Sparrow Road

by Sheila O'Connor

  “Raine’s right,” Diego said. “You have to sing. You’ll sing and Raine will read. Art by the O’Rourkes. What more could anybody want?”

  “No,” Mama sighed.

  “She does sing like an angel,” Grandpa Mac said. “The best voice I’ve ever heard. Molly had a music scholarship to college.”

  “Dad,” Mama groaned, embarrassed.

  “So?” I grabbed on to Mama’s hand. “Your song for my story?” Mama was an artist as much as everybody else. I didn’t want Mama acting like a servant at the party, just pouring drinks and putting cookies out on platters. I wanted her to sing the way she did that day at the cathedral. The day Gray first fell in love.

  “Okay, okay,” Mama said. “I’ll think about one song.”

  The second she said it everybody clapped.

  “Enough!” Mama said. “Let’s see Diego’s work.”

  “This is it,” Diego said when we stepped inside his shed. He pointed to an old door propped against one wall. It was plastered with a mishmash of odd items: buttons, shells, seeds, the plastic spoon from the ice cream social, the Orange Crush cap Josie snatched up off of the ground, labels off of pickle jars cut into tiny pieces and pasted into trees, a broken clothespin, dried wildflowers from the woods, a faded photo cutout of Mama planting in the garden, a pencil sketch of me writing underneath the willow. The sparrow feather I found in the field. Tiny scraps of Josie’s velvet were glued along the edge. A line from Lillian’s poem floated through the center like a wave. There will never be a way to save one summer. It was like a mosaic of our days made from a thousand tiny pieces of found junk. And it was beautiful and peaceful—golden and lavender and green—as if all these odds and ends were meant to come together in a picture. It reminded me of sunset or the way the morning sun sparkles white against the grass and then it’s gone.

  “So?” Diego winked at me. “My what if or what could be?”

  “If someone opened up that door, they’d walk straight into our summer,” I said. I wanted to stare at it forever.

  “That was my hope,” Diego said to me. “The door to Sparrow Road.”

  Grandpa Mac crossed his arms over his chest. “Who’d have guessed,” he said, “that you could make something this pretty out of garbage?”

  “Diego guessed,” I said. “Diego guessed it all.”

  44

  “I suppose I better put some of those cookies back into the freezer,” Mama said.

  We’d baked sweets to serve at least two hundred guests, but so far the Arts Extravaganza looked like it might get twenty people tops. The few who came took a cup of lemonade, grabbed one of Mama’s cookies, but most seemed too out of place to speak. None of them stopped off at our stations to make art. All these weeks I’d pictured our Arts Extravaganza as a giant carnival with banners on the highway and Christmas lights twinkling in the trees. But now it felt more like the rummage sale at church. Hot and dull and sticky. Grandpa Mac’s pail of penny candy melted in the sun.

  “I’ll help you with those, Molly.” Grandpa Mac grabbed a second tray of cookies and followed Mama to the house. Josie stood out in the driveway greeting the two or three new visitors who came. I set up my doll stand. Lillian sat beside me with a stack of Josie’s napkins for people to embroider. Gray still hadn’t come.

  “It’s a flop,” I said to Diego. Where were all the people who packed the Rhubarb Social? Why didn’t they come to Sparrow Road? Dave from the Comfort Cone wasn’t even there.

  Diego sat down at my station. “It’s early, Raine. And in the meantime, I’m ready to get started on a doll.”

  “First you need a question,” I said.

  “Got it.” Diego winked. “I’ve had it for a while, Raine.” Diego traced the pattern on a piece of flowered sheet. “You promise me an answer?”

  “It worked for me.” I looked out toward the driveway; I didn’t understand why Gray was late. “Unless it’s about a real date with Mama. Then you can just ask me. I’m pretty sure Mama would say yes.”

  Diego laughed. “Isn’t there some rule about the question being secret? Like the wish you make before you blow out the candles on your birthday cake?”

  “No rules,” I said.

  “Of course,” he roared. “No rules! Josie made it up.”

  When Gray’s old van finally pulled into the driveway, I was glad Grandpa Mac was in the house with Mama. “Your dad’s here,” Diego said.

