Sparrow Road

by Sheila O'Connor

  Mornings, while Mama planted flowers or hung laundry on the line, she let me wander Sparrow Road alone as long as I stayed near the main house or the cottage. Sometimes, when I was sure no one was watching, I’d sneak up the servants’ staircase, drag a chair over to the ladder, and climb up to the tower by myself. Of all the spots at Sparrow Road, the tower was my favorite place to dream.

  From my spy perch in the sky, I could see Viktor strolling slouch-shouldered through the meadow or napping on a hammock in the shade. The Iceberg. He still hadn’t said a single word to me, not even a thank-you on those nights Mama made me deliver supper to his door. A job I hated, but Mama made me do it.

  Other times, I spied Mama on the path to the infirmary, Viktor’s house and office, a place Josie said the artists wouldn’t be welcome, but it seemed to me Mama always was. Something about the two of them still struck me as too friendly. Except for Lillian, Mama was the only person Viktor gave more than a nod.

  I sat down with my back against the tower. The little plywood lap desk Diego built me was propped up on my legs. I’d found it in the tower with a note that said, Sweet dreams. D. I pulled my sketchbook from my backpack and found an empty page.

  Through the trees, I could hear the faint stop and start of Viktor’s cello. Only it wasn’t music really. Viktor’s music sounded more like suffering than songs. Whines and cries and shrieks. A playground fight. The howl of children hurt. Other times, there was the clang of his piano or the whine of a violin. Diego said Viktor’s dreadful music didn’t break the silence rule because music was his art. And besides, he composed in the infirmary with all the windows shut. Far enough away that the artists couldn’t hear it in their sheds.

  Why does all his music sound so sad? I wrote down in my sketchbook. Why does he drink tea with Lillian at night on the side porch? Why does Mama go to the infirmary so often? If Viktor was a prodigy, how did he end up here?

  I flipped the page; I didn’t want to daydream about Viktor.

  What was? I wrote to get my dreaming started. What was or what could be?

  Your days, I wrote. Did you have to sit in silence just like me? Often if I asked a question, my orphan’s story would get started.

  I closed my eyes and pictured his mop of thick brown hair, his chipped front tooth, the scar across his eyebrow. The more days I imagined him, the more alive he seemed to be. Real, the way people were in books.

  My days, he finally said. They were like everybody else’s. We were quiet during classes. At dinner during prayer. In summer we played baseball right there in the meadow. There were so many of us kids, we made up our own teams.

  Everyone is gone, I wrote. Your orphanage is closed.

  Closed? he asked. Did the orphans all find families?

  I don’t know, I wrote. I wonder that myself.

  “Do you think they all found families?” I asked Josie. Most nights, after we’d dried the final dishes, Josie and I liked to take a nightly sojourn to the attic. Nightly sojourn, that’s what Josie always called it. The attic was the only place I ever saw her still, her voice dropped to a whisper like we were visiting a church.

  “I don’t know.” Josie shook her head. Even calm, she looked too wild for the attic. Every dress she wore was made from colored scraps of fabric stitched together, rainbow clothes as lively as her braids. “But I’d sure like to find out.”

  “Me too,” I said. “It’s like their time here ended in midstream. Suddenly.” I looked around the room at the tiny toys and trinkets. The emerald rosary hanging from the bed. Yellowed sheets of cursive work like I did back in third grade. “It feels like the orphans wanted us to find it all and wonder. To think about their days. The way things used to be.”

  “Yeah, I see that,” Josie said. “And for some reason, Viktor let it be. Left all of it untouched.”

  I walked over to a drawing. It was a chalky sketch of snowy hills colored on black paper, Sparrow Road in winter. The neighbors’ small red barn set far off in the distance. The white hills so cold and empty, I could almost feel the chill.

  I stared hard at the bottom of the paper. There, in faded pencil, someone had printed LYMAN CHASE. And under that AGE 12.

  Lyman, I said inside my heart where my orphan always heard me. So far no one knew his story, even Josie; I was happiest to keep my daydreams to myself. Lyman Chase. I finally know your name.

