The Language of Sparrows (25 page)

Dad was ashen. Nick strode to the table and returned with another couple of Tylenol and the inhaler. He waited while Dad swallowed the pills and puffed on the inhaler.

Dad had begun shaking. “You should go now.”

“Sure. I’ll go.”

Before he left, he moved the phone near Dad. He left his inhaler within arm’s reach. Dad looked at him, his eyes pleading. Nick was almost sure he’d try to apologize. But he only said, “How could I be a father to a son who is dead?”

Nick waited at the kitchen doorway. There was nothing he could say to that.

“Go. Go, Nicu.” He flicked his hand at him, a feudal lord dismissing his serfs.

Nick closed the front door behind him. In the driveway, he balled his hands into fists and sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, trying to remind himself
he
hadn’t endured five years of torture. He didn’t know how it would have broken him. The least he could do was accept what Dad dished out when the pain and memories took him some dark place Nick didn’t understand.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Liza sat in Nick’s classroom, taking notes at the speed of light. The English team had scheduled a unit on rhetoric. Nick didn’t have a problem with the exercise, but he handled it with a couple of speeches, Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” and Lou Gehrig’s “Farewell to Baseball,” something his students might actually take some interest in, not the dry worksheets the district assigned.

After school, he had a note in his staff mailbox:

Mr. Foster: You were off the curriculum schedule again. You are on notice. No more departures from school policies will be tolerated.

L. Grambling

The week went downhill from there. Friday morning, as he taught his fourth period he heard a voice coming from the stairwell outside his classroom. He thought it was her voice, though he’d rarely heard Sierra speak above a whisper. And her voice was clearly raised.

There had been a buzz of conversation a minute before, but his class hushed as all eyes turned to him, alive to his sense of alarm as he looked out the door. Raised voices in the hallway weren’t unusual during the middle of the day when a half dozen lunch periods followed each other. To an observer who knew nothing of Sierra, the voice in the stairwell wouldn’t signal any distress. But he did know her.

Nick set his book on the desk and turned to the door. “Javier,” he said, “you’re in charge until I get back.”

And for the first time in his career, he walked out of a class in session.

He sprinted to the open double doors and swung down the stairs. It only took seconds to piece the situation together. Emilio rested his hands against the bricks, keeping Sierra trapped inside the wall of his arms.

She blocked her face. “Get off me. I’m not interested! Not even a little bit.”

Nick was impressed by Sierra’s confidence, but the words didn’t faze Emilio. The boy’s face flushed with anger. He flexed his arms. “Oh, you’ll be interested in what I got to give, sweetheart. And some day, when you’re alone, I’m going to give it to you.”

Rage flashed through Nick, but he made himself stand still until somewhere deep inside he found a measured voice. “I don’t think so, Emilio.”

Nick walked down the stairs at a deliberate pace. If he counted his steps, he might keep himself from breaking every bone in the boy’s body. “The only thing you’re going to give Sierra is ten feet of breathing room.”

The fury in Emilio’s face was something else. He pulled back, but his hands circled Sierra’s arms. Nick stepped behind him and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. He kept his voice deadly calm. “I’m telling you once, Emilio. Let go. Get to class. I don’t want you within shouting distance of Sierra Wright again.”

The friendly Emilio from seventh period was gone. He seemed to be working on adrenaline. He threw off Nick’s hands and turned to face Nick. “You and me, Mr. F. I’ll take you any day.”

“I’m not looking for a fight, Emilio. But I’ve got to tell you, you’re this close to facing assault charges.”

“Whatever!” Emilio strutted up the stairs and out the door on the second floor.

As the door clanged shut, Sierra slid to a sitting position on the stairs. Nick came to her in cautious steps, afraid of startling her. He sat beside her. “Sierra?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Foster.” Her words were silky quiet, and small tremors worked through her.

He couldn’t take his eyes off the red handprints on her arms. He spoke softly to erase the anger coursing through him. “I’m proud of you. You stood up for yourself.”

She looked as if she might cry, but he had to say what came next. “Sierra, what Emilio said … he’s a real danger to you. And not just at school. I need to report it to the principal’s office. And to the police.”

