Sparrow Road

by Sheila O'Connor

  Mama forced a smile. “Josie sure knows how to throw a party.”

  “I sure do.” Josie grinned. She looked at Viktor. He was underneath the gnarled oak, sitting on the bench with Lillian. “Parties are my specialty,” she added, but Viktor only nodded. Strong as she was, I still didn’t think she’d get him to agree to the Arts Extravaganza.

  “You look so lovely,” Lillian said to me. She patted at the empty chair beside her. “Please join me, dear. It’s nice here in the shade.” She lifted the dainty punch cup to her lips. “In all these years, we’ve never had a party. Not like this.”

  “I believe there was a party every Christmas,” Viktor said. “With gingerbread you used to bake.”

  “Did I?” Lillian blinked. “And was the party happy?”

  “I don’t know.” Viktor combed his bony fingers through his hair. “I was a child then. What do children know?”

  Viktor was a child at Sparrow Road? Did he visit the orphans with the Berglunds? Or was he an orphan once? Is that why he and Lillian were friends? Was he one of the children?

  If I hadn’t been so nervous about Gray, I would have jumped out of my seat and rushed the update straight to Josie.

  “Children know so many things,” Lillian said. She rested her wrinkled hand over my wrist. “This one is a wizard. She reads poetry to me.”

  It was the grind of tire against gravel that made everybody freeze. My heart stilled in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I really couldn’t breathe. My voice was gone. The top of my head tingled. When I heard his car door slam, I wanted to bolt into the house, climb up to the tower, and slide the lock across the latch.

  “He’s here,” Mama said. She looked at me as if it were the last time that she’d see me. I wanted her to hug me, to hold me until my heart slowed, but she stood frozen like a statue near the punch.

  “Gray arrives,” Viktor announced. He glanced at me. Josie and Diego looked at me. Lillian was staring at the lilies.

  I shrugged. “Okay,” I squeaked. I didn’t feel it, or mean it, but I said it because I didn’t know what else to say. More words wouldn’t have made it out my mouth.

  “I enjoy a summer garden,” Lillian said.

  And then Gray James walked into our yard.

  He was small. Not small like me, but closer to Mama’s height than Viktor’s or Diego’s. Small shouldered and small boned. I saw right away I had his scrawny body. Shaggy bangs fell over his eyes. He wore cowboy boots and faded jeans, just like on the album, and his cowboy boots were still caked with crusty mud. Mama said he was her age, but he looked more like a boy. A battered old guitar case dangled from one hand.

  “Hey there,” he said to nobody, and his voice had that same slow twang of his songs.

  “Gray,” Viktor said. He ambled over and set his hand down on Gray’s small shoulder, almost the way a father would. Mama just stood silent. “You’re right on time. Let me introduce our summer artists: Diego, Lillian, and Josie.” Gray nodded toward each person. “Eleanor hasn’t joined us yet.”

  “I met you my first day!” Josie stepped forward and swallowed up Gray’s hand. “When you were here working on the house. Painting those old windows.” Painting? Was Gray the painter we saw with Viktor on the street? The small man who barely waved? Wasn’t he a singer anymore? “Well, how cool that you’re Raine’s—” Josie stumbled on her sentence, then she stopped. “Raine’s Gray.”

  “Glad to be.” Gray gave a little grin. Then he turned to Mama and tried to hand her the shabby old guitar case. “It’s an old Martin I picked up at a pawn shop. For you.” He looked shy and scared and small in front of Mama, and Mama didn’t look happy to see him.

  “Great gift,” Diego said. He shook Gray’s hand. “I can’t wait to hear her play.”

  “Thanks,” Mama said to Gray, but she wouldn’t take it. “But I don’t play guitar anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Gray said. “You told me. But that’s a terrible shame. So I did a little shopping.” He held it out to Mama until she gave in and took it from his hand.

  “Raine?” Mama called. She motioned for me to stand up from my lawn chair, to come over and say hello to Gray James, but my legs were too weak to walk across the yard. Instead, I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my hands around my flip-flops, and waited while Gray James followed Mama to my chair. I wanted a giant box to drop over my body. A fishbone was trapped inside my throat.