  My heart skipped. I didn’t know what I’d say to Gray or how Grandpa Mac would treat him; I just wanted that hard part of the party to be done.

  “Go on, I’ll supervise your stand. I’ve got the dolls down now. And Raine?” He tugged on my shirt. “Your Grandpa Mac and Gray? They just want to see you happy. Your mama, too. You’re all on the same team.” He gave my back a quick “go get ’em” pat. “They just don’t know it yet.”

  You’re all on the same team. Diego’s words sounded strong and definite and happy. Just the way I wanted things to be.

  Gray lugged an old guitar case, more scuffed and scabbed than the one he’d given Mama. “Hey there, Raine,” he said, a toothpick stuck between his teeth.

  “You ought to give that up,” I said. “You’re done with smoking.” I didn’t want him gnawing on a toothpick when he first met Grandpa Mac. Or met him again as the Gray who didn’t drink.

  “This?” Gray took the toothpick out and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. “I’ll do my best.” He looked around the almost empty driveway. “It’s slow on the front end, I see.”

  “No one’s coming,” I said.

  “They’ll come. Comfort folks won’t be here in a rush but they’ll be here,” he drawled. “Your grandpa make it in okay?” I could tell he held a little hope my answer might be no.

  “He’s here,” I said. “He finally got here yesterday. And this morning we got to see Josie and Diego’s art. I can’t wait for you to see it. And Josie made him his own breakfast basket.”

  “A breakfast basket?” Gray asked.

  I’d already forgotten Gray wasn’t part of Sparrow Road in the beginning. “Oh, it’s something Josie makes. With painted eggs and other things. She left one at our door the first morning we were here.”

  “That sure sounds sweet.” I could tell that he felt bashful, like the guests who still didn’t touch our cookies.

  “Want a glass of lemonade?” I asked.

  “Not yet.” Gray leaned a little with his case.

  “Grandpa Mac won’t punch you,” I said. “He promised me. And he’s sorry that he ever did.” I lied about that last part, but I didn’t want Gray to wonder and worry through the party.

  “I’m certain I deserved it.” Gray rubbed his jaw. “But I don’t want to bring trouble to your party.” He reached back into his pocket for a toothpick and then he let it go.

  “There won’t be trouble,” I said. “Grandpa Mac knows that you quit drinking. He knows all that is done.”

  “It’s more a question of believing.” Gray pushed the bangs back from his face.

  “We’re all on the same team,” I said.

  Gray’s shoulders dropped a bit. “I don’t imagine your grandpa would be too happy to hear that. Your mama either, for that matter. They don’t much want me on their team.”

  “I do,” I said. “I want you on my team.”

  Gray grinned his crooked grin. “I’m always on your team, Raine.”

  What happened next was the first shock of the party—Mama and Grandpa Mac both walked out to the driveway like Gray was some long-lost family they were truly glad to see. “Gray,” Mama said. She was extra beautiful that day; her red curls fell long and soft over her shoulders, and she wore the long white sundress that made her look like an angel sent from heaven. Her feet were bare like the day Gray saw her sing, and she’d tied a row of Josie’s braided bracelets on her wrists. “My dad,” she said, as if Grandpa Mac and Gray had never met.

  Grandpa Mac reached out and shook Gray’s hand, the same friendly way he’d greete
d all the artists.

  “Sir,” Gray said.

  “Sir isn’t really necessary.” Grandpa Mac wrapped me in his arm. “Just Mac will do the trick.” Grandpa Mac looked twice the size of Gray. “I hear you’re going to play.” He nodded at the guitar case in Gray’s hand.

  “If that’s a thing Raine wants,” Gray said. “I’m just here to follow orders.” He smiled at me.

  “Ah, Raine.” Mama shook her head at me. “She’s been wound up all day. I’m afraid she’s turning into Josie. On Raine’s orders we’ve got four hundred cookies in the freezer.” It was the most I’d ever heard Mama say to Gray.

  “Folks are on their way,” Gray said. A few more cars had pulled into the driveway. “You wait and see. Raine will have her party.”

  “She sure will.” Grandpa Mac hugged me closer. “She sure will have it, Gray.”

