her email. There was a message from a Rice address already.

  She stared at the unopened email, all the warmth of the evening gone. She stood up with a shiver and looked at her computer. Somehow, it had become an alien thing invading her space.

  Leaving the inbox open, she got dressed in her pajamas and brushed her hair. The computer seemed to stare at her as she got ready for bed. Maybe Carlos was right. Did she want to know what Dad’s friends remembered about him? Mom didn’t want to talk about him. The professor hadn’t wanted to talk about him. There had to be a reason.

  She stood by the computer, her finger poised above the Enter key.

  Why would you forget your own father? You wouldn’t. Unless there was something too terrible to remember.

  She took a deep breath and steeled herself. One way or another, she had to know. She hit the Enter key, and the message popped open.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When April dropped by Luca’s midmorning, no one answered the door. She never had seen a car in his driveway, so she doubted he’d gone far walking. After his last spell, it surprised her he could leave his house at all.

  She sat on the porch, enjoying the crisp morning. A breeze wafted through the trees, leaving the air clean and tangy. It wasn’t long before Luca walked up the street. He was carrying a single grocery bag.

  She met him at the curb. “Maybe it’s a bad day for your story. If you’ve already been out, maybe it’s too much for you.”

  He had a twinkle in his eye. “Any day Mrs. Wright visits is a good day for me.”

  April laughed. Was the man actually bantering with her?

  He let her into the house, which was tidy and bare, as usual. She could do something with the place, given half a chance. A few splashes of color on the walls, some artwork …

  Luca coughed. “A man should always worry when a woman comes into his home with such a gleam in her eye.”

  He’d caught her in her designs. “I can’t fool you, Luca. I was thinking what a treat it would be to turn this place into a home.”

  “A home? Is it not already a home?”

  His voice was sharp, and she realized too late her words might offend. Maybe he didn’t realize how bare his house was. “It’s a house,” she said softly. She waved at the empty walls. “Seriously, Luca, a monastery would have more decoration.”

  He smiled, clearly not irritated, so she went on. “A little paint to mirror the colors in your garden and some knickknacks could really give your house some life. It has such sweet lines already.”

  An answering glint came into his eye. “If you like. It has been a long time since I have had a woman’s touch about, but do not spend much money. I do not care for luxury.”

  “I might have guessed that. I’ll keep it simple.”

  April went into the kitchen and poured water into a kettle. He watched her turn off the heat under the kettle and put tea bags into cups, but he appeared lost in some faraway land of thought.

  She inclined her head. “What is it, Luca?”

  His gaze returned to the here and now. “There is more than friendship between Nicu and yourself, I think.”

  April couldn’t help the startled laugh that escaped. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Perhaps I am weak, but I am not blind. I have seen you together, and I saw something—some desire, some feeling. Was I mistaken?”

  “Yes,” she finally said. “And no.”

  “Ah.” He retrieved a lemon and began to cut it into sections. “It is good to let time take its course. It is wise to tread cautiously with bruised hearts.” He moved his hand through the air, as if erasing an imaginary blackboard. “But this old man must be careful not to imagine dreams that have no foundation.”

  He paused and his voice grew faint. “It is only that when I first saw Sierra, she brought my daughter to mind. And I could not help
but hope.”

  April had begun to pour the water and almost dropped the kettle. Its sides sent a bracing heat through her hands as she steadied it on the heat pad. How many surprises did he mean to spring on her today?

  “Your daughter?”

  His mind had gone to that faraway place again. “I was not allowed to see her. But I imagined her to have Tatia’s dark hair and fair skin. I imagined her to have the intelligence of one raised in the Prodan home. Someone much like Sierra.”

  April removed the tea bags and squeezed the lemon into the tea. Together, she and Luca moved to his library. He didn’t come to sit across from her. He stood by the window, closing his eyes, as if convincing himself to return to Tatia crumpled on the floor.

  She retrieved the recorder from her purse, switched it on, and sat down to wait. Half turned from her, Luca began to speak.