  Yep, he said. I’ve been Lyman all along.

  12

  “Raine.” Lillian’s weak voice shocked me from my daydream. From the swing on the front porch, I’d been imagining the orphans building snowmen in the winter. Coming in for oatmeal. Warming their cold hands around the fire in the parlor. A chapter in my story I still wanted to write.

  “Shh.” I put my finger to my lips. Even though Mama and Viktor had gone to town again, and Josie and Diego were working in their sheds, Eleanor was here. From an open upstairs window I could hear the constant click of typing. If I could hear her, she could hear us, too.

  “I just need some company,” Lillian said, like she was sad. “Would you read to me, dear child?”

  I shook my head no. Josie said the silence rule was serious—one violation and the artist had to leave. I didn’t want Lillian sent back to that high-rise in St. Paul.

  “Please,” Lillian begged. “Just a page or two. I have a poem book all picked out.”

  I held my sketchbook up to show that I was writing. If Eleanor heard us talking on the front porch, she would be the first to tell.

  “Please?” Lillian asked again. “I can’t sit in this silence for so long. It makes me miss the children. I don’t know where they’ve gone.”

  Saying no to Lillian was too hard for my heart. She always made me think of Grandpa Mac—how he’d feel if he were frail and made to sit in silence by himself. A thing he couldn’t bear. If he begged someone for their company, I’d want them to say yes.

  Okay, I finally motioned with a shrug. We could do it in the library. I’d close both doors and whisper. And hope we didn’t get caught.

  It was late that night when Viktor stood outside our cottage. The second that I saw him a wave of guilt rose up in my chest.

  “Viktor,” Mama said, surprised. He hadn’t visited our cottage in the ten days since we came. “Come in.”

  “No, thank you, Molly.” He stared down at his feet. “I’d like a word with Raine.”

  A sour knot twisted in my stomach.

  “Raine?” Mama asked. “Viktor, is there something wrong?”

  I walked out the front door before he had a chance to answer. I broke the silence rule. I knew why he was here.

  “The silence.” Viktor’s bony hands were hidden in his pocket. “We keep it for good reason.”

  “I know.” I’d already learned how silence worked on dreams, how my orphan’s story came alive because of quiet.

  “And the artists have committed to a contract. But Lillian—” He rubbed his hand over his sunken cheek. Even in the darkness, the Iceberg’s skin was the blue white of a ghost.

  “The silence made her sad,” I said. “Please don’t make her go back to that high-rise in St. Paul.”

  “That high-rise?” Viktor said. “What a dismal place.” He stared down at the grass. “Lillian, she finds the silence long. Perhaps if you could sit with her each day? Help her write her poetry?”

  “Help her write?” For some reason, I wasn’t sure Lillian really was a poet. Maybe because I’d never seen her write. “During silent time?” Was Viktor asking me to break one of his rules?

  “Yes,” Viktor said. “So she’s not alone so long. Each afternoon, the two of you may have the side porch to yourselves. Close the door so no one hears you. I will inform the other artists an exception has been made.” This was more talk than I’d ever heard from Viktor. I felt like I was drowning in a sudden flood of words. Still, he kept his focus on the ground.

  “I shall pay you for your time.”

  “No.” Grandpa Mac didn’t pay me for working in his store.
It was family helping family. And Lillian already felt like a kind of family. A great-great-aunt or the grandma I didn’t have.

  “I would prefer,” he said.

  “No,” I said again. “I don’t want the money.” I was glad to have a job to fill my days. Like Lillian, I couldn’t stand the silence for too long.

  “Good night, then.” He took a step and turned to look at me. “After everything she’s given—” He stopped like he couldn’t quite find the words. “It’s fitting that a child be kind to her.”

  13

  “Mama, what’s in Comfort?” I asked her the next day.

  We were stretched out on a blanket at the lake with a picnic lunch of ham sandwiches, ripple chips, and pickles.

  “Stores and things.” Mama flushed. “Nothing really, Raine.”

