The Language of Sparrows

by Rachel Phifer

  He pulled out Jason’s business card. His old army friend was now a partner in a law firm downtown. Jason told him if he’d really violated the code of conduct, Liza was probably within her rights. “But don’t give up hope, Nick,” he said over the phone. “Just because she’s technically within her rights doesn’t mean we can’t make a good fight.”

  A good fight, but not a sure fight. The district cared more about the black and white of the code than about a kid who’d already faced one trauma too many.

  What would he do with himself if he weren’t teaching? The thought of pushing papers in an office gave him hives. He’d prayed for Liza to be softened. He’d prayed for his job to be restored. But he’d learned long ago that wanting something so much it hurt didn’t earn an answered prayer. Sometimes all it earned was a sacrifice on God’s altar.

  “Our Father who art in Heaven,” he began to pray.

  Not as I will, but Thy will be done. Nick shook his head, as if he could make the intruding words go away. There was nothing he wanted to pray less than the Gethsemane prayer. But if Christ had needed to take the harder path for some better purpose, who was he to ask for an easier route?

  He moved from the windowsill to the carpeted floor. Nick closed his eyes, feeling an ache so deep he didn’t know where it ended. Sacrifice his job? He didn’t know if he could do it. Crouching on his knees, he tried to let go of the career that had been the focus of his life for a decade and a half.

  “I don’t know how to be anything else, Lord, but you can have my job. You can have it. My hands are empty.”

  He reached out his hands as if Christ needed to see how empty his hands were. But he came up with closed fists. He’d lost his job. And he’d lost April. Beautiful, artsy April who’d somehow charmed his old man into telling his story but didn’t seem able to tell her own.

  He forced his hands open. “I don’t know how to let go,” he groaned. “I only ask this one thing, Father: if I’m losing my calling, let it stand for something.”

  His fingers uncurled. He touched his forehead to the floor, and he would stay there, in the position of submission, until he knew he could leave his job in heaven’s power.

  “Not my will. Yours,” he said in a grated whisper. “I will submit. By Your grace, I put it all in Your hands.” His words submitted, but his body said otherwise. The muscles in his arms clenched and shuddered in protest.

  In his mind’s eye, he imagined putting his classes in God’s palms, hands capable of marking off the heavens and weighing the mountains. For good measure, he imagined putting his old man in God’s hands. And last, he put April there.

  “I submit to Your will. By Your grace, I submit to You,” he prayed over and over again.

  He collapsed onto the floor facedown and spread his arms like a cross. He didn’t move until every thought belonged to God and every muscle released its tension.

  It had been a long time since Nick had prayed body and soul like this. It had been a long time since he’d had the time or felt the need to. Noon passed and the afternoon light had dimmed when, exhausted and spent, he lifted himself from the floor.

  He sucked in a deep breath and let God’s calm work its way through him. As he made his way downstairs, his prayer still whispered the refrain in the back of his mind. I submit to Your will. By Your grace, I submit.

  Chapter Forty

  Sierra sat on the stairs with her notebook. The world still lay in wetness, though sunlight filled the courtyard and shimmered off the puddles. The willow’s branches hung low with the weight of rain. She closed her eyes, letting the smell of sweet wet wood drift up to her.

  “Hey, Brown Eyes.”

  She thought she might cry. She’d missed Carlos so much. She opened her eyes to see him on the sidewalk below. He wore galoshes and held an industrial broom.

  “Hey,” she tried to say, but her voice came out wrong and broken.

  “I’m glad you’re safe. I was worried about you out in the storm.”

  “I’m fine. Thanks for thinking of me.”

  “No problem.” He looked up to her, waiting for something from her, but she couldn’t think of what to say.

  “Got to get back to work.”

  She watched as he swept the courtyard dry. The sounds of the wiry bristles scraping against concrete, and swishing water filled the air. He pulled the giant broom in and pushed it out in circular motions, until he’d worked all the standing water into the grass. He was so strong, and not just physically. What would it be like to feel that nothing scared you, not even when living on the streets?

  She was still on the stairs, pretending to write in her journal when Carlos carried the broom to the utility room. He made one last pass by the stairs. “I’ve got to be on my way. See you, Sierra.”

  He looked at her a few seconds and turned to go. She clung to the banister for support. She watched him walk to the security gate. He was giving her another chance, and she was letting him leave all over again. She could be strong too. It’s what Mr. Foster had said.

  As he tapped in the security code, she stood and made herself walk to the bottom of the stairs. Carlos turned and waited.

  She searched for words that would make sense. In the end, she just said, “My dad killed himself, Carlos.”

  He started to walk toward her, ever so slowly. “Yeah, your mom told me the other night.”

  She knotted her hands. “I can’t be like him. I’ve got to be strong, you see?”

  “Okay,” he said, both sadness and laughter in his eyes. “Don’t be like your dad.”

  She gave a short laugh. “That’s what I was trying to do.”

  “By breaking up with me? How is that going to keep you from being like him?”

  “I didn’t want to lean on you the way he leaned on my mom.” She looked up the stairs toward their door. “I know she loved him. But I think maybe, just a little, my mom hated him for being weak. I didn’t want you to hate me, not even a little.”

