Not a Sparrow Falls

by Linda Nichols

  Hugh and I take in the High Street Jumble Sale. Treasures galore—this lovely chapeau as well as a donkey lamp and pink chenille bedspread. This may call for a new decorating scheme. I think the peacock on black velvet would make a perfect focal point. Will give some thought to it.

  “She would have liked Wal-Mart,” Samantha said.

  “And I like her for that,” Bridie said, smiling.

  Bridie turned the page. There was another picture—Anna at her desk, reading.

  “My roommate snapped this,” Anna wrote, and beside the word roommate was a picture of another girl. She was big and happy looking with red curly hair.

  Her name is Ruby, and she is a nursing student. I said perhaps I’d become a nurse, but Ruby said no, I was too sensitive. “Stick to your writing,” she advised. I suppose she is right. Still, I like the idea of taking care of someone. Making the world right for them. Ruby laughed at that. “As if that’s what nurses do,” she said. Here’s Ruby’s solution:

  An arrow pointed downward to another photo. It was Anna at her desk again, wearing a paper nurse’s cap.

  She made this for me and says I can play nurse as I study literature. The best of all worlds.

  Samantha scooted a little closer and rested her head lightly against Bridie’s shoulder. Bridie turned the page. There was another class schedule. Winter quarter Anna would take writing again and another literature class and sociology and art. Beside it was fall quarter’s grade report. Bridie gave a little whistle. “Look at that.” She pointed at the grade point average: 3.96.

  There were more pictures of her and her friends. There was a train schedule taped onto the page and underneath Anna had written:

  I feel myself tense as I think of returning home for the holidays. Father will want to talk about Mother again, and I don’t want to talk about Mother. I want to be happy. I suppose I am borrowing trouble. I will go home. This time. After all, he’s bought me the ticket. But if things turn out as I expect, I’ll spend future holidays at college.

  Bridie turned the page, interested. She wondered what kind of problems Anna had had with her father.

  I am back at school, and not a moment too soon. I awoke this morning seeing through the dark glasses. As always, the mood came out of the blue. I went to bed last night happy as a lark, glad to be back, and awoke this morning as gray and droopy as the dripping bare branches outside my window. I didn’t get out of bed. Ruby came in at lunchtime and asked what was wrong, was I ill, and I said yes. She brought me soup from the dining hall, then sat at the edge of my bed, giving me knowing looks. “You should talk to someone,” she said. Go away, I wanted to shout at her. Just go away and leave me alone. Perhaps, I answered instead. Finally she left, and I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep.

  There were no pictures on the page. Just her train ticket from Christmas break, and not glued neatly but stuck to the page with a piece of masking tape. Bridie glanced at Samantha. Her face was tense again. Bridie turned the page and kept blundering on.

  The sun pours through the windows. The last week seems like a dark dream. I don’t know why I let these little ups and downs throw me into such a spin. It’s over, that’s the main thing, and I’m ever grateful. I think I’ll see about getting a job. My classes are going well, though I have a little catching up to do from my spell last week. But on the whole, I think it might be good for me to have a schedule, someplace I must go each day and see people. I have made a promise to myself. Whether I find a job or not, every day I will make my bed, shower, and eat.

  Bridie frowned. Those were pretty low expectations. Having to promise yourself to eat was not a good thing. But then again, she was probably taking one statement out of context. After all, judging from the papers and assignments pasted in the scrapbook, Anna’s grades were still very good.

  There were lots of pages of mementos after that. Flyers for plays she’d been to, movie ticket stubs, more photos of Anna and her friends. Lots of entries about her writing projects, the plots of her short stories, which sounded awfully depressing, but what did she know? Apparently winter quarter passed without another spell of the dark glasses. Spring quarter’s class assignments were glued onto the next page. Bridie flipped past it, and there, staring back at her, was Alasdair MacPherson. It was a small picture with printing underneath, probably clipped from the campus phone book or yearbook. Alasdair MacPherson, Teaching Assistant, Divinity Department. Bridie smiled.

