The Language of Sparrows (6 page)

“I came here with my mother when I was four,” he continued. “My father wasn’t able to come with us at first. And then when the Romanian government offered him an exit visa, he chose not to accept it. He finally joined us when I was sixteen.”

“And you changed your name?”

He hunched a shoulder. It wasn’t a subject he was comfortable with, clearly. “Yes, when I got my citizenship. From Nicolae Prodan to Nicholas Foster. It’s a translation.”

He spread his hands, European in style, but quickly put them down as if they’d betrayed him.

She hesitated, unsure how to respond. “I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Foster. I’ll be sure Sierra stays away from your father.”

“Nick,” he insisted.

She gathered up her purse.

“I realize I’m not Sierra’s teacher. But we’re here. Would you like to talk it out?”

She held her purse in her lap. What was there to talk about?

He leaned across the table. “April, I teach the kids everyone else has given up on. The ones who sleep through class and fail the state test. The ones who are going to drop out as soon as it’s legal, maybe before.”

“What you do for a living is admirable, but I’m not sure what it has to do with Sierra.”

“I know Sierra is in a different category altogether. She’s smart. She’s got an involved mother. But in a way, she’s right there with them.”

She knew what he was saying. Sierra wasn’t living up to her potential. But April didn’t want to hear her child grouped in with failing kids. Sierra wasn’t like them.

She reached to take a sip of her tea but only knocked the glass nearly over. He had the glass upright and still full in less than a second. He began tapping his fork again, looking right at her, making her agitated.

“Don’t do that,” she snapped. And then in a softer voice, “Just say what you’re thinking. Please.”

He laid the fork down, and regret unveiled itself on his face. “I’m saying I deal with at-risk kids all the time. And I think your daughter is at risk. Dangerously so.”

April looked away.

“Have you considered therapy?”

April stifled a sigh. It must seem downright negligent to anyone who knew Sierra that April didn’t have her in counseling. How could she explain the years of counseling, psychiatrists, and hospitals, and Gary growing steadily worse with each treatment? How could she explain that counseling had driven Sierra deeper into depression until the counselor recommended checking Sierra into a psych hospital? She wasn’t having that conversation with a man she barely knew.

“Sierra saw a couple of therapists when we first moved here. It didn’t work out well.” She glanced at her watch. “Look, I have to get back to work. I appreciate your coming here on your day off. But I think this is something Sierra and I are going to have to deal with on our own.”

He wrote his number on a paper napkin. “If you want to talk about it.”

She shoved the napkin in her purse. The last thing she needed was someone else telling her Sierra was in danger. She could tell he knew she wouldn’t call. Just as well.

“Thank you for coming all the way out here, Mr. Foster. Nick.”

April walked across the street and back to work. Fifteen minutes later, as she looked over receipts in the back office of the gallery, Ellen popped her head in, holding out a takeout box. She winked. “You’ve got an admirer.”

April shrugged and took the box. An admirer? Hardly. Inside were rosemary chicken, wild rice, and a chocolate chip cookie. Square cursive spilled across the napkin:
Couldn’t let you go back to work hungry. Nick.

What kind of teacher came all the way across town for a parent conference and then delivered lunch? He made her think of Sierra’s words about the old man—deep and real.

She’d take Nick’s word that his father wasn’t safe for Sierra to be around but wondered precisely why. She peeled a strip off the chicken and put it in her mouth. Of course she wasn’t about to let Sierra spend time alone with a man she knew nothing about. But “words like a jackhammer”? That was a rather vague threat.

Chapter Nine

Mom called for dinner. Sierra stayed by her bedroom window, mesmerized by the outdoors. When she came into the room, Sierra pretended she didn’t notice.

Mom didn’t leave, but Sierra kept her attention on the window. “I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat, Sierra.”

She didn’t answer. Mom put her hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get through this, I promise.”

Sierra breathed a sigh of relief when Mom finally went back to the kitchen. October had come, and the stifling heat had given way to the first cool front of the year. People opened their windows. Kids came outside to play on the playground. Adults hung flower boxes on their balconies.

