The Language of Sparrows

by Rachel Phifer

After lunch, Sierra climbed back upstairs with her own clothes, now dry. Mr. Foster said she could have the afternoon to herself, right? After she changed her clothes, she didn’t stay in the bedroom but stole into the room with the books. Bookshelves filled two walls. A desk and a filing cabinet stood on the other side of the room beneath nature photos. Sierra browsed through the volumes. Dark hardcovers stood at attention, while weathered paperbacks flopped against them.

  But the window was the best part. The deep sill, large enough to sit in, drew her. Mr. Foster must sit here sometimes, too, because a thick Bible with a worn leather cover sat on the ledge. She curled up in the corner of the sill, felt the sun-warmed glass on her arm, and thumbed through the Bible.

  She ran her hand across a page with penciled notes and underlining. A soft sigh went through her. Mom had a marked-up Bible like this, but it mostly stayed hidden under the magazines now. She began reading John, and before she knew it, she’d made her way halfway through the epistles.

  The daylight dimmed, and she knew Mom would be back soon. Her afternoon had gone by so fast.

  The door opened. Mr. Foster put his head in. “I thought I might find you in this room. May I come in?”

  Sierra put the Bible down as if he’d caught her snooping in his diary.

  He drew up a desk chair. He remained silent so long Sierra began to fidget.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She looked down at her bandaged hands. “I have a sore throat. That’s all.”

  “Sierra,” he said, and stopped. Quietly he started again. “You should know if something happened to you, there are people who would feel your loss.” He rolled forward on the chair. “I would feel your loss.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she mumbled.

  His eyes glinted. “I know you weren’t. You’ve got too much life in you for that. You showed that getting out of the bayou.”

  Sierra looked up in surprise.

  “But you’re too smart not to know you were exposing yourself to the elements and to criminals. You took a risk.”

  She drew back against the glass.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m not going to push you. But when someone spends the night outside in a near-freezing rainstorm, I think they’re looking for help.”

  Looking for help? How could he say that? His help was half the reason she’d been at the bayou in the first place.

  “Sierra, I’m not afraid of anything you have to say.”

  “You shouldn’t have done it, Mr. Foster. You should have told the principal about Emilio. I wasn’t looking for help. I especially wasn’t looking for someone to lose their job for me. I’m sick of people treating me like I’m going to break.”

  Mr. Foster let out a rattled sigh. “Losing my job was more complicated than you think.”

  Sierra played with her fingers. She tried to say the words, but it was hard to push them out. Finally she knocked her head back against the window. “The worst part is you’re all right. I am weak. I am about to break. I was born that way.”

  Mr. Foster gave her a big, unbelieving smile. “Sierra, you are not weak. A weak girl wouldn’t have taught herself a handful of languages. She wouldn’t have insisted on keeping in touch with an old man everyone insisted was dangerous. She wouldn’t have had the will to make it out of a flood exhausted and half frozen. Don’t let anyone convince you you’re weak. You’ve got a core of steel inside you.”

  Steel? She looked for signs he was lying to her. No one had ever said anything close. “I’m not strong.” Even her voice was small. “I think I’m like my Dad.”

  Mr. Foster sighed. “I never knew your dad, so I can’t respond to that. All I can do is talk about the girl I see in front of me. Ever heard ‘still waters run deep’? That’s you. Your feelings, your senses, your thoughts, even your words run deep. And it’s not easy staying true to yourself when you’re different from those around you. It takes a special kind of strength.”

  She stared at him, trying to decide if she loved or hated the ring of truth to his words.

  Mr. Foster held out his hand for his Bible. When she gave it to him, he flipped it open, but he didn’t read anything to her. He just kept talking. “But if God made your river deeper and darker, He has plans for you. It may be hard. But I saw you climbing up the hill with the floodwaters ready to pull you down. God’s already given you what you need, Sierra.”

  As she thought about what Mr. Foster had said, she couldn’t get the image of the river out of her mind. A river running deep and dark. She thought of the water she could have drowned in this morning. It had been deep and dark and wild. Nothing could contain it.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  April unlocked the door to their apartment, and Sierra headed straight to her room. April called after her, but the bedroom door closed and the lock clicked. April knew from experience she wouldn’t be coaxed out.

  The night was long and fitful with little rest. At dawn, she heard Sierra’s feet padding down the hallway, and April made her way into the living room.

  Sierra stood staring at the wall of tiles. She just stood there, her fists at her sides, until she leaned her forehead against one of the Hebrew squares. In the hazy light, her daughter looked weary and old.

  “How could you have done it, Mom?” Sierra turned to April.

  At last. April ought to be relieved Sierra was talking to her. But a knot in her stomach stubbornly refused to go away.

  “How could you keep his suicide a secret? Dad was mine, too, you know.”

  April swallowed. “You’re right. He was. I had no right to keep it from you.”

  “Don’t. Don’t do that.”

  April shook her head. “Don’t do what?”

  “Act all smooth. You stole him from me. You wouldn’t talk about him, and I couldn’t even remember him—the things he said and did. You can’t just say you had no right to do it and expect it to be okay.”