She shook her head with a vengeance, squeezing her eyes shut. “They’ll make me come in. They’ll ask me all kinds of questions.”

Nick inched a fraction closer. “It’s the law. And it’s for your protection. Emilio could make things much worse for you than any set of questions.”

She looked up to the doors. “Please, Mr. Foster.”

“I’ll be there at your side. But I have to report it.”

“Not today. Please.” Her voice was so small, so broken.

He thought about Sierra’s haircut, her pitiful schoolwork, how she’d alienated herself from April, from him. He imagined her trembling and crying while being questioned, Liza hounding her, a roomful of other administrators behind her. Knowing Liza, she would probably make Sierra face Emilio again.

How could he refuse her this one request? He drummed his fingers on his knees. She could prepare herself over the weekend. And on Monday, she would have April by her side.

“Okay. Provided I let your mom know, and if she can’t give you a ride home today, I do. But on Monday morning, before school starts, we’ll need to talk to someone—the principal or the campus police.”

She hiccupped and nodded her agreement.

Come Monday, he’d have to pay for the time-lapse. Liza would be furious. But if the weekend would give Sierra time to process the coming inquisition, it would be worth it.

He texted April as soon as the bell rang, but just as he pressed Send, his room phone rang. The secretary told him to report to the office during his conference period.

When he got there, Liza sat perched on the corner of her desk. Officer Wilkins sat in a chair and Veronica, the sophomore counselor, sat in a second. Witnesses? Not a good sign.

“Take a seat, Mr. Foster.” Liza pointed him to the remaining chair.

Nick seated himself, looking at the faces in the room for a clue of what this was about.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Liza said. “A student reported that you left your fourth-period class unsupervised for almost fifteen minutes.”

“That’s correct.”

Liza gave a dramatic pause, looking from Veronica to Wilkins as if to verify the absurdity of his nonanswer. “Would you like to elaborate?”

He hadn’t promised Sierra, but they had an agreement. “There was an incident in the stairwell that needed my attention.”

“For fifteen minutes?”

Nick nodded.

“Did it occur to you to phone for help?”

No, it had not occurred to him. Not at first. He’d heard Sierra’s voice and knew he had to get to her. And then later he hadn’t wanted to spill Sierra’s story. “It wasn’t possible at the time.”

She tapped her fingernails on the desk, as if considering, though Nick knew better. “I don’t believe you referred any students to the office. What kind of incident was this exactly?”

She’d find out Monday it was a verbal threat, sexual harassment, probably assault, and he hadn’t reported it. But what could he say now without betraying Sierra? She had enough on her thin shoulders. “A couple of students had a conflict. They needed a few minutes of coaching.”

“Who were the students, Mr. Foster?”

He looked out the window. A bank of clouds drifted across the sky, dimming the light. This wasn’t going to get any better. “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to say.”

She laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You’re not helping your case, Mr. Foster. Leaving a class of thirty-eight students unattended for fifteen minutes is serious business.”

Nick looked at Veronica, who frowned. Wilkins made big eyes at him, urging him to get his act together.

“Mr. Foster, I’m going to leave the room for a few moments. When I return, I expect details about the ‘coaching session’ this morning.” She slid off the desk and tapped her way out.

Nick stood at the window, looking out at the staff parking lot, as Veronica and Wilkins kept silent. Was there some way out of this he was missing? There was only one right thing to do. Sierra was ready to crack. He’d told her he’d give her the weekend before reporting Emilio’s threat, and he would.

A memory came back to him. His mom shaking her head at Nick, who, at fourteen, refused to give in on some scuffle at school that landed him a week of detentions. He’d felt sure it was a matter of right and wrong, though he couldn’t remember what it had been about now. “Nicolae,” his mother had said, “it is a grace to give in. Must you always be so stubborn?”

Liza returned with his file in her hand. She flipped through its pink notes. “I’m asking you one last time, Mr. Foster. Explain your absence from class today.”

The file, the pink notes. He knew what they spelled. Quietly, he said, “I’ve explained all I can.”

