Not a Sparrow Falls (5 page)

There was a pharmacy on the corner. She stepped in and felt the warm air envelop her like a blanket. She bought two packs of peanut butter crackers and a diet soda. She paid and shoved the change back into the pocket of her blue jeans. She thought about asking a question but didn’t know where to begin. She had nowhere to go, no job, no money to speak of, though she hadn’t taken a good count. And the chief problem was, she couldn’t think straight to make a plan. She was so tired. So weary. She went back outside and started walking again. There didn’t seem to be any hotels other than the Hilton and Sheraton. Nothing she could afford. The backpack was heavy, and she felt a knot of pain tightening between her shoulder blades.

She kept walking, made a turn or two, and soon noticed the buildings around her were homes instead of businesses. Pretty brick row houses. The lights glowed golden out of their windows and she imagined what the people inside were doing. Husbands and wives greeting each other after a day at work, playing with children, starting supper. It began to rain. She quickened her pace and opened her crackers, ate one package, then the other, and wished she’d bought more. When she was finished she put the wrappers in her pocket.

She slowed her pace, and despair caught up to her. The rain was falling in earnest now, dripping down her scalp. She hoped the hair dye didn’t run. Finally she stopped and asked herself the obvious question. Where, exactly, did she think she was going? She knew no one. She had no destination. She wiped her eyes—not that it did much good—then sat down on the curb, right there on the pavement, and bent her head onto her knee. She cried, trying her best to be quiet and not get herself arrested or hauled off to a mental hospital,
although that didn’t seem altogether bad at this moment. At least there would be food and a warm bed. She gulped and sobbed until she’d let it all out. When she was finished, she felt a little better. She lifted her head and tried to dry her eyes on the sleeve of her wet jacket. The lights had come on in the building across the street while she was having her little pity party.

It wasn’t anything fancy, just a plain square of red-brick. Steps on each side of the narrow porch led to two glossy dark green doors. The windows were old-fashioned squares of glass, and a lamp burned brightly behind each one. It was a church. Knox Presbyterian, the sign said. She rose and went toward it. Mama and Grandma had been Baptists, but right now a Hindu temple would have been all right as long as the doors were unlocked.

The door opened when she turned the knob. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. It smelled old and pleasantly musty, like her grandma’s closet. Closing the door quietly behind her, she stood there for a moment, her own breathing and sniffling the only sounds. She took a step. The wooden floors creaked under her feet, and her wet tennis shoes squeaked. She crossed toward the sanctuary and peeked inside. It was old. Even she could tell that much. It had pews inside little boxes that were carefully painted white. The floor was covered with red carpet. The lights she had seen from outside were hurricane lamps twinkling on each windowsill. She looked for a dim corner and found one. She walked toward it and went inside the pew. Taking off her coat so she wouldn’t get the cushion wet, she sat down and tried to gather her thoughts. It was no good. Her body would not go another inch, and she felt so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. Using her backpack as a pillow, she lay down, pulled the damp jacket over her shoulders, and went to sleep.

****

Jonah blinked once. Twice. His eyes hurt as they darted
around his room trying to catch up to his thoughts. The picks were coming out of his skin again. He could feel them. Little shards of ice, little crystals pointing up out of his pores. He picked one out, then another. His heart raced as he looked under the mattress and realized what this meant—she’d run off and taken his brain.

He tried to lick his lips, but his mouth was too dry. He needed a drink. He picked at another sliver. He needed a drink of water; then he could think what to do about finding Mary and getting his brain back. He needed his gun so he could go after it. He dropped the mattress, picked up the twelve-gauge from where he’d leaned it against the wall, and opened the door. But he’d no sooner swung it open than there was shouting and running and he found himself on the floor with someone’s knee in his back. He tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out. Somebody was pulling him, roughly, through the trailer. They grabbed his hands and tied them up behind him. They were taking him to the seat of eternal judgment.

He started screaming then. His doom was sealed. He would go to hell without his brain. The Bible was clear about that.

There were more of them on him then, and he tried to get away but couldn’t. One had an arm around his throat and pulled it so tight he lost his breath.

“What in the world was he screaming about?” a voice was asking when he came to. His face was on a car seat, his arms fastened tight behind him, but the door was open. As long as that door was open, there was hope, even though the demons were standing guard outside.

“Something about some woman who stole his brain,” another voice answered. “He has to find her, or he’ll go to hell for eternity.”

“Lord, have mercy,” the first one said. “They’ll have fun with him at the jail.” They both laughed.

Jonah thought about screaming for help but realized it would do no good. They had him now, and there was nothing for it. He summoned all his strength and aimed himself
for the open door. He threw himself out, knocking one of his captors over in the process. He almost got away, but then somebody tackled him and he was on his face in the dirt.

“Good grief, he’s strong as an ox,” he heard. Then the arm came around his throat again and everything went black.

Three

O
NE
Y
EAR
L
ATER

Alasdair Robert MacPherson held himself still and straight, as his father had taught him to do in church. Only his eyes moved when he glanced toward the windows. It was a gray day. Foggy and dim, in spite of the dancing flames of the hurricane lamps on the windowsills. The organ murmured the prelude. He lowered his gaze and inspected the cuffs of his pants, breaking at exactly the correct point on his shining black wing tips. He closed his eyes and rested his hands on his legs, which were tensed, as if for action.

Suddenly, and who knew why, he was reminded of the legend of the fisher king, that mythic man who had been struck by a sword and left with a wound in his thigh that would never heal. He opened his eyes and looked at his own leg as if he might see a spreading blot. Of course he did not. He saw only his hands resting on his knees, and the only stain was the one on the middle finger of his right hand from the old Waterman fountain pen he couldn’t bear to part with. He raised his head and stared at the altar cloth, but even there the uninvited tableau was projected. He could almost see the injured knight, too wounded to live, yet unable to die. He felt a throb of pain in his chest, as if someone had bumped a bruise. He frowned and refocused his attention.