  April inched toward Sierra, which earned her nothing but a glare. She wanted to tell Sierra how numb Gary’s death left her, how scared she’d been Sierra would hurt herself, too.

  She let her hands drop to her sides. “I failed you. I failed you when you needed me most. I could tell you all the things that went through my head, the reasons I didn’t tell you the truth. But really, what I did was still wrong. What is there to say but sorry? And you’re right. Sorry is a pitiful little word against the lie I let you believe.”

  Sierra looked away and began to pace. It was a frantic pace. She clung to her pajamas, then wiped her hands through her hair, sending it into short spikes. Her face was pinched. April wished she would let her hold her. But they were beyond the days when a hug and a kiss could make it all better.

  Sierra marched back to the wall, stood rigid, staring at the tiles with a ferocity April had never seen in her.

  “I think I knew,” Sierra said.

  “Knew what?”

  “I think I knew he killed himself. A pedestrian accident. How likely is that? And I knew what he was like.” Sierra let out a pained whimper and turned to April. “I think I made sure it was too hard for you to tell me. Because if you didn’t tell me, it wouldn’t be true.”

  Sierra looked up at a crack in the ceiling. “Crazy me, huh?”

  April moved closer. “Not so crazy.”

  Sierra backed away from the wall, narrowed her eyes. And then, with a fast reach of her hand, she pulled a tile off the wall and threw it at the floor in the middle of the room. And another. And another. The tiles flew, one after the other, making a dull thunk as they hit each other.

  “Mah tish-to-cha-chee nafshi? Va’the’heh-mee a-la-ee?” The strange guttural chant coming out of her daughter’s mouth sounded like a curse. A chill raced down April’s spine.

  Sierra turned to face her, her arms spread wide. “It’s Hebrew. ‘Why are you downcas
t, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?’ Dad would have liked that one, wouldn’t he?”

  Sierra crouched and punched her fist into the pile until something cracked, either tile or bone. April wasn’t sure. She held back a sob. She wanted Sierra to express herself. She did, but this?

  “How could he have done it, Mom? How could he just walk away from me like he was crossing the street to heaven? He didn’t even say good-bye.”

  April stood and came close, not close enough to touch, just close enough for Sierra to feel her presence. “He wasn’t …”

  He wasn’t thinking straight, she wanted to say. Sierra waited for her to finish, but she couldn’t. She was through making excuses, through with imaginary rainbows. Gary had been thinking straight. He’d had enough. Enough despair, enough of being a burden to his family. He’d simply given up. But there was no way she was going to say that to Sierra.

  When April didn’t finish, Sierra buried her head in her hands. Finally, she lifted her head.

  “He didn’t just take himself when he died. He took the biggest part of me. How could he not know that?”

  Sierra huddled into herself. She clearly wouldn’t accept April’s touch, but without reaching out to her, what else could April do?

  April yanked a tile from the wall and found some satisfaction in the crash it made as it hit the others.

  Sierra looked up and their gazes locked.

  April took a step toward her. “I want it down too. There’s a lie in here, isn’t there? And I’m so very tired of lies.”

  April pulled a second tile off. “We can’t make it all better with a beautiful wall of art. And we can’t bring him back with the words he loved.”

  Sierra pulled the next one off. Together, they pulled them all down, hurling them into the pile, pausing for each clunk until their arms ached. By the time they were done, the wall was bare except for the nails and center tile. The stack of cracked tiles in the middle of the floor created a small mountain.

  Sierra leaned down, hands on her knees as if she’d been running.

  April had to catch her breath and, half hysterical, started to laugh until tears ran down her face.

  Sierra sank to the floor and pulled a broken tile to her. She sat staring into space before she whispered something unintelligible.

  “What?” April said.

  A little louder, Sierra repeated herself. “By day the Lord directs His love, at night His song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.”

  April shot her a quizzical look.

  Sierra looked away and then back. “That’s what the rest of the psalm says. My soul is disturbed within me. Deep calls to deep. But His song is with me.”

  April nodded and started stacking the broken tiles, not sure what to make of the words.

  “He was with us, wasn’t He, Mom?”

  April swallowed. “Yes, baby. God was with us.”

  She looked around the room for the song. Not a sound. And yet. As she took in the mound of tiles, she could feel the song playing, not with musical chords, but in the chords of the dawn. As if He were filling the room with Himself. She’d grown so used to feeling that God must be absent.

  It was past noon when April straggled into the kitchen. She searched the pantry for something to cook. Was it breakfast or lunch? Oatmeal or grilled cheese? She rolled her shoulders, working out the kinks, still trying to think through what happened. It was so surreal. She’d never wantonly destroyed anything in her life. But it had been cathartic. All the throwing and cracking left her feeling lighter. She thought it had done Sierra good too. And that psalm at the end.

  A movement in the living room startled her. Sierra lay curled on the sofa with something wrapped inside her hands. She ought to be at school, but April had let her go back to sleep after their talk.

  “What have you got?” April slid onto the sofa next to Sierra’s feet.