  45

  It wasn’t long before the front lawn was packed with people, and Gray sang his slow songs on the porch, and kids ran wild with long ropes of Grandpa Mac’s red licorice, and most of Mama’s cookies had been eaten and I had a long line of people waiting to make Eureka Dolls.

  “What’d I tell you, Raine?” Josie shouted over all the noise. She was plopped down next to Lillian. Viktor had just come back from Comfort with more lemonade and cookies for the crowd. “Everybody came!”

  “How’s it going, honey?” Grandpa Mac dumped a fresh box of fabric scraps into my basket. Our Arts Extravaganza was bigger than I ever dreamed.

  “You go ahead and work the crowd,” Mama said to Josie. “I’ll sit here with Lillian. I can paint faces from this station.”

  “You sure?” Josie stood and scanned the crowd. “I do have a couple of details to take care of.”

  “Go,” Mama said to Josie, but it was my station I wanted her to work. I was tired of teaching people to make Eureka Dolls; I wanted to grab my own fistful of candy, stop by Diego’s station and create my own collage. I wanted to sit up on the porch and listen to Gray sing. In all the flurry, I’d missed most of his songs.

  “Raine!” Josie glowed. “Look, look! Nettie Johnson came!” Josie pointed toward the driveway where Nettie Johnson and the reverend stood staring at the house.

  “Nettie!” Josie hollered as she dashed across the lawn.

  Viktor carried Lillian’s Dream Chair to the front edge of the porch. “It looks like it’s almost time to close your station,” Mama said. “Viktor must be getting ready now to read.” Just this morning, Viktor had agreed to read Lillian’s poems. “And after that Eleanor.” Mama wrinkled up her nose. “Then finally, it’s your story! I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been writing in that sketchbook. The crowd is going to love it, Raine.”

  My heart raced; suddenly the porch looked like a stage, a place where I didn’t want to stand. Lyman’s story was waiting in the attic, but now that there were so many faces at the party—so many kids my age scattered in small packs—I didn’t want to read it to the crowd. “I don’t know,” I said. It felt safer to keep it tucked inside myself.

  “Raine, Raine,” Josie interrupted. She shoved a big brass bell into my hand. Her face was flushed, her eyes brighter than they’d ever been. “It’s time to close the stations. We have to get the crowd to the front lawn. You go around the grounds and ring. Go gather people up.”

  “Everyone?” I said. People had strayed down to the lake.

  “Yes!” Josie said, like I was Paul Revere. “Gather up the group. Make sure everybody comes.”

  I found people in the artists’ sheds, people on the path down to the lake, people lingering in the parlor. There were people on the porch, people chatting in the shade. I told them all to head out toward the yard, but I didn’t ring that crazy bell.

  “Everybody,” Josie shouted. She clapped her giant hands for quiet. There might have been two hundred people, maybe more, spread out on our front lawn. Dave from the Comfort Cone was there, and Leif, and Marge from the Blue Moon, and Dot, the Comfort Kitchen waitress who knew Gray’s order by heart. “I want to thank you all for coming,” Josie said. She looked like a wild rainbow standing in the center. “For joining us for Sparrow Road’s First Annual Arts Extravaganza. For coming here to see the good work that’s been done. And I want to give a special thanks to Viktor Berglund, a man who’s made Sparrow Road a shelter through some storms. A place for peace and dreams.”

  Up on the porch, Viktor slouched into himself. He inched his chair closer to Lillian. Gray stretched out on the bottom step. In the front row, Diego had his arm over Mama’s shoulder. Grandpa Mac stood alone under a tree. I wished someone was standing next to me.

  “First,” Josie said, “Viktor Berglund will read us poems by Lillian Hobbs. Then we’ll have an essay by Eleanor Dayton. And then we’ll have a piece by our youngest, brightest artist—the amazing Raine O’Rourke.” I wanted to crawl under the porch or run back to the cottage and hide under my bed. Josie swept her arm toward me while everybody clapped. I wasn’t any kind of artist. I was a kid whose mother was the cook.

  46

  I was so sick with nerves and fear, I hardly heard a word of Lillian’s poetry. I only heard the blood beating in my ears. When Viktor finished and Eleanor stood up to read her essay, I ducked out of the crowd and escaped up to the attic. I’d left Lyman’s story sitting on a bed.