  “And you go there to buy groceries?” Both times Mama had gone to town with Viktor she’d brushed her curls, put on clean clothes and earrings like there was more to Comfort than shopping for our food. And both times she’d come back with fluster blotches burning on her neck.

  “I do,” Mama said. “Why the questions, Raine? You’ve seen the bags yourself. You’ve helped unload the groceries.”

  “I know.” I had, but there was something suspicious about her trips to town with Viktor. Like her sudden summer job at Sparrow Road, Mama’s answers didn’t add up. No matter how many times I asked. “But why can’t you take me with you into town? And why’d we move here in the first place?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Raine!” Mama forced a little laugh. “I thought we put this all to rest. It’s a summer in the country. And I’m working, Raine. Every day but Sunday. Cooking, cleaning. Earning money.”

  “I know,” I said. I didn’t want Mama to get mad. “But why won’t you take me into town?”

  “I will.” Mama looked up at the sky. Two sheep clouds and a palm tree floated past, but Mama didn’t see them. She didn’t have Josie’s gift for finding pictures in the clouds.

  “Or I can go with Josie and Diego. They bike in all the time. And Diego found an old bike in the barn; one he said would fit me. He’s fixing up the chain. Lowering the seat.”

  “No,” Mama answered quickly. “I’ll take you in with me.” She brushed a strand of hair back from my face. “We haven’t even been at Sparrow Road two weeks. Isn’t there enough here to explore? You’re always in a hurry to discover something new. Uncover the next thing.”

  “Not a hurry,” I said. “I just want to bike to Comfort. See more than Sparrow Road.”

  “I thought you liked it here. The artists. The way you get to roam around the grounds. That writing that you do. You seem happier each day. Not so homesick for Milwaukee. Or TV.” Mama tried to joke. She was glad to have the TV gone.

  “I still miss TV,” I said, “and Grandpa Mac and Beauty.” I did, but every day my homesick faded some. I’d already written Grandpa Mac three letters, one more than he had written me. And once Mama let me call from the infirmary, alone, while she waited outside on a bench.

  “The quiet will be over soon enough,” Mama said. “For now, let’s just enjoy the peace.”

  “I do. But I still want to bike to town. See the things I’m missing. Josie says there are root beer floats, and pies, and turtle sundaes, and lemon bars, and a five-and-dime where we can trinket shop.”

  “Ah, Raine.” Mama’s voice was weary. “You’re always missing something. Or imagining what’s missing.”

  “That isn’t true,” I said. “Not always.”

  “It is.” Mama shook her head. “And you’ve been that way since the beginning. A wonderer. I think that’s why you and Josie spend so much time up in that attic. So you can think about what’s missing. All those mysteries you dream up in your mind.” Mama said that last part like I was doing something wrong.

  “I don’t know.” I took a bite of dry ham sandwich; in all the heat the bread had turned to toast. “Maybe so,” I finally said.

  I was a girl born with something missing. Someone missing, but I wasn’t going to say it. I’d learned long ago he was someone Mama wanted gone.

  14

  Do you think about what’s missing? I wrote Lyman.

  Missing? Lyman leaned against the railing of the tower.

  You know, I wrote. People. Like your parents?

  Sure, he said. I wonder where they went. Why they couldn’t keep me. Anybody would. He pulled a paper airplane from his pocket and launched it on a slow drift with the breeze. We all think about what’s missing. And when someone’s gone, we have to dream them up. Same way you dream up me.

  What about your dad? I said.

  Gone. We watched his paper airplane glide down to the grass. Same as yours, I guess.

  “Were you close to your father?” I asked Lillian. We were reading Robert Frost out on the side porch, Lillian rocking in her Dream Chair, a gift Josie found at a garage sale in Comfort and painted with pink stars. Josie promised Lillian that when September came, she’d find a way to get the Dream Chair to St. Paul.

  “My father?” Lillian blinked. Mama said it was cataracts that made Lillian’s pupils milky.

  I stuck my finger in the page and closed the dusty book. I was ready for a rest; my tongue was tired of tripping over words. Line by line, the poems were like a long walk through the darkness. My brain was worn out.