  I have met a new friend. His name is Alasdair MacPherson, and he teaches my Biblical Literature class. Doesn’t teach it, exactly. He is a graduate student—a teaching assistant. He doesn’t ask me out, of course. That wouldn’t be appropriate, but he did call me up to his desk after class to discuss the thesis for my paper and we got on to other subjects, and before I knew it an hour and a half had passed. That happened twice last week. He volunteered to lead a study group, and of course, I signed up immediately. Shameless, I know.

  I am so glad Renaissance Literature was closed. Otherwise I’d never have met him. I am carrying on too much, but really, he is a very attractive person, and I mean that in more ways than physical, although there’s nothing to complain about in that department.

  A few pages followed of inconsequential things, but then it got interesting again.

  Alasdair’s teaching assistantship will end in June. This message was delivered with a meaningful look. I smiled, knowing that he is telling me that when he is no longer my teacher, we can meet with no excuse whatsoever except that we want to be together.

  “That’s very interesting,” I said, not admitting to a thing. He looked a tiny bit flustered and said he would be in Scotland until August. That took me aback. I suppose I hadn’t thought about his leaving the country, but of course, he would be. He looked positively pleased at my reaction. Unkind brute. I must get to work. My grades won’t be what they were earlier in the year, I’m afraid, except for one class. I seem to show a distinct appreciation for Biblical Literature.

  “I can’t believe she was that goofy about Dad,” Samantha grumbled. Bridie stared into space and thought about Alasdair MacPherson’s smoky blue eyes and handsome features. She remembered the feeling of his hot lips on her palm, the warmth of his strong chest under her hand. She could believe it.

  “Read,” Samantha demanded.

  Bridie snapped to and turned the page. More pictures, these featuring Alasdair and Anna together. The first one featured the two of them standing in the middle of a narrow, curved street, smiling. This time Alasdair was the one carrying the sack. Anna must have been back to the jumble sale. She felt a funny sensation looking at the two of them, and she didn’t care to analyze it. She shook off the melancholy and read on.

  “Show me Scotland,” Alasdair said to me the day school let out for the term, and I have obliged. Every day this week we’ve taken another tour. I now understand the term “whirlwind romance.”

  Monday we took the train to the highlands and went hiking. We stayed overnight at a hostel. Separately, of course. He touched me for the first time. When we were up on the hilltop looking at the landscape, he pulled me close, brushed away the hair blowing in my face, leaned in, and kissed me. He was gentle, yet so intense. I have never felt this way before.

  “TMI—too much information,” Samantha said.

  Bridie turned the page. More pictures. Anna and Alasdair standing in front of a castle. Candy wrappers, a couple of pressed flowers, postcards. More pictures. A train schedule. A calendar with Alasdair’s name written in every square. Wednesday they’d gone to the observatory, Thursday they’d had dinner at the Caledonian Hotel. Friday Anna had given Alasdair a choice between going to hear The Siege of Troy by Berlioz sung in French, a talk on postmodern dance, or Cosi Fan Tutti in Italian. Bridie smiled at the next entry.

  He chose a concert by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at Queen’s Hall. It was lovely. Afterward he bought us big cups of creamy chocolate at a café. We drank it, walking through the cemetery downtown, reading t
he epitaphs. Some were quite sad.

  “I want a big gaudy headstone when I die,” I said lightly, wishing we’d walked somewhere else.

  “I hope that won’t be for a long, long time,” he answered back, and suddenly I realized that I am alive, not dead yet. There’s no need for mourning.

  He reminds me of a chivalrous knight. I half expect him to wear armor and carry a sword, but it’s probably just reading too much Chaucer that’s affecting my perceptions. Still, he has such a gentle strength about him. It does me good, and the proof is that there have been no dark times at all since he came into my life. I know it’s fanciful, but it’s as if his soul is the other half of mine. I don’t know what I will do when he leaves. I won’t think about that now. Instead, I will thank God for hearing the longing of my heart.

  Bridie turned the last page. It was empty. She closed the book.

  Samantha blinked. “That’s it?” she asked.

  Bridie nodded toward the clock. It was nearly one. “It’s time for bed now, but we can read the others, too, if you like.”

  Samantha nodded.

  Bridie placed the journal in the box with the others. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  “Light on or off?” Bridie asked, her hand on the door.

