The Language of Sparrows (13 page)

But usually, even when he was unable to function, he held Sierra in his lap. When his eyes were swollen and his tongue thick with the worst of depression and he was too far gone to speak, he crossed his fingers over his chest, a love letter in sign language to his little girl.

She gently traced a finger over the corner of the picture.
Oh, Gary.

Their marriage had been turbulent and never, ever easy. But he was the only man she’d ever truly loved. What she wouldn’t do to have a bit of his warmth now, his presence, his soul-deep understanding of Sierra.

April thought of Luca speaking to her over coffee with his slow, thoughtful words. Surely he loved his son. What would cause him to speak with such meanness to his only child, who bought his groceries and paid his bills? April put the photos back in the box. Nick and Luca were none of her business.

But she knew they were. They became her business the day Sierra walked into Luca’s house.

Chapter Eighteen

Sierra sat, in a sweater, on the steps outside, soaking up the thin sunshine. It was mild for a January afternoon, but then Houston winters were unpredictable. Winds off the gulf battled with the ones blowing in from the Arctic. One day, it would be balmy enough to be spring. The next, the temperature dropped to freezing. Today, the winds must have signed a truce.

Her stomach growled. She’d forgotten to eat lunch. A familiar mewling came from beneath the stairs. Someone else apparently hadn’t eaten either.

The white cat had been haunting the stairways and ledges for months. Sierra couldn’t convince it to come within petting distance, but she could sometimes coax it close with a bowl of milk.

The cat didn’t belong to anyone as far as Sierra could tell, so she named her Zana after a fairy tale in Mr. Prodan’s book. Zana let out a plaintive meow. She was a demanding little thing for one who wouldn’t let anyone so much as scratch her ears.

“I’m coming, your highness.”

Sierra rushed back into her apartment and then back out with a paper bowl full of tuna.

Zana eyed the bowl greedily but wouldn’t approach until Sierra drew back onto the landing. Then she stepped lithely to the bowl, reminding Sierra of an albino leopard from a wildlife show. As soon as Zana licked the bowl clean, she darted off across the courtyard, under the willow tree, and sprang up a fence to a balcony in the next apartment building.

Sierra ambled back into the apartment and lay on her bed looking out the curtained window. She missed Argie, their chocolate Lab. He had been friendly, often resting his weary old head in her lap for as long as she wanted him there.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember those days. She could remember their last house. She could remember the yard. She could remember Argie. But no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t think of a single memory that took place there.

Sierra sat up cross-legged. She just needed to think harder. She searched for birthdays and Christmases, vacations or meals at home in their different homes—Virginia, California, Colorado. But she couldn’t find even one mental clip. A surge of panic flooded through her.

She looked past the solid walls, the clear windowpanes in front of her. She could remember what Dad looked like, basically. She remembered the walk by the creek she had written about in her haiku. She had remembered that one so easily when she wrote it. But there must be other memories. There had to be a whole file of others right next to it in her memory banks. No one forgot her father.

She imagined herself walking through their house. But all she saw were closed doors. The door to Mom and Dad’s bedroom—closed. The door to the living room—closed. She could see a light coming from Dad’s study, but she couldn’t remember what was inside. How could she have forgotten everything?

The harder she tried to remember, the more a band of pain wrapped around her head. The bed seemed to move beneath her as if she drifted on the ocean. She gathered Ky, her stuffed kangaroo, to her and buried her head in a pillow as the pain pressed against her forehead.

“Hey, sweet girl.”

Mom opened the door, and Sierra blinked at the light from the hallway.

Mom walked into the room and sat on the side of the bed. “It’s your big sixteen tomorrow. Have you thought any more about what you’d like to do?”

Mom didn’t ask about what friends to invite. She knew there wasn’t anyone.

Sierra sat up, toying with her socks, pulling them on and off her heels. “Mom, can you tell me about Dad?”

Her mother arched her back. She gave her a cool smile, and she looked at some imaginary spot in the distance, the way she always did when Sierra asked about him. “What about Dad?”

“I can’t remember him. I tried to think of things we did together. Of even just being together.”

“Your dad loved you so much, sweetie.”

“But we did things together, right? Why can’t I remember?”

Mom fluffed a pillow. “It’s the heart’s way of letting go. We have to let the memories fade a little or the grief would stay so fresh we could never move on.”

Sierra closed her eyes. She didn’t want to let go. “Can you tell me one thing we did?”

Mom grew quiet, her gaze drifting. She was searching. Why did she have to search so hard for a memory? There should have been lots of them, right?

Mom’s gaze lit on a book sitting on her dresser, and her eyes went soft. “Your dad was a great storyteller. He never read you bedtime stories. He told them. You’d cuddle up in his lap, from the time you could talk. You grew out of the cuddles, but he was still telling you stories even when you were in middle school.”

Mom brought her knees up to the bed and curled beside her. “He told you ancient folktales or something from the history books. He could paint a picture with words like no one else. When I listened in, I could feel the salty ocean air on my face or smell the hot swords smelting over a fire. You would look up at him, your eyes wide, and I could tell he’d carried you away. He threw in foreign words—Greek or Persian, Aramaic, Latin, wherever the story came from—and you seemed to pick up what he meant.”

Mom looked into her face and seemed to see something. She frowned, putting her hand on Sierra’s forehead. “Are you feeling okay, baby?”

“Just a headache.”