  “I sat by Tatia’s side. She would not speak to me of this thing that made her scream at her husband’s touch. I raised her sleeve, a long sleeve, though it was warm outside. Her arms were bruised. Earlier she had cut her lip and sprained her wrist. A fall, she said, and I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?

  “At last she said, ‘It is not what you are thinking, Luca.’

  “‘What then?’ I said. Her words did not put me at ease.

  “‘Don’t ask me, Luca. There are some things that are better not to know.’

  “In Romania, we were great secret keepers, but it had not been so between us. We argued in harsh whispers that night so the neighbors would not hear us. I pleaded. But she would not tell me. How could it be best not to know what had left my wife battered and frightened?

  “It was Nicu who told me at last. He had nightmares, and I went to his room late one night to comfort him. He shoved me away at first, as if I were the culprit who caused his mother’s misery.

  “Quietly, I began to ask him questions. Then he wrapped his little arms around me and told me the whole terrible story.”

  Luca came to sit across from April. “A mountain of a man with a scar down one cheek, Nicu said, had been visiting his mama. I knew right away who he meant. The Securitate man who drove me home. He slapped her. And threatened her. He beat her. It was because I was a bad man that he treated her so, Nicu said. I made her do bad things. My four-year-old son watched his mother be struck and berated in my name. It is no wonder he recoiled from me.”

  April closed her eyes. Did Nick remember? Or was it a black hole deep in his subconscious eating away at him?

  “When I told Tatia I knew the Securitate had been questioning her because of me, I wept. I was so ashamed to have brought her harm.

  “‘No Luca,’ she said. She put her finger against my lips to quiet me. ‘You were so brave. So brave to speak to your students. Dear Luca, so many children do not have parents brave enough to tell them that there is truth. To them, the only god they know is Ceaşecescu. And the only act of bravery they know is to spy on each other for the state. So many children have never heard the story of the Good Samaritan. They have never heard of Jesus praying to forgive His murderers or of the Good Shepherd looking for His lost sheep. Luca, they do not know.’

  “I was confused. ‘I have not spoken to my students of the things of God,’ I said.

  “She did not look away. She did not answer me. A chill came down my arms. ‘You have been evangelizing children.’

  “She did not deny it.

  “‘The Securitate knows,’ I said with certainty. ‘They are interrogating you.’ She was fortunate. Others who had taught religion to children had been sent to prison. Some had never been heard from again.

  “‘Luca,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t want you to know of it. You have enough worries, and if they asked, it would be clear you did not know what they were speaking of. But they are saying now you are the nonconformist, and you are making me do it.’

  “The solution was clear to me. ‘They will leave you alone if you stop,’ I said to her. I suppose this also is why she did not tell me what she was doing. I drew the attention of the Secret Police by my carelessness, but I would never encourage her to do anything so bold.

  “‘What of Nicu? What of the baby?’ I said to her.”

  April moved to the edge of her seat. “She was pregnant?”

  He looked away. “Yes, she was pregnant. Perhaps over halfway through her time. It was a difficult time for Tatia. She did not eat well. She did not sleep well. She continued to be ill after the nausea should have passed. As her belly grew, Tatia covered it with her hands as if she would protect the child. But I had seen the same look in her grandfather’s eyes. He also defied the state for God’s sake. She knew the consequences.”

  April had no right to ask, but she could not help herself. “What happened to your baby girl, Luca?”

  He did not answer her immediately, but when he did, he shut his eyes. “Tatia talked more of the Bible to our neighbors, and there was another interrogation. Our daughter was born the next day. Luciana weighed only a kilo. She died … that same day.”

  He gripped the arms of the chair as he prepared to go on.

  “I came to see Tatia in the hospital after the birth. It was the first time I saw her after the interrogation. Tatia sat in her bed in the hospital ward. ‘Black and blue’ you say in English. Yes, her skin was black and blue and green and red. One of her eyes was swollen half-shut. Her arm hung limp. This is how they questioned us in Romania. I leaned down to her so the other patients in the ward would not hear us. She choked out a whisper. ‘Say I did the right thing, Luca. Our neighbors are God’s children too.’