  “On, please,” Samantha said instead of her usual “whatever.”

  ****

  Bridie’s heart was heavy as she undressed and prepared for bed. It was as if Anna had become flesh and blood to her and she could see that this new friend, instantly dear, was headed for trouble. Anna’s hope and vulnerability fairly cried out from the pages of her journal. She had trusted so much in what Alasdair MacPherson’s love could heal.

  “The arm of flesh will fail you,” Bridie’s grandmother had been fond of reminding her, especially after she’d started dating, bringing home this one and that one, going on and on about them. “Love with all your heart, Mary, but don’t look to anybody but the Lord to fill up your empty spots. There’s never been a man born of woman who can do that, and I don’t care if he’s the finest thing since store-bought pickles.”

  Grandma was right, Bridie thought, climbing into the bed. Apprehension suddenly gripped her. What was she doing? Reading Anna’s journals might have seemed like a good idea, a healing thing to do, but what if she was wrong? What if lancing the boil only spread the infection?

  She didn’t pray. That would have been presumptuous, considering. But she whispered her doubts and questions into the darkness for quite a long while, wishing with all her heart that someone was listening. She finished and then lay there, thinking. She had no idea what this family needed to be healed from and even less idea as to how to do it. She supposed she would just take things one step at a time. She supposed that the first chance she got, she would go back to Samantha’s room and begin reading journal number two.

  Twenty-Two

  Alasdair approached his house. He blinked. It was his house, was it not? Or had it been sold and new owners moved in during the eight days he’d been gone? He pulled to the curb, bumping over the ridges of frozen slush left by the snowplow, then turned off the ignition and the lights and just sat for a moment staring.

  Someone had shoveled the walk, but not with the neat, orderly strokes of the maintenance men from the church. This job looked as though it had been performed by drunken elves. The cleared path zagged through the piled-up snow, darting a foot or two to the left, correcting, then aiming toward the right, cutting a crazy course to the porch. Small footprints dotted the snow beside it and converged out in the middle of the lawn. He smiled. A family of snowpersons congregated under the snow-covered oak branches. They were a sagging, leaning, tipsy-looking bunch, but regally adorned. He squinted and recognized Father’s good derby and Mother’s old fox stole, its head and feet perched jauntily on snowmother’s ample bosom. Oh my. Winifred should not see this.

  He got out of the car, so fascinated he didn’t bother to bring his suitcase, and followed the maze toward the porch. The house was lit up, from the outside as well as the megawatts spilling from the windows. Someone had retrieved the Christmas lights from the garage, and it looked as if they’d taken every set purchased over the years of his childhood. There were big colored bulbs running along the roofline, glowing in Jell-O tints, sagging in places where the cord had slipped from its fasteners. Apparently unfazed by running out of lights before the roofline, the artist had simply taken up with the newer sets—smaller twinkle lights. They outlined a third of the roof and the windows and the colors blinked on and off in furious rhythm. Three of the windows, that is. The fourth shone with all white lights, as did the door. He felt his face breaking into the unfamiliar shape of a grin as he made his way to the porch. It had been similarly cleared, and the workers’ identities were given away by four sets of boots lined up by the doormat, one adult sized, one slightly smaller, two tiny sets—one pink plastic, one red, the price tags still attached. The doormat, also, was new. Santa waved from his sleigh, a wreath of words encircling his head. Ho. Ho. Ho. Merry Christmas.

  Unaccountably, Alasdair’s throat closed. His eyes filled. He breathed in and out—a spicy, fragrant breath from the massive concoction of evergreen boughs and red ribbon that hung from the door knocker. He took hold of the knob, turned it, and stepped inside.

  He felt a moment of confusion, not sure which of his senses he should attend to first. Smell won. Someone had been making cinnamon rolls, and recently. The aroma lay over the scent of fried chicken, and both of these competed with the sharp, fresh tang of new paint and the resinous spritz of evergreen.

  Sight sprang to life simultaneously. This entry hall was the origin of at least part of the paint smell. The wallpaper was gone. And good riddance, he thought with a burst of relief. The walls were now a warm cream color, and strung from one corner to the next were dripping, dipping ropes of thick red yarn from which dangled Christmas cards of every shape, size, and color, interspersed with homemade snowflakes cut from lined notebook paper.