  He reached her. “So you decided to make me mad at you so I wouldn’t be mad at you.” He tapped her forehead. “You’re too smart for me, Einstein.”

  He slid his arms around her uncertainly. She leaned into his shoulder, taking in his smell of sun and skin, staying in his arms a long time. It was warm and safe. But here they were again. He was sheltering her weakness.

  He curled a lock of hair at the nape of her neck in his fingers and murmured, “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  “Me, too.”

  He pulled her in for another hug. They clung together until Carlos buried his face in her hair, laughing. “Your mom’s watching us.”

  Sierra looked up. Mom stood in the window, watching, but she didn’t seem to mind them together. In fact, she smiled.

  When Sierra left school Tuesday, Mr. Prodan was waiting for her at the curb. He asked if he could walk her to her apartment rather than taking her to his house. “Your mother is tired, and I would like for her to come home to a hot meal.”

  It was a nice day, but the walk left him flushed. When they went inside, she asked him if she could get him something.

  “A glass of water, if you do not mind.”

  Sierra hurried into the kitchen and poured ice and water into a glass. He eyed the ice suspiciously as he picked his way to the sofa.

  Sierra sat across from him in the armchair. He glanced at the tiles, now stacked against the wall. It was odd being with him here. He seemed out of place in this cramped, dark room. And so much had happened. Things were different between them, awkward.

  She searched for something to say, breaking the silence at last with the question she hadn’t been able to put to rest. “Mr. Foster said he didn’t lose his job because of me,” she blurted. “He said it was complicated. But at school, they think it was because of me.”

  His brow creased as he placed his glass on a coaster on the side
table. “I do not know exactly why he lost his position. But I have no reason to think it was because of you. I suspect it is because he is good at what he does.”

  “For being good? Why would they fire him for that?”

  Mr. Prodan rested his hands on his knees. “People are threatened by greatness. Especially if one’s greatness does not look at all like the mediocrity they had planned.”

  Being fired for being great? Sierra linked her fingers, trying to make sense of it.

  “In Romania, the communists were threatened by great minds. In America, it is different, but not always. Not always.” He sighed. “My son is the best of teachers. I have seen letters among his papers from young men and women who were once his students. They credit him for much in their lives. It is not the normal way in America to write such letters?”

  She shook her head. “I would never think of writing a letter like that.”

  Sierra tipped her head. Jazzy was in Mr. Foster’s class. She loved it, and she wasn’t someone who even liked school. He had a lot of students like her—kids who hated school but who tried harder because of whatever went on in his class.

  Mr. Prodan gave her a curious glance. “You have a look about you.”

  “Mr. Foster’s students do really love him. I bet they’d do a lot for him.”

  “They might.”

  Sierra sat a little straighter. Her feet started to tap, but she stilled them. “He’s been teaching for a long time, right? I bet he has students who are grown now, maybe even some who have pretty important jobs, too.”

  Mr. Prodan eased back into the sofa, a small smile playing on his face. “True. But they do not know that his job is at risk. Someone would need to let them know that he needs their help.”

  Sierra sent him an answering smile. Someone could do that.

  Chapter Forty-One

  When April walked in the door, the table was set for four, with a tablecloth, no less. A salad bowl sat in the middle of the table, and the smell of beef and onions drifted out of the kitchen. She stepped inside, tentatively.

  “Did elves invade my apartment?” she asked, though she knew the smell of those spices. They were Luca’s.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  Sierra sat cross-legged on the floor in the living room with her laptop. Luca sat in the recliner in the corner, while Carlos jotted something in a notebook on the sofa.

  Sierra looked up at her, and April forgot to breathe. There was excitement in Sierra’s eyes.

  April took in the scene.

  “We’re going to save Mr. Foster’s job,” Sierra said with a genuine certainty that had been missing from her daughter’s voice for too long. Sierra looked to Luca.

  “We are going to try,” he corrected.

  “We,” Sierra said. “You, too, Mom.” She hunched her shoulders. “Right?”

  April sat down on the couch behind Sierra, scanning the web page on Sierra’s computer over her shoulder, some kind of online policy book.

  Luca stood. “At this point, we are only making a list. Students who know Nicolae. Perhaps some teachers.”

  Luca seemed a little cooler about the plan than Sierra, and April felt a twinge of doubt. She would hate to see Sierra face any kind of failure. Not right now.

  “There’s only one thing in our way,” Carlos said.

  “Only one?” April said with a smile.

  Carlos looked as happy as Sierra. “Mr. Foster has the information we need. Luca says he’s got hundreds of letters from his former students. And he’s got his class roster.”

  “So? Ask him.”

  Luca looked away.

  “What? He’s not allowed to know his family and friends want to help him get his job back?”

  Silence filled the room. Nick was a proud man, true, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Mom, maybe you could distract him?”

  April coughed. “What? So you can break in and steal his personal correspondence?”

  Carlos grinned, and Sierra looked down at her computer again. That was exactly what they planned to do. Even if she were willing to allow her sixteen-year-old daughter to commit a misdemeanor, there was a hitch. So much more than a hitch. Nick had asked her to keep her distance.