  Gray James sank his hands in his back pockets. “Raine?” he said. His black deer eyes had a little bit of Lillian’s confusion, like he wasn’t completely certain who I was.

  “She’s waiting for her father,” Lillian said.

  My cheeks washed red; I didn’t want Gray James to think I was waiting here for him.

  Gray grinned. “That so?” he said to Lillian. “Well, that’s good news for me.”

  “Okay,” Mama gulped before she left us. “I’m going to get more punch.”

  27

  Gray sat down next to Lillian. “Hey,” he said to her, but he kept his smile on me. “Raine?” He shook his head a little. When he said my name it sounded like a question. “I hardly can believe it.”

  “This one is a gift,” Lillian said. She touched my sleeve. “She reads poetry to me. I didn’t write poetry until after I was sixty.” Lillian ran her wrinkled hand over her book.

  “Well, good for you.” Gray grinned. His shy, crooked smile never left his face. “Oh,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his shirt. “I got something for you, too.” He handed me a tiny box tied closed with curly ribbon. “You don’t have to open it right now.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I tried to sound more sincere than Mama.

  Mama propped the guitar against the table, then disappeared into the house. A second later Diego went in too. Josie lined the ears of corn up on the grill. “I hope everybody’s hungry,” Josie said.

  Gray bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His skin was tan like mine, olive, but with tiny specks of paint. “You surely are a sight.” He cupped his hands together and put his cheek down on his fist. “You as scared as me?”

  I nodded. One nod and my eyes already watered.

  “We don’t have to be anything,” Gray said. “Not tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Or ever, if that’s what you decide.”

  “I’m not sure how long she’ll stay,” Lillian interrupted. “The little one has hope.”

  “Hope’s good,” Gray said. Whenever Lillian added her two cents Gray’s eyes lit up, his crooked smile lifted to one side. “Your mama told me some things. You like to read?”

  I sounded simple and stupid in Gray’s slow country voice. “Sometimes,” I said. After all these days of waiting, I didn’t have a word to say to Gray. This wasn’t how I pictured it at all.

  “Raine and I are going to throw a party,” Josie blurted suddenly. She was at the grill, a wavy veil of smoke covering her face. “The Arts Extravaganza. So folks can come from Comfort.”

  “What?” Viktor glared at Josie. “What exactly do you mean?” I could see he was confused. Me too. Why would Josie bring up the Arts Extravaganza now?

  “A party!” Josie said. “But bigger than this barbecue. So the folks in Comfort can get to know the good at Sparrow Road. Can see the art we’ve created here this summer. We’ll make the food ourselves. Plan all the activities. Raine’s in charge of games. It won’t cost you any money.”

  “Wow,” Gray said. “That’s really quite a thing.” He leaned back on the bench.

  “And you’ll come, Gray,” Josie ordered. “You’ll sing. You and Molly both.”

  I was glad Mama had gone into the house. She didn’t know about the party, didn’t know Josie just had invited Gray or that I’d already planned to ask Grandpa Mac to come.

  “I don’t know about the singing.” Gray rubbed his hand across his face. “I’m on a little break.”

  “And Lillian will read her poetry,” Josie said, like Gray would sing regardless. “Eleanor can read from her masterpiec
e if she feels so inclined. Raine is still deciding what she’ll make.”

  “No,” Viktor said. “No party.”

  “Diego and I will open up our sheds. Have our summer work out on display. And everyone who comes will make some art. We’ll set up creation stations. Embroidery. Collage. Memory patches. Poetry.”

  “I will read my poetry,” Lillian said.

  “Josie,” Viktor said. “You can’t just plan a party.”

  “But it won’t be any trouble to you.” Josie planted her black boots firmly on the ground. She raised her tongs toward Viktor like she was ready for a battle. “And we’ll have it on a Sunday. August eighteenth. So it won’t interrupt the silence.”

  “You already chose a date?” Viktor dropped his head.

  “Raine and I have been busy making plans.”

  “Plans?” Viktor sighed.

  “And Raine’s grandpa will be coming. He’s driving from Milwaukee.”

  “Your grandpa will be coming?” Gray’s crooked smile drooped a little bit.

  “I hope,” I said. I hardly knew my own voice; it felt like I was talking through a tunnel. “I haven’t really asked him yet.”