“I’ll get you an Advil.”

Sierra reached out and touched Mom’s arm. “Tell me more.”

Mom smiled again, and this time it reached her eyes. “Why don’t I brush your hair like I used to? And we’ll talk.”

Sierra sat on the floor in front of Mom. The strokes of the brush did seem to ease the band of pain. A nice feeling tingled down her neck as the brush massaged her scalp. But it wasn’t Mom’s words she heard, but Dad’s, in her memory.

“Many years ago, before the age of towns or farms, when nomads moved from place to place looking for fresh berries and wild growing grain, a girl about your age, Talar, slept with her clan under an open sky. The stars glittered with a fierce light, because it was the night of the new moon.…”

His voice had lilted up and down as he told the story to her. In the memory, she was lying on her bed in the house in Glendale, so she must have been about nine. Sierra could almost feel her father there with them. She closed her eyes, resting back against Mom’s knees.

He would lower his voice.
“The camp was too quiet when Talar returned before dawn. The fire had died, and the night watch didn’t call to ask who approached.”

Sierra remembered the way he stopped as if that were the end of the story. She refused to believe it, and he laughed, finally telling her the rest.

On one level, she listened to Mom’s soft cadence as she told her about old birthday parties when Dad was still around, but on another level, she recalled Talar’s story word by word. It was as if she were spending the evening with her family still together.

The next afternoon, a gray sky loomed and winds blew. Sierra pulled on a hoodie and went outside. She dribbled a long ribbon up and down the stairs. Zana looked at the ribbon with her sharp blue eyes, but it took a few minutes before she approached for a pounce. Sierra raised the ribbon higher, still swinging it.

“Come for it, Zana,” she called softly. She’d get to pet the elusive cat yet.

Zana eyed the ribbon with a jealous eye but didn’t move closer.

Sierra was so intent on Zana she didn’t notice Carlos come through the gate. He strolled up the walk toward her and she moved to the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, you got yourself a fur ball.”

The kitten sidled up next to his ankle.

Sierra stared, openmouthed. “How did you do that? How did you get her to come to you?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the cat, making friends with him as if she did that with every stranger passing by.

Carlos shrugged. “Animals know who to trust. That’s all.”

“She won’t get near me.”

He picked the kitten up and placed her on his shoulder. “Girl kitties like men. That’s just how they are.”

Sierra sat down on the stairs. Carlos pried the cat’s claws from his shirt and freed her into Sierra’s lap. With him standing close by, Zana stayed, but she kept her eyes on him, ready to leap.

“Make friends with her. Somebody’s probably scared her along the way. Show her she can trust you next time.”

Sierra petted Zana’s long silky body. “Hey, Zana,” she whispered, feeling shy with Carlos watching.

He laughed. “Zana. Couldn’t of named her better myself. Sounds like some exotic princess.”

Sierra closed her eyes, letting the sound of Carlos’s voice wash over her, deep and sure, his laugh like a roll of faraway summer thunder.

“I’m sixteen today,” she said, her eyes still closed. She didn’t know why she said it.

“Sweet sixteen, huh?”

Thank goodness he didn’t say something stupid about never been kissed, even if it was true.

“What are you gonna do?”

She shrugged.

“No birthday party?”

“Dinner out with my mom, maybe.”

As she listened to his voice, she watched the shifting light through her eyelids. A shadow blocked the light and the air stilled next to her. She opened her eyes to find Carlos beside her on the step. Zana leaped from her lap and watched them from the sidewalk.

He offered a self-conscious smile and a lift of his shoulder.
Oh no.
He was thinking that stupid sweet sixteen thing. She could tell. “Don’t you dare say it, Carlos.”

He laughed. “Say what?”

He knew what. She could tell by the goofy smile on his face.

She looked at her fingernails. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed. Don’t say it.”

“I didn’t say it.”

But he kept looking at her. An intense quiet settled between them, making her all warm, and he leaned toward her.

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“Okay.” He drew back, his jaw clenched.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” His words had sharp edges. “Look, I know I’m not good enough for you, Sierra. Never have been. I can’t help it. I’ve always liked you anyway.”

“Not good enough? What does that mean?”

“I’m the guy who lived on the streets, the one who takes care of your lawn, right? You’re the girl who knows all these strange alphabets and languages. You said your dad was a professor, right? I get it. You need your own type.”

His words seemed to swallow her. She looked straight at him so he’d believe her. “No,” she said faintly. “That’s not it at all.”

“What then?”

She shook her head “It’s not you.”

He placed his hands on her knees, making her heart beat too fast. “If it’s not me …?”

She didn’t know what to say, and his gaze grew black.

“It’s not you,” she insisted.

He dropped his hands, but he stayed beside her. “Sierra, you look in the mirror, and what do you see? Because I have to wonder why this pretty girl I know is working so hard not to be seen or touched or even talked to.”

“I don’t know.” Sierra felt herself rocking. “It’s me. I’m all wrong.”

He put his hand over hers, lacing his fingers through hers. Sierra went still. He kept her gaze. “You’re not all wrong, Brown Eyes. I think you’re all right.”

Sierra wanted to believe him.

“You sure it’s not me?” he said.

“I’m sure, Carlos.”

After he left, Sierra felt the impression of his hand over hers, the air calm as if he were beside her still. Zana blinked at her curiously, as she lay on a rail all the way across the complex licking her snowy fur.