Sparrow Road

by Sheila O'Connor

  I sat down on the step with Gray. “You sure got a gift with words,” Gray whispered. He twirled the toothpick in his fingers but he didn’t stick it in his teeth.

  “I don’t know,” I said. If I had a gift with words, Gray James had passed it on.

  “Not so many years ago,” Josie said, “Lillian taught at Sparrow Road. Back when it was an orphanage.”

  Lillian? Why was Josie talking about Lillian? It was time for Mama’s song.

  “I taught piano.” Lillian blinked. “And I helped the children with their spelling.”

  “Yes,” Josie said. “You did.” She turned back to the crowd. “And Lillian gave her life and heart to lots of kids who lived without their parents. Many, many children. And for all of them, she tried to make Sparrow Road a home. A place where they felt safe. So today, some of those children have come to honor her, have come home to Sparrow Road.”

  Those children? Viktor lifted up his head and stared out at the crowd. Did Josie mean the orphans? Wasn’t Nettie Johnson the only orphan that we knew?

  “Me?” Lillian raised her hand up to her throat. Her voice wobbled. “Here to honor me?” She looked around the yard.

  “You,” Josie said. “For all the good you gave to Sparrow Road.”

  47

  I looked across the yard. Nettie Johnson and the reverend stood off in a cluster of people near the pines. Were these the kids who lived at Sparrow Road? The orphans Josie and I imagined all this time? They didn’t look sad like Josie’s quilt. They didn’t look anything like the way I pictured Lyman. They were ordinary people, no different from the folks who shopped at Grandpa Mac’s.

  “We’re lucky,” Josie continued, “when we get a chance to thank someone in their lifetime. It’s why people came today from as far away as Florida.” I heard a quick break in Josie’s big strong voice.

  “Tallahassee,” a man yelled from the crowd.

  “Florida?” Lillian looked confused.

  “They came for you,” Josie said. “So I’ll just let them have their say.”

  She motioned for Nettie Johnson and her cluster to come up to Lillian’s chair. The entire crowd sat silent; no one even coughed. The first person to speak was a man in a black suit. His thin white hair was slicked perfect to the side.

  “Miss Hobbs,” he said to Lillian. “I’m sure you don’t remember me. John Schram. The kid who couldn’t spell.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I grew up to be a teacher. A principal. And I still can’t spell too well.” A wave of laughter moved over the lawn.

  “You just need more practice,” Lillian said. “Everyone can spell well if they try.”

  “That’s what you always said.” John Schram looked down at his paper; like me, he didn’t want to see the crowd. “You always said I could do anything. And so I did.”

  “You were always a smart boy,” Lillian said.

  “And you said that to everybody,” John Schram said. The whole crowd laughed again. “She did,” he said to us. “She tried to make us all believe that we were brilliant.”

  “The children are all brilliant,” Lillian said. “Just because we’re waiting for our parents, it doesn’t mean we don’t have gifts.”

  “That’s what you said to me.” John Schram rolled the piece of paper in his hand. “And I remember once, when I was ten or twelve, a family came to look at me. They looked at me and then they took Clay Smith instead. I wanted out of Sparrow Road then in the worst way, and I remember crying in the attic and you came up and told me I was lucky. You said there were bigger things ahead for me than working someone’s farm. You said I’d do great things someday. And Miss Hobbs, you made me believe it.” John Schram choked on his last words. “Thank you,” he said to Lillian. He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. I could see the tears welling in his eyes.

  There were eight or nine who stood up and told stories about Lillian—Lillian teaching them piano, Lillian with her pockets full of lemon drops, Lillian reciting poems to them before they went to sleep. One woman remembered how Lillian kept watch beside her bed while she was sick with scarlet fever, and another talked about the way Lillian taught fractions by dividing up a single bar of chocolate she bought for them herself. Several people said she always told them how much their parents missed them. How it did their hearts good to know that they were loved, even if their parents couldn’t be with them.

  “Our parents always love us,” Lillian said. “Even when they leave. They hold us in their hearts.”