He could ask Liza to wait until Monday. But it would be pointless. Today Liza had him on the carpet for leaving his class. On Monday, he’d be in trouble for failing to report an act of violence in a timely manner.

She laid the folder down on her desk and turned to face him. “You give me no choice, Mr. Foster. I’ve given you repeated warnings. You’re suspended until further notice.”

The word
suspension
knocked into him. He’d seen it coming. He’d weighed his answers with it in mind. Still, he felt as if some vital thing had been kicked out of him.

He looked to Wilkins and Veronica, expecting at least a word in his defense. They knew him. They knew his character and his ability to bring kids up a level or two. But their faces only registered bewilderment.

“You have the rest of the period to gather your personal effects and leave your classroom. Officer Wilkins will accompany you.”

Gather your personal effects. Leave your classroom.
The words registered at some primitive level, but they sounded too much like a faraway echo to be real.

His classroom felt miles away as he walked with Wilkins. The bell had rung during their meeting, and his sixth period sat at their desks, pretending to write out review questions from the textbook under the lazy eye of the substitute.

Nick hesitated, trying to think what he might say to his kids. He couldn’t think of a thing that wouldn’t make the situation worse. It was evident Wilkins was Nick’s police escort; as if Nick were a criminal, he stood at attention in the doorway. One last send-off from Liza.

His students stared as he pulled his briefcase out of the closet. As if Nick didn’t feel like he’d been punched in the gut, he straightened to his full height and made eye contact with his kids—Jazzy and Selena, David and Cesar—all the way through the classroom. He gave the class a firm nod, then he turned, and for the second time in his career, walked out on a class in session.

Chapter Thirty-Four

April tucked the folded paper in her purse as she entered the school office with Sierra Monday morning. The glass door swung shut behind her, closing them in a room of artificial light and clicking computer keys. Nick’s email told her what he had witnessed in the stairwell, and that she should feel free to share the email with the principal and the police.

The odd part was Nick’s statement that it would be in everyone’s interest if he didn’t attend the meeting. It wasn’t like Nick to make a statement like that without explaining, and she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him by phone.

The first bell buzzed, and the secretary escorted April and Sierra into the principal’s office. April and Sierra sat quietly across the desk while Principal Grambling scanned the email.

The oddness of the situation only grew as the principal began to grill Sierra. “Mr. Foster intervened in the conflict? During fourth period?”

Sierra nodded.

“Did you ask Mr. Foster to help?”

“No,” Sierra said.

“Did Mr. Foster tell you he was required to report the incident?”

Sierra nodded.

April edged forward in her chair. What was with the third degree on Nick? “Ms. Grambling, I think we’ve gone off track. I need some assurance you will protect my daughter while she’s on campus.”

The principal stared passively at April. “Of course. We’re a zero tolerance school, Ms. Wright. We’ll start the process immediately to have Emilio transferred to an alternative school with a more structured environment.”

It was almost too easy. The principal only expected a short statement from them. She called the police in. Her daughter spoke in a clear voice as she described how the boy had cornered her and as she repeated his threat.

The principal stood and stiletto-tapped around her desk to see the bruises on Sierra’s arms. Without hesitation, Sierra pulled up her sleeves. A lump caught in April’s throat. Sierra had stayed strong.

But despite her apparent self-confidence, April couldn’t help but feel some invisible core in Sierra had been shaken. As she sat with her back arched, staring straight ahead, something was missing in Sierra’s eyes, some innocence that had endured even through these last dark years.

As April left the school, she fretted about Sierra’s safety. There was no way she could pick up Sierra every day. Her varied work hours wouldn’t allow it. How was she supposed to keep Sierra safe in the afternoons? She assumed the structured environment at the boy’s new school still wouldn’t keep him off the streets then. And he’d threatened to find Sierra alone.

When April reached their apartment, she shut the door behind her and leaned into the wall, wishing she had the heart to pray, wishing she had the faith to believe God would answer her if she did. What did she want? Safety for her little girl, but it was far too small a request. She wanted the scars washed from her daughter’s soul. She wanted to see a smile on her daughter’s face, a real one. But every time she prayed for Sierra, one more blow always fell.