  “Hey,” Gray called up the attic stairs. “I saw you sneak away. Your act will be up soon.”

  “I don’t want to read.” The last time I’d been this scared was when Sister Cyril made me read one of my stories to the school in fourth grade. Until today, I’d forgotten how much I hated standing on a stage. “Too many people here today.”

  “It’s the same for me before I sing,” Gray said. “Stage fright. Get it every time.”

  “You do?” I didn’t think anyone who sang on a stage could be afraid of people watching.

  “Always had a problem with my nerves,” Gray said. “It’s hard to put your heart out to a crowd. Not knowing what’s going to happen if you do. If folks will laugh or clap. Boo. It’s hard to take that chance.”

  I pressed Lyman’s story to my chest; I didn’t want anyone to laugh at Lyman’s words.

  “But I just try to tell myself I’ve got the strength. And then I disappear inside the song.”

  “You disappear?”

  “Yep. It’s a trick I made up in my mind. You might be able to do it with your story. Just tell yourself you’re going for a walk. Forget you’re up on stage. Disappear while the words do all the work. Come on back when the audience starts clapping.”

  I couldn’t imagine disappearing while I was reading to a crowd.

  “Works for me,” Gray said. “It might just work for you. Nerves run in our family.” Our family. It made my heart fill just to hear Gray say it. He stared at Lyman’s drawing. “Boy,” he said, “that’s lonely. Hills and hills of nothing. It sure is something else.” Through the broken attic window we could hear the people clapping. “All that thunder for sour Eleanor. If the crowd liked her, you know you’ll be a big-time hit.” Gray gave a little laugh, and even his slow laughter sounded like a song. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go take that walk.”

  At first Gray stood beside me on the porch, long enough for me to get my courage. Then I swallowed hard, opened up my mouth, and let Lyman tell his story.

  What Was By Lyman Chase, Age 12

  He spoke. And I went for a walk.

  People think we didn’t have parents. We had parents. Everybody does. I had parents, and I always knew that true fact in my heart. Even if I didn’t have solid proof, a piece of paper or a picture, or someone to visit here on Christmas, or a dad to teach me to play baseball. I knew I had people out there somewhere. A father who held me in his heart. Thought about me. A mama too. People who liked to wonder what I might be doing. How I was growing up. Was I okay living in an orphanage? People who wondered hard about who I’d turn out to be. Same way someone wonders about a dog that ran away, or a friend they lost when they were little
. All those missing things.

  And I always dreamed my parents wished that they could raise me. Maybe in a small place in the city, or a farm out in the country. One with a red barn and an old black horse I could ride across the hills.

  But that chance never came. Or else they would have taken me back home.

  I wish I knew exactly where they were, what they looked like, but no one ever told me. And not knowing was the hardest thing to bear. Lots of times I waited for a letter, everybody did, but letters never came. And sometimes I’d stand up in the attic and stare out at the hills, especially in winter when everything was white, wishing they’d surprise me with a visit, would walk across those hills, leave their heavy footprints in the snow. And then my dad would come up to the attic, open up a suitcase, and tell me, “Pack your things, we’re leaving. We can’t take the missing anymore.”

  Then they’d take me with them to whatever kind of life that they were living. Rich or poor. Good or bad. We’d make it as a family.

  I must have dreamed that dream a thousand times at least. Year after year, looking out my window.

  But they never came to get me.

  And then those years were gone.

  When the final line was finished I came back from my walk; the place was pounding with applause. Gray was right; I could let Lyman tell his story. His words did all the work. Out in the crowd, I saw Grandpa Mac wipe a tear off of his cheek. Then Mama too. Maybe tears ran in the O’Rourke family. Josie howled above the din, and Diego clapped his hands over his head. Gray looked up and gave a quiet grin.

  “Okay, okay,” Josie said. “We have one more big event. Don’t leave yet.” Josie stood behind Lillian’s rocker, her big hands clamped on Lillian’s small shoulders. Viktor’s hands were pressed together, his forehead resting on his fingers. He didn’t even look up. “Our poet Lillian Hobbs is our great joy.” Josie’s voice boomed above the crowd and pretty soon the hum of conversation stopped. Bored kids straggled to the backyard or disappeared inside the house. “Our daily treasure.”