  “Every day,” Gray whispered. I was so lost in their stories, I’d forgotten he was there.

  The last man to get up didn’t look much older than Gray. James Delgado had a full black beard and mass of thick black curls. “I was one of the last to leave,” he said to the crowd. “I was in the final group they put in foster families just before Sparrow Road shut down.” He looked up at the house. “And as tough as we all thought this place was, how much we hated living in an orphanage—” He stopped and wiped his hand across his forehead. “Our problems didn’t disappear by closing Sparrow Road. I went through seven foster families before I turned eighteen. Some were kind, but some were truly terrible.”

  A hum of uneasiness drifted through the crowd. “I’m sure that’s why I grew up to study foster care myself. I’ve come to Sparrow Road many times. I’ve sat here in this driveway and I’ve walked over these fields. And I’ve tried to decide what should be done with kids whose parents just can’t keep them. For all the reasons parents have to give their children up. And after all these years, I still don’t have an answer. It isn’t Sparrow Road; I know that. But it also isn’t going house to house, hoping one good family sticks.”

  “Miss Hobbs,” he said to Lillian. “I think you did the only thing that can be done. You loved all the ones that no one else did.” He scratched his bushy beard. “We have to love the children that are left. Because someone has to do it. And I knew that you loved me.”

  “I did,” Lillian said. “I loved you all. But I’m sure it’s time the children had their supper. I don’t like to leave them hungry for too long.”

  She stood up from her chair and swayed. A gasp rose from the lawn. Viktor lunged forward and held her steady on her feet. I’d never seen Viktor move so fast.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “The children love the cookies.”

  “Maybe a rest,” Viktor said. “This day has been too much.”

  “A lovely party,” Lillian nodded. “But I’m ready for a nap.”

  48

  “Raine,” Nettie Johnson called. She was standing by herself near the path to the infirmary. After all the speeches, the front lawn crowd had thinned. People gathered at the stations, others crossed the field to see the artists’ sheds. “Could I speak to you a minute?”

  When I got over to the tree, Nettie Johnson was pulling a wad of tissue from her purse. “This is quite a day for me, hearing all those stories. Going back into this house.” A bright white boat sailed across her sweatshirt. “I’m glad I came today. Very glad. It helps to be with other orphans. People who know what it was like.” Nettie dabbed beneath her nose. “That story that you wrote. Did you really just imagine it?”

  I nodded.

  “But how?” she said. I wasn’t going to tell Nettie Johnson how much I dreamed of Lyman, or how he was so real to me I saw him clearly in my mind. “How did you know what it felt like to be an orphan? Are you an orphan, dear?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then how?” She stared at me. “Because it really was exactly like you said.”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I just wrote how it felt to miss a parent. To want them back. To never know. To always have to wonder.”

  “Yes.” Nettie took a powder compact from her purse and puffed a fluff underneath each eye. “All of that was in there. It’s a subject you must know.”

  I walked with Nettie Johnson to the attic, where the orphans who’d returned were telling tales of Sparrow Road. The men told how cold the attic was in winter,
so cold they could sometimes see their breath, and in the summer the heat made it impossible to sleep. James Delgado remembered the sound of constant winter coughs from asthma and pneumonia; John Schram remembered kneeling on the splintered floor at night to pray.

  “The girls slept on the second floor,” Nettie Johnson said to me. “We weren’t allowed up in this attic.”

  When we finished with the attic, we all walked to the turret room that led up to the tower. “They kept that trapdoor sealed with metal and barbed wire,” one woman said. “From the outside, that tower made the house look like a fairy tale, but no prince ever came to save me.”

  “Me either.” Nettie Johnson touched the reverend’s shoulder. “Although I found my prince eventually.”

  In every room the orphans had a memory—polishing the woodwork, the nursery rhymes Lillian recited in the room where the little girls slept, the yellow wallpaper with Bo Peep and her sheep, the way they ate dinner at eight tables crammed into one room, the front parlor where they weren’t allowed to sit, the library where they weren’t allowed to read, the curving staircase they never got to take, the side parlor with the fireplace where kids met prospective parents.