Mr. Krishnamurthy and his wife paced around the parking lot. It was their afternoon ritual. It didn’t matter what the weather was like. Across the way, a woman had a tub of soapy water on the porch. She stood on her tiptoes, washing her windows, the railing, the door, the porch, everything. Her little girl sat on the porch, cooing at a terrier in her arms. How was it that life went on as if nothing had happened?

On the playground, a boy pushed his brother on the swings. Their mother looked away, so she didn’t see her older son hit the younger one hard in the middle of his back or the way the little one refused to cry.

Sierra stared over the fence.

Later, Mom brought in a plate of sliced apples and mozzarella. Sierra pretended to be busy doing homework, but the blank notebook paper gave her away.

She pulled up her legs and curled up on the chair in front of the window. She remembered a big red sketchbook her father had given her. He told her to record everything while he was away at his conference in Italy. A nature book, he said, to show him what he missed during her summer walks. She had sketched the dogwoods losing their blooms and the creeks receding from their banks, the hot July sky and Argie, their Labrador, sleeping under a tree. But when Dad didn’t come home, she’d put the sketchbook away. And they’d had to leave Argie with neighbors when they’d moved.

She kneeled at her dresser, looking through the book without taking it from the bottom drawer. She flipped through the pages. It was still three-quarters empty. Finally, she carried it to her desk, tore out the sketches, and put her pen to the paper.

A haiku came to her whole and already formed. She mouthed the words. “Standing on tiptoes / brown arms slick with soap-water / she scrubs the door clean.” There were a dozen more tumbling behind it. All she had to do was scroll her pen across the paper. There would be no egrets. She would tell about the Krishnamurthys taking their walk and about the little boy holding back his tears and his mom, though she pretended like she didn’t see what was going on, growing mottled with worry. She would tell about the wind swallowing the sounds of traffic and playing children and the crisp light outlining her neighbors outdoors.

“Standing on tiptoes,” Sierra wrote. But she couldn’t make herself finish the haiku. Who wanted to know about the things she saw around her in the October world anyway? Only one, and she couldn’t take her poems to him.

What she really wanted to tell him was about the day they told her she was no longer allowed to visit him. She wouldn’t be able to write about the horrible things they’d implied about him, of course. But maybe he would understand how the world had turned into a strange faraway place and how she felt she was drifting away from everyone. She would write and write to him until her fingers cramped and the pen bled dry.

She flipped through the empty pages one by one as if she might find one that was so clean and inviting that she would be able to write on it. It was when she got to the last page that the idea occurred to her.

She found her drawing pencils, also shoved into the bottom drawer, and drew a portrait of him, sitting in his armchair, his hair mussed, his eyes penetrating, his head tilted, the way she remembered him. Using a heavy pencil, she shaded his eyelids to show their heaviness, and then she used a softer pencil to hint at the lightness of his eyes. With the edge of her graphite, she showed the sunlight pouring in on his bookshelves. She was no Rembrandt, but anyone could look at it and say, “Yes, this is Mr. Prodan, inside and out.” And he was not the kind of man they thought he was.

She tied the book up with a piece of Christmas ribbon and shoved it in her backpack. Without taking a shower, she turned out the lights and curled up in bed, dry-eyed.

The sun finally rose, and somehow Sierra got dressed and to school. She meandered from class to class, not quite remembering how she got to each room. After school, she passed a bunch of guys leaning against the lockers.

“Hey, hot thang,” one of them yelled out.

Emilio made a circle around her, looking her up and down and shaking a hand in front of his face. “Mmmm, mmm.”

Sierra froze and tried not to see him. There was laughter behind her, then it suddenly got quiet. She turned. Carlos had his hand on Emilio’s shoulder. Emilio reached up to remove his hand, but Carlos, with a face hard enough to be carved in rock, didn’t let go.

“You want her, she’s all yours, man,” Emilio said.

Emilio and his friends headed down a side hall, but Carlos was still there. “You need to tell them to back off, Sierra. Let them know they can’t talk to you that way.”

She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. Hadn’t he been the one teasing her just a few weeks ago? She thought back and wasn’t sure anymore. She wasn’t sure what to say.
Thank you.
That would be good, but she didn’t say it.