  “I told her what she wanted me to say, of course, but I did not mean it.

  “Tatia’s tears pooled in her eyes, but she smiled at me with the radiance of a saint. I do not believe she knew that there were Securitate men outside waiting to take her away from her living child as well.”

  April swallowed. What pain for one man to bear.

  Luca had turned waxy.

  “Please rest now,” April said, quietly. “Nick won’t forgive me if you get sick.”

  “Do I look so terrible then?”

  April offered him a watery grin. It felt strange, yet right, to smile after the dark memories they had relived, as if they were able to open the curtains to sunshine after a stormy night. She took his hand and led him to his bedroom. “Lie down, Luca. I know you’ll probably give me a poor grade on my cooking skills—they’re nothing like yours—but I’ll make something for you to eat when you wake up.”

  April prepared a simple casserole from noodles she found in Luca’s cupboard and leftover beef tips and tomatoes she found in his fridge. She mixed a fruit salad, covered it, and put it in the fridge. Hopefully, his stomach would be able to tolerate the meal.

  She wiped the counters with a damp cloth, seeing not the Formica, but the streets of Bucharest as she imagined them.

  As the casserole baked, she curled up in a chair with a notepad, jotting down ideas for Luca’s house. It wouldn’t take much—an accent wall, embroidered cushions, a few ornaments. Possibly, she could even convince him to put up a photo or two, maybe the one of Luca with little Nick on his shoulders.

  April exhaled. She could make his house sparkle. She had the skill to bring a house to life, but not a home and certainly not a heart. Gary and Sierra gave evidence to that.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  As Nick pulled up to the curb of his old man’s house, he was surprised to find April’s car parked in the driveway, and behind it, a work truck. Surprised, but not displeased. He had no call to spend time with April, and he knew she didn’t want his company, but he still found her sunlit smile gave him a reason to smile. The fact that she didn’t want him perversely made him want to be around her more.

  At the door he heard voices and laughter. He let himself in and found a work party in progress. Plastic sheets wreathed the chairs and side tab
le, and the smell of new paint permeated the air. Sierra and a boy Nick recognized from school sanded the paneling next to the floor. Dad sat at the table through the archway into the dining room, looking dazed, while April perched on a ladder next to the far living room wall, now a blazing red. Next to her stood a man Nick didn’t know.

  Everyone was laughing. Sierra and the boy were laughing. The man and April were laughing together. A lightning strike of jealousy flashed through Nick. She’d told him she didn’t want him, and she was free to find someone she did want. Still, the thought of her with someone else soured his day.

  April turned, her mouth forming an O of surprise. “Nick!” She climbed down the ladder with a hand from her friend. “Just in time. Your dad’s agreed to a little update of his house.”

  His old man stood and gave a bewildered shake of his head. “A few cushions and something to hang on the wall, she said. And two days later she is painting my wall red and making a new house of it.”

  Nick could tell he wasn’t really annoyed. The house was festive and his old man practically glowed.

  With a nod to the stranger, April said, “Oh, Nick, please meet Enrique Salinas. Ricky, this is Luca’s son, Nick. And that’s Sierra’s friend, Carlos.”

  Nick forced a polite smile toward Ricky and nodded at Carlos. “What can I do to help?”

  She put him to work painting a second coat on the higher reaches of the accent wall while she laid out some pictures on the dining room table for his father to see. Before Nick started painting, he noticed the teens had stopped sanding and were working with a pencil.

  He crouched next to them, inspecting the pencil marks. “What’s that you’re doing, Sierra?”

  “We’re stenciling in a design. I found it on a website about a Romanian castle. It’s the etching on the wood gates. We’ll paint it later.”

  Nick knew better than to admire the idea too much. But it was impressive. In addition to Sierra’s brilliance with languages, she’d obviously picked up her mother’s artistic talent.