  “So few of us were taken,” the woman who had had scarlet fever said. “And those that were weren’t always treated well. I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

  “I liked my family in Spring Valley,” Nettie Johnson said. “But I’m sorry for you, James. All those foster families.”

  James Delgado shrugged. “What can you do?”

  Listening to their stories, I knew Josie’s broken quilt had been exactly right. Even after all this time, it still hurt them to remember.

  “I’d like to organize a full reunion,” Josie said. She picked up a tin of Mama’s oatmeal cookies and passed it through the room. A full reunion? Hadn’t our Arts Extravaganza been enough? “Maybe have a weekend where we open up the house to all the kids who lived at Sparrow Road. Paint a mural in their memory. Do a sculpture garden. Some work of art to commemorate their lives. And we can write down all their stories.” I stared at Josie, stunned. Did she just hatch this scheme in the middle of our party?

  “I don’t know,” Nettie Johnson said. “Our stories might be better left untold.”

  “Oh no,” Josie said. “We need to know your stories. People need to know how it feels to be a child without parents and what we can do to help, so we can carry on the good work Lillian did. Letting all the children know they’re loved. Giving homes to kids who go without. The people here today, some of them passed you on the street when you were kids in Comfort. And they just thought you were odd. Orphans. A thing out of the ordinary they wanted to avoid. They didn’t have a clue what it felt like to be you. Until today.”

  “No,” John Schram said. He took a bite of Mama’s cookie. “They definitely didn’t.”

  49

  By the time we’d finished up our tour, and the orphans had glued their cards and letters and memories and drawings into a scrapbook that said Miss Hobbs on the front, and I’d finally had a glass of lemonade and made a quick collage at Diego’s messy station, and Mama had her feet up on a milk crate, and Grandpa Mac was sleeping on a hammock in the shade, and Gray and Viktor collected litter off the lawn, the Comfort folks had dwindled to a few.

  “Same time next year!” Josie bounced up on the toes of her black boots.

  Next year we wouldn’t live here, none of us but Viktor. New artists would arrive to take our place. Someone else would work in Josie’s shed. Maybe another cook would live in our small cottage. “What if or what could be?” I said, which was easier than thinking Sparrow Road was ending for us all.

  “Exactly.” Josie grinned. “You think Lillian was happy?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think she really was.”

  “Molly,” Diego called. He held out Mama’s black guitar case. “You still owe Raine her song.”

  “Oh no!” I moaned. “Mama, you didn’t play!” In all the blur of the party—the stations, the crowds, the stories of the orphans, Nettie Johnson—I’d forgotten Mama’s promise for a song. And now the crowd wasn’t even here to hear it.

  “Another time.” Mama smiled, relieved. “I’ll play another day.”

  “Play now!” I begged. “I’m sorry I forgot.” I didn’t want Mama to be the only one without an art to show.

  Grandpa Mac climbed out of the hammock. “Play it for us, Molly. You’ve got more talent than most people ever dream of.”

  “That sure would be my memory,” Gray said. He set a bag of garbage on the grass.

  Diego opened up the case and handed Mama the guitar.

  “Come on,” I said. “You promised. My story for your song.”

  For a long time, she just fiddled with the thing, turning knobs and plucking at the strings like she was trying to find the perfect sound. “I don’t know what to sing.” Mama’s mop of red curls spilled over her guitar. She looked just like the young girl from our pictures.

  “Give a try with ‘Lucky.’ ” Gray had told me that was the song that Mama sang the first day he saw her on the street.

  “Please,” I said. “Please sing it for me, Mama.”

  “Oh, Raine.” Mama heaved a heavy breath. “I can’t play that song.” She looked at Gray.

  “I would doubt that, Molly,” Gray said. “You sure could play it once.”

  “Play anything,” Diego urged. He was standing close to Mama, close enough to be sure she didn’t put that guitar back in its case.