Carlos closed the distance between them. “Hey, I’m going over to your place again.” His bright smile startled her. “Maybe I could walk you home?” He spoke so quietly and bent his head to her, as if he asked a special favor. A strand of his hair fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. “I have to talk to a teacher. You go ahead.”

“I’ll wait.”

She shook her head.

“Later then.”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. She moved into the stairwell but turned to look after him walking down the hall. He walked like he couldn’t get to the door soon enough.

She trudged up to Mr. Foster’s room. At first she thought he’d already left for the weekend—the classroom looked empty—and she went hollow inside. Waiting for this moment was what had gotten her through the day.

She turned to leave, but then she heard a movement. Mr. Foster rose from behind his desk. He had been kneeling beside a box of books.

“Sierra.” He said it in a pleasant voice, as if he’d been waiting for her to stop by.

She closed the door behind her, but he said, “Leave it open, please.”

No, he wouldn’t want anyone to accuse
him
of being a molester, would he?

She laid the sketchbook on his desk and dropped into a student desk.

Mr. Foster picked up the sketchbook, but he didn’t untie the ribbon. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. He looked American, but she wondered now how she could have missed it. He had Mr. Prodan’s light eyes, his mouth. It would be easier if he looked like a stranger.

She gathered her courage. “I—” Her breath came in a short burst. “It’s for him.”

“You want me to give this to my father?”

“He’s not what they accused him of.”

There was no argument in his eyes, just sadness.

“He’s not dangerous.” Her voice cracked. “How can you not know your own dad?”

Sierra could swear he flinched.

“He’s not dangerous,” she repeated.

He tapped her sketchbook. He didn’t look sorry or mad. He just slid her sketchbook into his satchel. “You have my promise. I’ll give it to him.”

“It’s none of my business. Your dad told me it wasn’t. But I still think it’s strange that you don’t have his name.”

“None of your business? Is that what he said to you?”

Sierra wanted to shake her head and say it hadn’t been like that, but she couldn’t remember what it had been like now. Mr. Prodan hadn’t been unkind though.

“I’ll tell you.” Mr. Foster came around the desk, leaned against it, and lifted up his hands to her. “If you want to know.”

She wanted to hear Mr. Foster explain why his dad got all quiet at the sound of his own son’s name. But instead she shook her head. “I’d rather hear what your dad has to say about it.”

He placed his hand on the satchel. “Fair enough, Sierra. I’ll give your book to him this weekend.”

Chapter Ten

Sunday night, Nick drove to his father’s house. He killed the engine and stared at the house before getting out. Nick had just stepped onto the clean-swept porch when his old man came out. He had aged since last week. His shoulders sagged. The skin on his face hung slack.

“I’ve brought you something from Sierra Wright,” Nick said.

His father looked at the sketchbook without expression but put out his hands.

“May I come inside?” Nick kept the sketchbook against his side.

His father took his time to answer, as he so often did. “Of course,” he answered at last. “Come.”

There were only two chairs. The couch had given way years ago and had never been replaced. Nick didn’t like to come in here. The address might be the same, but it was a different house from the one he had grown up in. All of Mom’s feminine touches were gone now.

His father took a seat. Nick took the other chair.

Before he could tell the old man about Sierra’s book, his father stood and began pacing. He swung around to face Nick and let out a raspy breath. “They came to my house, Nicu. The police came inside and questioned me. Did you know of it?”

“They were being cautious, Dad. You see the crazy stories in the news. They were just trying to protect Sierra.”

“They came inside and questioned me,” his father repeated. “As if I were a criminal, they asked me what I did with her.” His voice cracked, and he stopped to calm himself. “I said I gave her a book to read and I read the poems she wrote for school. They laughed at me and told me that was not the sort of thing a man does with a pretty girl. They claimed I had done things to her.”

His father came close, way too close. He put his nose in Nick’s face and shoved a finger into Nick’s chest. “They threatened me with lies, your American police!”

Nick tried not to feel pushed into a corner, tried not to feel seventeen and castigated by his father yet again. He removed his father’s hand from his chest.

Dad turned away and made a noise that sounded too much like a sob. “They made me say I would not welcome her in my home. By using a packet of lies they made me do this. They are no better than the secret police. No better!”

Dad pounded a fist into the kitchen cabinet, and then did it again so hard Nick thought the Formica would splinter.