April inspected the living room, as if some miracle lay in wait for the taking. But as always, the living room was tidy, nothing out of place. Chairs, sofa, end tables, a magazine rack. Burgundy leather under a stack of magazines caught her interest—her Bible. She had moved it here with a promise to herself to read it more often, but it had only gathered dust for the last few months.

April sat on the floor and flipped it open. The pages fell open to Isaiah, a passage she’d memorized and highlighted in more hopeful days. “Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.”

Through Gary’s earlier illnesses, she’d drunk in those words like a parched woman at a mountain spring. “It was a phase,” she’d told herself. “God will strengthen us as He strengthened Israel in her tribulation.”

The verses only seemed to mock her now. It was all briers. Years and years of briers. God was not going to grant her anything as green and sweet smelling as juniper.

April took that day off so she could pick up Sierra when school got out. While it was still morning, she drove to Luca’s. The smell of strong coffee and pastries wafted out the door, reminding her of her first visit. He invited her in, and as they had last fall, they sat at the table near his kitchen window.

April drank her coffee, looking through to the doorway at the family photos in the living room.

He set down the pastries and sat across from her. “There is something on your mind, April?”

“You always see through me, don’t you, Luca?”

He rewarded her with a small smile. “Through you? No, no, but I do see your worry.”

She pulled Nick’s email from her purse and handed it to him. He looked concerned as he read it, and then confused as he reached the end, turning back to read it again. “Perhaps Nicu had other duties at work.”

But she could see he no more believed this than she did. Nick was always there for his kids. Why wasn’t he at the meeting for Sierra?

“At any rate, Luca, I don’t know what I’m going to do. The boy’s been transferred to another school, but that threat he made …”

Her first thought was to ask Carlos to walk Sierra home, but she hadn’t seen Carlos with Sierra the last couple of weeks. Nick might be able to help, but he’d been out of touch since Friday.

“I work more afternoons than not, Luca; a number of evenings too. How am I going to keep her safe?”

Luca rested his chin on his hand. “It is simple, of course. I will meet Sierra at school, and she can remain with me until you finish your work duties.”

April glanced at the inhalers and medicine bottles on the table. The school was only a mile from here, but a mile-long walk to the school, and another back almost every day in all sorts of weather?

“Luca, you are so good. But I can’t ask that of you.”

“You did not ask. Do you suppose I could rest with Sierra in danger?”

“No, I don’t suppose you could. Thank you, Luca.”

April took his hand across the table. His scars felt like smooth cord against her palms. She exhaled a pent-up breath. How far they’d come. Last fall, she’d believed Sierra needed to be protected from Luca. Now, there was no one she would trust more to look after her child.

As they ate the salty pastries, April’s mind turned to the material on her desk at home—transcribed notes from Luca’s story, retouched photos, her sketches—sitting in an unorganized stack. She hadn’t put them together in a book yet. Sierra had been too much on her mind. Besides, Luca owed her one last chapter.

April leaned forward. “I was thinking of the story you’ve been telling me, the story of your time in Romania.”

“You are waiting for the last words.”

April put down her fork. “There you go again, reading my mind.”

“Ah. Like any lover of stories, you wish to know how it ends.”

“I’m a little curious, I have to admit.”

Luca studied her. “But in your case, I believe you are more than curious. You wish to hear what happened to Luca Prodan and his son, because you have fallen in love with the son and, for an inexplicable reason, have grown fond of the old man in the story as well.”

April gazed across the table at Luca. He couldn’t buy his own groceries on a regular basis and didn’t have a job, but he zoomed in on the truth with his ever-watchful eye. It shook her to hear him speak words she hadn’t been able to say to herself. It was true. She’d fallen in love with Nick and had found solace with his father. “You’d only see through me if I denied it,” she said quietly. “I love you both, each of you in a different way.”

Luca looked steadily at her, and April couldn’t help but think of Nick’s straightforward gaze. “But you have not told my son you love him in any sort of way.”

She pretended to take another sip of coffee, though her cup was empty. There was no point in telling Nick how she felt about him. Loving a man and having something to offer him were two different things.

Luca let the subject drop, turning instead to his appreciation of the photos and new odds and ends April had put in his home. He refilled her cup. There was a comfortable silence as the house settled.