  “It all sounds good coming from you, Molly,” Grandpa Mac said.

  “Okay, okay.” Mama plucked a few more notes and then her voice drifted over our front lawn and everybody’s heart stopped. Mama’s voice bubbled like a brook. Clear and clean. “Life is fast, but love lasts long,” Mama sang. She sent her sweet song straight to me; she didn’t go out walking—she was inside every word. “Take my heart and save my song—.”

  Mama stumbled like she couldn’t remember what notes she should play next. Then her clear voice broke a little bit. “You and I are lucky to be here.”

  Mama stopped. She pressed her hands against the strings to make them quiet and then she glanced at Gray. I saw something secret pass between them, something connected to the song, something that had happened before me. Maybe back when the two of them really were in love. I wanted Mama to keep going.

  “That’s it?” I said. “That was the whole song?”

  “That’s the whole song for today,” Mama said. She shook her head and put the old guitar back in its case. “Show’s over.” She looked at Gray again.

  Then Gray clapped slowly, so I started to clap too. “Molly,” he said. “You could break a hundred hearts with that one song.”

  50

  It was late that night before Grandpa Mac and I finally made it to the lake; so late the last sliver of orange sun was sinking low behind the hills. Two oil lanterns flickered on the shore. “Wait until the sun is gone, you won’t believe the stars.” I held the old boat steady while Grandpa Mac tumbled to his seat.

  “I’ll tell you what I can’t believe, Raine,” Grandpa Mac said. “I can’t believe how grown up you’ve gotten. That here you are rowing a boat all by yourself. And the story about that boy you read today. I don’t know how you dreamt up such a thing. Or how you threw that first-class party, but you did.” Grandpa Mac laughed. “Good thing I got to see it for myself.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can’t believe,” I said back to Grandpa Mac. “How nice you were to Gray today. I was so glad you didn’t punch him in the face.”

  “I did my best,” Grandpa Mac said. “I didn’t want to spoil your party.” He propped his elbows on his knees. “I like him better sober, that’s for sure.”

  I was glad I didn’t remember the Gray James who was drunk. To me, he’d always be the gentle soul who rescued Mr. Bones, the man who gave me his medallion, the kind singer who taught me how to disappear. I rowed us out into the middle of the lake; then I set the oars down against the sid
e, let the muscles in my arms rest a little bit.

  “You want me to take my turn?” Grandpa Mac asked. “It’s getting mighty dark out here.”

  “Nope,” I said. “I can do it by myself.”

  “I’m sure you can.” Grandpa Mac leaned forward, his yellow life vest squished into his jaw. “But Raine, even all grown up, you still can’t be too certain about Gray. Drinkers stop, but some of them go back. And drinkers—”

  “Grandpa Mac,” I said. “Gray isn’t Mr. Earle.”

  “No,” Grandpa Mac agreed. “But I’d hate to see you hurt.”

  Grandpa Mac had the same worried warning voice he always had at home. I didn’t want to go back to all that worry. So much worry that he and Mama hardly let me leave the house alone. “It’s okay,” I said. “Even if Gray drinks again—” I stopped; I wasn’t really sure how to end that sentence. If Gray drank again, then what? If he drank again, I guess I’d lose him twice. “If that happens, I think I’ll be okay.” I had enough strength in me to make it through the world whether Gray James drank again or not. Hope. I rolled the silver charm against my thumb.

  “I suppose you’re right about that, Raine. You’re always right.” Grandpa Mac cleared his throat like he was fighting back a cough. “And whatever happens next, we’ll always stay a family.”

  “Next?” I said. Grandpa’s next sounded like a mystery. “What do you mean, what happens next? We’ll be home in just a couple of weeks.”

  “Let’s hope,” he said. “Your mama sure does like it here. And you were right about these stars, Raine. I’ve never, ever seen so many in my life.”

  Across the still, black water, a blizzard of white stars glistened through the darkness. “Grandpa Mac,” I said. “I’m so happy that you came.”