“No better, Nicu.”

He began shouting, striding back toward Nick. “Secret police! American police! What is the difference? Tell me! If the truth does not matter, they are all the same.”

Nick looked out the window, away from his old man’s tirade. The authorities would never have hurt his father. This was America, and however cold his father’s manner was, he was innocent. But he couldn’t push away the thought pinching his conscience. He should have known that the police, Child Services, or some authority might speak to his father. And he might have prevented it.

Nick looked at the scars on his father’s hands, a permanent record of what authorities meant to his father.

“I told them I would not see her again,” Dad said, breathless. “I told them what they wanted me to say to them. But it makes me ill. The girl believes I have turned her away?”

“She blames the school. Me.” Nick handed him the sketchbook. “I don’t think she blames you.”

His father held the book as if unsure he should open it. At last, he sat down, pulling the ribbon away. He turned page after page without stopping. He didn’t say anything, but his fingers slowed as he went on without finding anything. Nick himself felt a growing sense of alarm. What kind of message was a blank sketchbook?

But at last his old man turned to a portrait that was more eloquent than a journal full of writing. Dad studied it for a moment and closed the book, his face haunted. “Oh, Sierra,” he whispered. “My child.”

Nick looked up, startled. Never had his father said his name with such feeling. Sure, there were good reasons why he wasn’t a whole man. But just once, couldn’t he say, “Nicu, my son” with any degree of feeling, anything besides weariness or contempt?

Monday morning, Nick woke in the early quiet. The gray light of dawn tempted him to go back to sleep. The day would be merciless. Every hour in the classroom was a battle, one he’d come to look forward to, if he were honest. But the only way to make it through was to spend these few minutes not in bed, as his body craved, but sitting on the deep windowsill of his study, praying. He stumbled across the hall, leaving the covers behind.

Too tired to pull out words of his own, he leaned back against the window and began with the words he knew by rote. “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”

He rubbed his eyes several minutes later, realizing his mind was drifting. To Sierra and his old man. He glanced at the clock, at the bookshelves, at the bars of sunlight shining between the slats of the blinds onto the carpet.

“Our Father which art in heaven,” he began again.

His mother had taught him that prayer before he could read. He’d learned it by heart in both Romanian and English.

In the most brutal years of his life—when Mom died; during Desert Storm; when Caroline drove off, stone-drunk, to her death; during his first year of teaching—he’d lost the words to pray. His world became an empty void. Words became meaningless, and belief a shaky thing he couldn’t count on anymore.

But that prayer, the one he’d learned so early, stayed with him, and when he prayed it, he had the sense that at least God was present and listening, until at last, he found God filling the empty spaces again.

The fourth sentence always tripped him up though. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” How could he pray that? He hoped God had more mercy than he did.

“Help me to forgive.” It was the only honest prayer he could say.

But no matter how often he prayed
Help me to forgive
, it didn’t get any easier to speak with his old man. What need did a forty-year-old man have for his father’s approval anyway? Prison had broken Luca Prodan and left Nick fatherless for all intents. He needed to accept that and move on. He forgave his old man. He always did. But sooner or later, Dad would say something offensive, and the anger washed back in, galling him.

Nick closed his eyes, tuning out his study, and went through the words of the prayer one more time, forcing his mind to focus on the words and to mean them.

After he said amen, he went downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and then stood on the deck in back. He leaned on the wood railing and drank down the hot, bitter stuff. A cool breeze rippled over him. The sun crested over the pine trees, lighting up the hill that sloped down toward the stream below.

Maybe his relationship with his father couldn’t be salvaged. But at least he could save Sierra Wright some heartache. Her mother had enough spirit to set the girl onto another track. Sierra would forget his old man soon enough.

He smiled, thinking of April Wright, with her artsy, short hair, standing up to tell off the school for interfering. She had enough spirit all right. He wondered how a capable, stylish woman like her ended up in his school’s neighborhood. And what had happened to give Sierra eyes that held her whole battered soul within them?

No mention of a father or husband had come up either time he’d spoken with Sierra’s mother. Somehow he suspected their problems were connected to the missing Mr. Wright. Surely there had once been a Mr. Wright.