  “And I will read my poetry,” Lillian said again. She pressed her dress down on her legs.

  “You see!” Josie said. “The party will be great!” She flipped the ribs and waved the smoke back from her face.

  “No party,” Viktor said.

  “It’ll be amazing,” Josie said. “An Arts Extravaganza like no other!”

  “No,” Viktor repeated.

  Gray smiled. I could tell he thought Josie was the sun. Strong and bright and big. Maybe strong enough to melt an iceberg. “Hey, Raine,” he drawled. “How ’bout we have a walk?”

  That walk with Gray was the longest of my life. Gray said his favorite spot at Sparrow Road was the hill that overlooked the lake, because after a long hot day of painting he’d go down and take a dip. “Haven’t done it since,” he said. “And today is one hot day.”

  “You don’t sing?” I asked. “What about your records?”

  “I’m on a break,” he said. “Painting houses in between. The steady work helps me dream up songs.”

  Gray James wasn’t a fast talker or a mover. But as we walked across the meadow, my heart started to still, my hands calmed, my old voice was coming back. We didn’t talk about us being father-daughter, or Amsterdam or why he never saw me in Milwaukee. His side of the story. Or why Mama never told me who he was. All the mysteries I thought this night would solve. Instead, Gray told about a scrawny near-dead kitten he’d rescued off the road. Mr. Bones. Gray said he’d found him starving and now Mr. Bones liked to sleep draped around Gray’s neck like a scarf. And when Gray let him have a taste, he was crazy about cantaloupe. I told him about Beauty, the way she only purred for me and how I bought her a can of tuna every Christmas. I said I hoped I’d have a dog someday, and Gray said that as a boy his best friend had been Buddy, a spaniel mutt his dad won in a poker game. “Shaggy black, with a white stripe down his muzzle.” Gray ran his finger down his nose. “Just thinking of that stripe still makes me miss him. I sure wish I had that dog today.”

  When we finally stopped to look down at the lake, Gray said he wasn’t sure about the present. “It may not be a thing a girl would like. I don’t know too many girls your age.” He tugged a little on his shirt. I’d already forgotten that he gave a gift to me; I’d left the box sitting on my chair. “I spent a lot of hours hunting down the perfect thing. I was so nervous for tonight.” Gray let his bangs fall over his face. “But I never did believe something bought could take the place of feelings.”

  “No,” I said. “Me either.” I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but it sounded right to me. Something bought couldn’t take the place of feelings. Maybe it was the same thing Grandpa Mac meant when he said money can’t buy love. If I’d had the words, I would have told Gray it didn’t matter what he bought me. What mattered most, standing there, staring at the lake, was that I had a name and face for my beginning. He was small and slow and sad and kind of country, but I was glad Gray James belonged to me.

  28

  It wasn’t until our cookout finally ended and Gray James was gone to Comfort, and I was on the swing outside our cottage sitting with the stars, that Josie came to tell me she’d been saving news all week. News she didn’t want to tell me while my mind was on Gray James.

  “I finally found her, Raine!” Josie clapped her happy hands together. “Nettie Johnson. That preacher’s wife over in Spring Valley. The one the man at the Rhubarb Social mentioned. The one who used to be an orphan. Oh, Raine! I finally tracked her down!”

  “Whoa!” I said. “That’s great.” I was glad to think of something besides Gray. All these days of waiting long and wondering had finally worn me out. And I had such a jumbled mix of feelings, I didn’t know which feeling to feel first.

  “Well, the best part is”—Josie stamped her feet—“Nettie Johnson’s coming to Comfort for a chat with you and me! On Friday! A chat and a piece of Blue Moon pie.”

  “A chat with us?” I couldn’t believe Josie had finally found an orphan, someone who really lived at Sparrow Road. I’d been shy with Gray but I’d ask Nettie Johnson every question. What was it like to live at Sparrow Road? Did she know Lillian? Was Lillian an orphan or a teacher? Did she bake gingerbread at Christmas? Did the children really sleep down at the lake? Did all of them find families? Had Viktor Berglund been an orphan too?

  When Friday came, Mama walked me to my bike and made me pinkie swear if I saw Gray in Comfort I wouldn’t go off with him alone.