  “Yes,” I said. “Your father. You never mention him.” In all her stories, Lillian never said a word about her family.

  “No.” Lillian shook her head. “I’m afraid that I didn’t know him.”

  “Never?”

  “No.” Lillian frowned.

  “I don’t know mine either.” Through the corner of my eye I spied Eleanor skulking past the side porch.

  “Her,” Lillian said when Eleanor huffed off. “I don’t think she should be working with the children. The children need more love.”

  “She’s not with the children,” I said. “Her children are at home.”

  “She’s a mother?” Lillian gasped. “How terrible. My mother was so sweet.”

  “Mine too,” I said. “I mean my mother is.”

  Lillian patted at my leg. “I’m sure you miss her, dear.” No matter how many times I told her, Lillian couldn’t remember who Mama really was.

  “So you knew your mother then?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” Lillian said. “Mother was a saint. The day she brought me here, they gave us each a sausage. And Mother gave me hers, because she knew that I was hungry.” Lillian’s hazy eyes filled up with tears. “Afterward, I was so sorry that I ate it, I threw up in the snow.”

  “The snow?”

  “We came here in the winter. So many children did. Families who couldn’t survive out in the cold. But the mothers couldn’t stay. Fathers either. They only kept the children, so Mother had to say good-bye.”

  “So were you an orphan, Lillian?” For the first time since I met her, Lillian’s story was starting to make sense. Once she was an orphan in this house. “Did you live up in the attic?”

  “Oh no,” Lillian pressed her palm against her chest. “The attic was for boys.”

  15

  “I think Lillian was an orphan,” I told Josie. I sank the oars deep in the water and tried to row the old boat forward. Teaching me to row was one of Josie’s missions. Independence, she told Mama. Raine needs it to be ready for the world.

  “An orphan? I had her figured for a teacher,” Josie said. “All that talk of spelling and piano.”

  “I know,” I said. “But maybe she was both.”

  Lillian was another mystery we both wanted to solve. Her odd friendship with Viktor, her talk about the children, all her mixed-up memories. Neither of us knew what in all of that was real.

  “Today she said she came here in the winter with her mother. And her mother had to leave, because the parents couldn’t stay. They only kept the kids.”

  “I think that part is true enough,” Josie said. “Folks in town have told me. They said sometimes they’d s
pot a threadbare mom or dad walking brokenhearted down the road. Even in the winter.”

  “They told you that in town? Who?”

  “Oh, just friends I’ve made in Comfort. Folks I chat with in the shops. The café. When I’m tired of the quiet, I bike to town to talk. Viktor can’t enforce the silence rule there!”

  “Have you seen Mama there with Viktor?” Maybe Josie knew what Mama did in town.

  “Can’t say I have,” Josie said. “But I don’t go there to buy groceries. I’m happy to eat the feasts your mama makes. Why you asking, Raine?”

  “I don’t know. I guess the trips she makes to Comfort seem a little strange. Like the way she took this job so suddenly? One day we were living in Milwaukee, and the next day we were gone.”

  “I suppose it’s strange to take a job that quickly,” Josie said. “But you know me, sometimes I also move too fast. And anyway, I’m glad your mama did. I can’t imagine this summer without you. Or food!” Josie grabbed the oars and steered us from the weeds. “Almost hit a snag.”

  “Maybe if I saw Comfort for myself?” I said. “Went to town with you?”

  “Absolutely!” Josie cheered. “A new adventure is ahead!” In the final blaze of sunset, her neon braids glowed cotton candy pink. “We’ll get to make a memory!” Every day Josie sewed a brand-new patch of memory so in the end her summer would be a kind of quilt. “Root beer floats at the Comfort Cone. Marge’s lemon bars at the sweet Blue Moon Café. How soon can we set out?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow would be perfect! We ought to take a practice run the day before the Rhubarb Social. Eight miles into town might feel long the first time.” The Rhubarb Social at Good Shepherd was Josie’s latest scheme. She insisted everyone would go this weekend. Everyone but Eleanor. Mama and Lillian would ride in Viktor’s truck. I’d bike in with Josie and Diego.