  He debated which sound to follow. Christmas music wafted from the direction of the kitchen, complete with organ and bells, but the other music had a greater appeal. The sound of children’s laughter mingling with the boinging background and silly voices of cartoons drew him like a piper’s call. He passed through what he vaguely remembered as a dim, shadowed hallway, briefly noted that the MacPherson family gallery had been removed to make way for the new paint, and glanced into the bare-looking dining room, obviously a work in progress. The table was covered with a sheet, the walls half stripped of their paper. He rounded the corner into the living room. No one noticed him for a moment, so he had a chance to take in the scene.

  Everything familiar was gone. Mother’s antique Chippendale furniture had disappeared. All of it. Now the place of honor was held by the old brown couch that had been in the kitchen sitting room. It was covered with toys: some kind of plastic parking garage peopled by tiny figures that resembled corks from wine bottles, two naked dolls, and a stuffed panda bear. Several picture books splayed open across the pillows. The walls had been painted a butter yellow. All of Mother’s framed prints, china plates, knick-knacks, and collections were gone. The mahogany piecrust tables were gone, but on second look he wondered if they were under the red plaid skirts on each end of the sofa. The only things on the tabletops besides a few small metal cars were two inexpensive lamps on ceramic pot bases that glowed warmly through buttercup yellow shades.

  The television was where the curio cabinet had been. The children seemed to be watching a rendition of A Christmas Carol. Alasdair recognized a few of Dickens’s famous lines being spoken by Mickey Mouse. His children, all three of them, were plopped in front of it on beanbag chairs in jelly bean colors. Samantha, hair braided, wearing a red-and-white flannel nightgown and thick athletic socks, was watching along with Cameron and Bonnie. If it was Cameron and Bonnie.

  His son sat cross-legged on his own brilliant blue beanbag, alternating between taking bites of his supp
er—a chicken leg, macaroni and cheese, and carrot sticks—and pointing and exclaiming at the television. He was drinking something from a covered cup, which tipped over each time he set it down. Milk. A trickling puddle of white spilled out and disappeared into the carpet.

  Bonnie had lost interest in the television. She was moving huge beads along wires on something that looked like an abacus. Behind them, in the corner, was a Christmas tree. Actually, on closer look, Alasdair could see that it didn’t reside in the corner. This huge tree, a fir from the looks of it, took up nearly a quarter of the room. It almost pulsed from the number of lights strung on its branches. It was covered with construction-paper chains, more of the homemade snowflakes, a string of popcorn and cranberries that ended halfway across, and some of Mother’s collection of ornaments, but oddly, they covered only the top half of the tree. The bottom half was decorated with iced cookies hanging from what looked like strings of licorice. The whole arrangement was topped by a cellophane angel whose bulb seemed to have burned out. A pile of colorfully wrapped presents sprawled over the knitted afghan that seemed to be doing duty as a tree skirt.

  Samantha was the first to notice him. She smiled at something on the television, then turned her head toward the doorway. She wasn’t exactly bubbly, but at least she didn’t look tortured, as she had when he’d left. “Hi, Dad,” she said.

  “Hi,” he answered back, afraid to say more, afraid of breaking the spell, afraid that all of this would disappear.

  “Hi, Dad,” Bonnie mimicked, looking up from her toy and giving him a brilliant smile.

  “Hi,” he said again, his own feelings too deep to fit into a smile. He felt something break open inside him. He was flooded with tenderness for these children and with shame that he was seeing them for the first time.

  Cameron stood up, knocking over his plastic cup again. He stepped on the remains of his chicken and macaroni, sending his carrot sticks flying as the plate went over. He ran toward Alasdair and hugged his legs. Alasdair lifted him up. He’d been freshly bathed. His hair was still slightly wet around his neckline. He was wearing new red zip-up pajamas, still fuzzy. “Hi,” Cameron said. Alasdair hid his face in the boy’s shoulder. He could feel the warm skin, smell the soap. He squeezed his eyes shut until the tears had abated.