  “Molly, Molly,” Diego laughed. “Raine’s safe with me and Josie.”

  “Safe and sound!” Josie hitched her patchwork dress up to her knees. She always rode like that—dress up, bare legs, big black buckle boots.

  “I thought Gray was up to me,” I said.

  “More or less,” Mama sighed. “But you’re my daughter, Raine. I want to know you’re with Josie and Diego.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told Mama. For one day, I didn’t want the cloud of Mama’s fears hanging over me. I wanted peach pie and whatever orphan stories Nettie Johnson had to tell. “I won’t go off with Gray.”

  When we’d finally biked away from Sparrow Road, Diego slowed to pedal right beside me; Josie had already bolted far ahead. “It’s a mother bear thing, Raine,” Diego panted. Behind him, his Hawaiian shirt flapped back like a bright kite in the breeze. His jet black hair shined blue in the sun. “Your mama’s got her claws out for her cub. Mother instinct.”

  “But Mama said he wasn’t dangerous.”

  “He’s not,” Diego wheezed. “But people make mistakes. I’ve made my share along the way.” I couldn’t picture Diego making a mistake. “Gray let your mama down and that’s a hurt that hasn’t healed. She just wants to keep your heart safe.”

  “But Mama needs to let me go,” I said. “Things will be okay.”

  “Probably so,” Diego said. “But protection? That’s pure mother instinct. Parent instinct. I had it for my boys. And Gray, he’s got father instincts of his own.” A storm of sweat rained down Diego’s face. “He wants the chance to be your dad.”

  Your dad. No one had ever called Gray James my dad. It sounded foreign and too big to ever fit me. I was glad no one else was there to hear Diego say it. I needed time to wear those words alone.

  29

  Nettie Johnson and her husband were at the Blue Moon when we got there and her preacher husband, Reverend Johnson, looked liked anybody else. No black suit or special collar like Father Finnegan would wear. And Nettie didn’t look like an orphan. She was gray-haired, short and chubby, with bright pink fingernails, pink lipstick, and a pink sweat suit to match.

  “That’s quite a head of hair,” Reverend Johnson said to Josie. “Reminds me of a rainbow.” He slid out of the booth. “I’m off to do my errands, then. I’m not much for sitting with the ladies.” Diego wasn’t either. He’d given up peach pi
e to hunt down junk in town. “Be back in a spell,” Reverend Johnson said to Nettie.

  Our spell with Nettie lasted a long time; it lasted until Marge finally hung the CLOSED sign in the window. She’d already washed our cups and plates, refilled the sugar packet stacks. Nettie told us she was taken to Sparrow Road at two or three, after her mama died from flu. Her father was a soldier in the army, but he never came for her. “I stayed at Sparrow Road until I was fifteen. I wasn’t quite adopted,” Nettie said. “But there was a farm family in Spring Valley, they took me in to help with their nine kids.”

  “What about Lillian Hobbs?” I said.

  “Lillian Hobbs?” Nettie looked confused.

  “She might have been an orphan or a teacher,” I said.

  Nettie poured another pack of sugar in her coffee. “Hobbs? You mean Miss Hobbs the teacher? Is that the person that you mean?” Nettie Johnson looked surprised. “Very small? Little more than bones? Don’t tell me she’s alive?”

  “She is,” Josie said. “Alive and well. At Sparrow Road this summer. So you have to come to see her. In fact we’re hosting the Arts Extravaganza on August eighteenth. You and the reverend, we want you both to come. Other orphans too if we can find them. Are you in touch with any?” I couldn’t believe Viktor had said yes, but Josie swore to me he did.

  “No.” Nettie frowned. “Not really. I’ve left that past behind.”

  “Did you know Lyman Chase?” Josie asked. “He has a drawing in the attic. Sparrow Road in winter.” My heart sank. I hoped Nettie would say no. I wanted Lyman to live in my imagination, just the way I pictured. What if Nettie said that he was mean? Or ugly? Or a boy she always hated? Lyman was safer in my heart.

  Nettie shook her head. “Oh no, there were hundreds of us, honey. The orphanage was open for many, many years.”

  I was relieved she didn’t know Lyman. “But what about Viktor Berglund?” I asked.