  Sierra slid farther into the corner of the sofa and opened her hands. It was April’s Nikon. “I found it in your boxes with the photo albums.”

  April didn’t say anything, just inspected the camera from afar like an exotic animal that wandered into her apartment. She studied her little girl, who didn’t look so little anymore. Sierra handed it to her, and April took it, holding it lightly. She moved it into the sunlight, inspecting its solid form.

  “Why did you stop taking pictures?”

  Nick’s version of Truth or Dare came to mind. She was so used to protecting Sierra from dark thoughts. “I was afraid of what I would see. The camera always picked up things the way they were. Light or dark. Shades of gray. Dad’s hurt. But even with people I didn’t know, I could see all their insecurities and regrets so much clearer when I was behind the camera.”

  Sierra opened and closed her fist. “You didn’t like taking pictures?”

  “I did like taking them, strangely enough.” It was Gary who’d commented on the dark emotions in her pictures. And she’d felt the need to keep the light streaming in for him. Only happy thoughts and optimistic images allowed. But she couldn’t blame Gary. He never asked her to stop taking pictures. Or to be his source of sunshine.

  April ran her hand along the controls on the back of the camera. Her daughter hadn’t taken an interest in what April did for a long time. Not since Gary’s death.

  Sierra pulled her arms around her knees. “Mr. Foster said even deep, dark rivers have a place to flow. I guess there’s a place for sad pictures too.”

  April looked down, gratitude welling up in her for Nick. He knew what to say to Sierra. Not an impossible be happy. Just there’s a place for you.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Nick stepped through the school doors halfway through second period. The hallways were deserted.

  He took it as a positive sign that Liza had called him. If he gave a warm enough apology, maybe she’d let him back into his classroom with a reprimand.

  The glass doors to the office closed behind him, and Gloria, the secretary, told him to take a seat. He waited. The bell rang. Kids poured out and filtered back into classes. Only ten minutes later did Gloria tell him to go in.

  He found Liza sitting at her desk, pushing a form into a file and letting a pair of reading glasses slide down her nose.

  “Mr. Foster.”

  Nick inclined his head and took a seat.

  She laid her hands on the desk in front of her. “It gives me no pleasure suspending a teacher, particularly one with a long-standing reputation.” She stopped, inspecting him, probably to see if he bought her line. He didn’t. “Would you like to say anything for the record?”

  For the record? What did that mean? “As you know by now, Ms. Grambling, I left my class to protect a student. If it had been anyone else, I would have followed ordinary procedures. But I was worried about how fragile Sierra Wright was. She was unable to face the police and school authorities at the time. I agreed to give her a few days to prepare herself, but I informed her mother immediately.”

  Liza stared at him, unmoved.

  He dug deep, trying to find an apology that would reach even her. “I’m sorry. I violated procedures. I left a mess on your hands. For that, I’m truly sorry.”

  She tapped her fingernails on the desk. “I appreciate your candor. Unfortunately, you left more than a mess. You broke the law.”

  He stared at Liza. He’d been accused of acting without thinking through the consequences a time or two, but he had never broken the law. “I didn’t intend for the assault to go unreported. I delayed the report until Monday for the girl’s mental health. That’s all.”

  “Yes, and that delay was a serious lapse. If the Cantu boy had carried out his threat against Sierra Wright in the intervening seventy-two hours and the authorities hadn’t been notified, our school would have been liable, not to mention skewered in the media.”

  He hated that what she said
made sense. But there was no way for him to make Liza understand that something more important than the school’s name had been at risk—Sierra herself.

  Liza’s face remained a stone mask, and Nick wondered why he was here. She didn’t want an apology. She showed no inclination of putting him back to work.

  She pulled out another file, this one with his name on the label. “At the board meeting next week, I’ll be recommending termination of your contract for ethical misconduct.”

  Nick saw white heat. Ethical misconduct? That term was reserved for teachers who hit a student. Or who slept with one.

  If the district accepted her recommendation, not only would he never be able to work at this school, he wouldn’t be able to teach anywhere. A long, empty future stretched out before him. He wouldn’t be able to work with youth in any capacity.

  “Would you like to make any other comment for the record, Mr. Foster?”

  She was a superb actress. She didn’t let a hint of her victory show. He’d never once realized who he was up against. Up until this moment, he’d thought her clueless, maybe a little power hungry. It never occurred to him she was this full of venom. If she simply wanted him gone, she could have him transferred next year. There were only nine weeks of school left.

  He looked at her until she finally had the grace to look away. “For the record, I’ll be in touch, Liza.”

  As he strode out, he heard her heels tapping into the office behind him. That was a sound he could happily live the rest of his life without hearing again.

  The next morning, Nick sat on the windowsill with his Bible.

  It was 8:00 a.m. The tardy bell would be ringing. This was how Nick defined his days now: by what he wasn’t doing. He wasn’t teaching first period. He wasn’t leading his classes through the last novel of the year, The Contender. And he wasn’t helping his kids set goals for next year. Someone else was pushing his classes through practice tests for the state evaluation next week.

  It was a poor way to live, measuring himself by what he wasn’t doing.