Finally, April spoke again. “Will you tell me the rest of the story, Luca?”

The direct gaze gone, Luca stared down at the table.

How would she feel if she were in Luca’s place, if she hadn’t returned to Sierra when she’d been free to? April sat back in her chair, finding the frame that bordered Luca’s relationship with his son. Luca felt he’d failed Nick. And they both knew Nick believed it too. She didn’t want to push him, but they’d come this far.

“It’s the piece of the story Nick needs the most,” she said softly.

He stabbed his fork into his pastry and drowned it in gravy. Finally he shoved his plate away. “There is little enough to tell.”

His eyes grew round and he swallowed. “For almost five years, I believed Tatia and Nicu were dead. My friend, Andrei, told me the truth after I was released from prison. He was a ranking member of the communist party. He had learned of our situation and had arranged emigration for my wife and son and promised them that I would follow when I was freed. Like a small boy, I cried that day. Tatia was alive. Nicu was nine years old. Andrei had to hold me up, because I could not even stand.”

Luca put his hands on the table and looked out the window. “I packed a small suitcase and prepared to join them in America. I looked in a mirror. I had only just turned thirty, but I was stooped and gray. I would never again be the man Tatia married, never again be the father who carried Nicu on his shoulders.”

Luca turned back to her. “Anything set my heart racing—a shout, a slamming door, the sight of a man in uniform. It was worse then, those first months out of prison. I survived each day only through the prayers I learned in prison.

“I carried my suitcase to the street where Andrei was to meet me. When I saw him next to his car, I felt suddenly hollow. Instead of walking toward him, I walked back to my building. How could I go to my family a broken man, hardly able to work? Tatia was so beautiful and strong and brave. Nicu was just a boy. I would be a burden to them. An embarrassment.”

April closed her eyes. A burden. It sent a chill through her. There was no doubt in her mind it was the reason Gary had killed himself. But death didn’t solve anything. Absence didn’t. Oh, she understood that hard look in Nick’s eyes. How dare they walk out of their families’ lives and leave their wives and children to face the consequences?

Luca went on. “Tatia raised Nicu alone. She did well enough, as you see, and was able to provide for them both on her wages as a legal secretary. She tutored new immigrants in English in her spare time. I sent her help as I could, but of course, Romanian lei were all but useless in America. I only came to them when Tatia wrote to me that she was ill. Nicu was almost seventeen then, and angry. It would have been better for him if I had remained in Romania.”

April reached for his hand. “You’re wrong, Luca. Even if your relationship with Nick is tense, it’s something. He needed you then, and he needs you now.”

Luca shook his head. “I tried to speak to Nicu when I first came. But I could not speak of prison or of what happened before. Tatia never told him the reason I was imprisoned. Perhaps she did not know herself. At any rate, Nicu would not listen to me. When Tatia died, rage filled him. He got low marks in school. Some nights he did not come home or he came home drunk. He left the room if I spoke in Romanian, and my English was very poor at first.

“He thought I had abandoned him, and I did not have the will to explain to him. So instead, I lectured him about his homework and his behavior.

“I thought when he returned from the army, we would find a way to talk. But our way of speaking to each other only echoed those bitter words we spoke to each other after Tatia’s death. He took care of me when I should be the one he found strength in. It made me angry, so very angry, and I fear I said things to him I should not have. At last, it was easier to accept that the possibility of my ever being a father to him had died when I went to prison.”

Luca settled into his chair like a man returning to the present. He looked at the stove clock and blinked. “It will be time for school to end soon.”

April nodded. She needed to be at the school when the bell rang, but it didn’t feel right to leave. She stood. “I know a lot of time has passed, Luca. But you can still be a father to Nick.”

“Perhaps.” But his face denied the half-hopeful word.

Luca saw her to the door, and they made plans for him to meet Sierra after school the rest of the week. She walked through the blustering wind to her car with Luca watching her from the door. Neither of them seemed able to say the words that would make a difference to their children. Somehow she would find those words though, words full of strength and clarity and hope for Sierra. She’d find the words for Luca, too, if need be.