  “Mom?”

  April gave a firm shake of her head. “I’m sorry, Sierra. I’m not going to allow you to break into Nick’s house.”

  “It’s not breaking in. Mr. Prodan has a key, and it’s his son’s house. And we’re only doing it to help Mr. Foster.”

  “No.”

  “It’s no different than you and Uncle Wes sneaking Aunt Hillary’s address book so you could plan a surprise party for her that time.”

  She could never win at logic with Sierra. She’d have to try another tactic. Sierra deserved the truth, no matter how hard the truth. “I’m not welcome at Nick’s house, sweetie. Things are a bit complicated, but he asked me not to visit.”

  Sierra looked at her, her eyes large and confused.

  Luca wasn’t bothered at all. “You would not be visiting him, so this is good. He would be visiting you.”

  “He told me he doesn’t want to see me, Luca.”

  “Hmm. I do not think you understood what he said.”

  “He was quite clear.”

  “Nicu said he did not wish to see you? But people do not always mean what they say.” There was a mischievous gleam in Luca’s eye. “Perhaps he meant he wished for a reason to look forward to your visit.”

  April threw up her hands. “I can’t believe this.” She stood and gave Sierra an even glance. “You’re not breaking into Nick’s home.”

  She strode into the kitchen. She stirred the pot of simmering beef and onions and clanged the lid on it. What they were suggesting was ludicrous. Every bit of it.

  When Luca came into the kitchen, she pointed the spoon at him. “You’re wiser than that.” She looked at the kids out in the living room, but they were busy whispering about their plan. Quietly, she said, “Luca, if you think I’m going to lure him to meet me with a lie, with a suggestion of offering something I can’t … Nick would never forgive me. Not even for his job.”

  “I did not suggest you lie.”

  “What did you suggest exactly?”

  He took the spoon from her, opened the pot, and sprinkled crushed parsley from a bowl, then began to stir. “I suggested you tell him the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  He put the spoon on the cutting board and stepped close, looking her straight in the eye. “We have shared enough, April. We can be honest with each other. You love my son. My son loves you. I only ask that you tell him so.”

  Luca was clever. Did he think he could kill two birds with one stone? But telling Nick she loved him would lead nowhere. Nick already had a good idea of her feelings for him.

  He rested his hand on the counter, all mischief gone now. “Your daughter’s plan, I cannot say if it will succeed. What is more important is that you and Nicu speak honestly with each other. You once asked me to do a very hard thing—to tell my own story. It was difficult, but I did it for my son. Yet, I think perhaps it was more important that I tell the story than it was for my son to hear it. So I feel I can return your favor.” He dropped his gaze. “It is a hard thing after your husband’s illness and death for you to think of building a life with another man, yes?”

  “Yes,” April said quietly.

  “You do not have to build a life with my Nicu. But if you do this hard thing, if you tell him the truth of how you feel, of your love and your fear, you will be a stronger woman.”

  “You know it could just as well be you who talked to Nick. He has some things he’d like to hear from you.”

  “Yes, April, it could be me.” But there was a challenge in his eyes.

  April paced her bedroom that night.

  How could sh
e? How could she just come out and tell Nick how she felt now? What good would it do to tell him she loved him but that she was paralyzed with fear and guilt and so many other emotions that would destroy anything good between them? She didn’t even know how to talk to Nick.

  The next night April tried, unsuccessfully, to distract herself with a novel in bed. Sierra wandered in and sat on the floor, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She didn’t say anything for the longest time, just rested her chin on her knees. It didn’t take a mind reader to know what was coming next.

  “Why did Mr. Foster tell you he didn’t want to see you?”

  “It wasn’t a rude thing. We didn’t have a fight.”

  Sierra waited, and April knew she’d have to tell her. “Nick loves me. And I care for him too. But romance … It’s too soon for me. After Dad. Nick asked for distance. His heart needs space to mend.”

  Sierra got a faraway look. She grieved for Gary too. But she’d no doubt been looking for a father figure. Wasn’t that why she formed the connection to Luca in the first place? And Nick was quite a friend to her.

  The light in Sierra’s eyes sent a shiver through April. She’d been so sure getting involved would be too hard for Sierra.

  “It’s no good, Sierra,” April said. “I’m not getting married again. I’m not sure I’ll even be dating again.”

  “Okay.” But Sierra stared into the air as if there were some image only she could see.

  How had April not seen it? Nick as Sierra’s stepfather. Luca as Sierra’s grandfather. They were so special to her already. To bring them in closer, for Sierra to have two men she could count on as she put the pieces of her life together …

  April closed her eyes. It was no good. It would destroy Sierra for April to start a romance with Nick she didn’t think she could follow through on.

  Sierra pulled the blanket close. “Funny, Mom. I never thought of Mr. Foster like that. I don’t know. If you liked him, I think I could get used to the idea.” She shook off her bewildered gaze. “But what Mr. Prodan and Carlos and I want to do, it’s about Mr. Foster’s job. If you don’t want me to take his letters, I won’t. But I’ve got a plan.”