Bodies and paper scuffled as the choir filed in, took their places, and opened their books. Their bright red robes created an atmosphere of cheer in contrast to the music they’d selected. It was Bach, full of power and mourning. He closed his eyes again and tried to occupy his mind, but without his will, the music washed over him. He bowed his head, felt relieved when the piece was finished, and even more relieved to hear the voice of the worship leader come clear and strong
through the sound system. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.”

“And also with you.” He looked up and answered automatically, his voice blending with those around him.

“This is the day that the Lord has made,” she declared.

“Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

“Let us pray.”

He bowed his head again.

“Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden,” she began.

He detached himself from her words. His eyes drifted open, and her voice became background. He gazed around him at the sea of people. Their heads were tipped down, topped in varying shades and lengths of Anglo-Saxon hair. The prayer finished and their heads tipped back up, faces bland. Blank. Waiting to have something written on them.

There was his daughter. She was beginning to look like Anna. She had that same porcelain fragility. She’d begun to act like her, as well. She sat aloof, alone, beside a knot of whispering girls. He watched her and felt something break loose within him, falling down, bouncing hollowly against the inside of his chest and abdomen as it rattled past. Another chunk. Another small piece of what used to be solid and firm, filling him up. He readjusted his body, as if that would bring his mind under control, and could hear his father reminding him that questions, though understandable, were not commendable.

The prayer was over. The worship leader stepped down, her robes flowing around her as she moved. The choir rose again and began the hymn. “I Lay My Sins on Jesus.”

The worship leader stood again, led the Confession, the Pardon, the Peace. That was the accepted order. First the confession. Then pardon and peace. He wondered what would happen if a clot of unbelief lodged itself in the channel of faith. If the movement through those places stopped. He knew the answer. There would be pain. Searing. Almost beyond
imagination. Then a slow numbing—a deadly lack of feeling spreading through the body as living flesh blanched and died.

He frowned again, coughed slightly into his fist. When had his mind become a highwayman, lying in wait to ambush him? Bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, he instructed himself.

The congregation stood. They recited the Gloria Patri. They were seated. The lector read the Prayer for Illumination. The first reading was given. Then the second. Another hymn. The choir shut their books and moved off the dais smoothly, without so much as a dropped paper. He sat still for another moment, and gradually the movement around him stopped. Everyone readied themselves. Hymnbooks were put away, papers stuffed in pew boxes, skirts and jackets rearranged. A few coughs, the sound of a child whimpering and being stilled; then they were settled, quiet and ready. They all waited expectantly to receive some illumination, some insight, a reason to get up in the morning, to put one foot before the other, to draw the next breath. It was time for the sermon.

He rose from his seat and made his way to the pulpit.

****

“Overcoming Emotions That Destroy.” Lorna read the title of Alasdair’s sermon and felt a lurch of pain at the irony. She put the bulletin in the drawer beside the telephone in her brother’s house.

“It has
not
been two years,” Fiona insisted with professorial finality as she put the lid on the plastic container.

“It’s been
at least
two, if not longer,” Winifred corrected firmly. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

Winifred was right, but Lorna knew better than to interject. Even at thirty-five she was still the youngest, barely an adult in their minds. Her vote was hardly enough to tip the scales in a clash between the two elders. When Fiona and Winifred argued, it was like Zeus and Apollo doing battle, she thought, and immediately knew her father, rest his soul, would not have
approved of the analogy.
“Two heathen deities that should never cross the tongue of a Presbyterian,”
she could almost hear him intone, and she immediately changed the analogy to Wesley and Calvin.

Her brother was reminding her more and more of their father since Anna had died. More than two years ago, no matter what anyone said. She felt a stirring of unease and didn’t know which thought had brought it on—Father’s memory, her brother’s personality change, or Anna’s death.

“Lower your voice,” Winifred cautioned, ending the argument with her word conveniently last. “Alasdair’s study is just upstairs, and you know how noise carries through the heating vents.”

Fiona gave a slight nod, rinsed her hands at the sink, and dried them on a paper towel. “Well, regardless,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s time some permanent arrangements were made in regard to his household. I don’t know what stops him. He carries on well enough in other areas.”

It was true, Lorna thought as she opened the refrigerator and made room for this week’s meals. In fact, no one but her seemed to think there was anything amiss with Alasdair at all. Even his reactions in the days just after Anna’s death had seemed exemplary, the model of how a Christian should face tragedy. She hadn’t been there when the police had come with news of the accident. By the time she’d arrived, Alasdair was returning from having identified the body. Even then he’d been in control. It was she who had collapsed. Even Fiona and Winifred, who had never been particularly close to Anna, had been stunned into weeks of tearful silence. Alasdair alone had displayed the proper mix of sadness and faith, unlike her own anguish or Samantha’s wild anger.

She remembered crying out to God when her brother had told her. “Why?” she had wailed. “Why?” It had actually been a prayer, but Alasdair had taken it upon himself to answer her.

“Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” he had
demanded. The words were correct, but the hoarseness of his voice and the darkening of his eyes had told the truth.

Alasdair had made all the decisions during that horrible time, asking his sisters for help only in caring for the children. He had arranged matters without consultation, opting for a private interment instead of a service. He’d dispatched the flowers to local nursing homes and hospitals and had his secretary field condolence calls and send thank-you notes for the ever present casseroles. Yes, in the matter of Anna’s death Alasdair had performed as efficiently as he’d always done in all areas of life. As was his habit, he had surveyed the situation and met its requirements. She only wondered what the effort had cost him.