The Language of Sparrows (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

The shower was running, which meant Sierra had only a few minutes before Mom came in. She laid the pencil sketches on the dining table, trying to arrange them in order. Okay. She didn’t have any business snooping in her mother’s satchel, but one of the sketches had been sticking out and she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

She straightened the first page. It was of Mr. Prodan, really young, sitting with a pretty girl. Underneath it was another sketch. It was Mr. Prodan, too, but he looked awful—old and skinny and badly dressed. What was that about? It gave Sierra a sick feeling deep inside. She wasn’t sure if the feeling was from how terrible Mom had made him look or from the picture being in her mom’s things.

Why was Mom drawing Mr. Prodan? He was Sierra’s friend, not someone for Mom to spy on or whatever she was doing with these weird pencil sketches.

Tell her that.
She heard the words in Carlos’s tough, urging voice. But this wasn’t like a boy getting too close. It wasn’t a danger she could block with raised arms. It was just wrong.

Next, a picture showed a woman holding a little boy. The bones of her face were drawn in sharp angles, and she had shadows beneath her eyes. The woman seemed overcome by something too horrible for words.

In the following drawing, the same woman sat on the floor with her face in her hands and Mr. Prodan knelt by her side. He was young, maybe in his twenties, but he had the same unruly hair and light eyes.

Sierra stepped back. A bitter taste came to her tongue. The pictures told a story, like one of the thriller comic books the boys in school read. Only the text balloons were missing. Sierra began to tap her foot, working out her jitters. What kind of story was her mom drawing? And why?

Sierra left the pictures on the dining table so Mom would see them and would have to say something about them. The shower stopped, and Sierra went to the sofa to wait.

Mom swung into the living room, dressed in a sweatshirt and with her hair wet and messy. “Hey, I have this absolute craving for strawberry shortcake. What do you say?”

Sierra sat on her hands. “Sure.”

Mom saw the pictures and bent over the table, looking at the sketches. She stood straight, taking her time, looking all concerned.

“Do you want to ask me something, Sierra?”

Sierra shook her head.

Mom could never hide her feelings. The brighter the smile, the blacker the worry. She sat on a chair across from Sierra and tucked her legs under her. “I guess you want to know what those pictures are about.”

Sierra didn’t say anything, and she went on.

“I’m helping Luca Prodan write down his story.”

“His story? The one about prison?” She could hear the whine in her voice, the sound of a little girl about to stomp her feet, but she couldn’t help it. Mr. Prodan’s story was hers, not Mom’s.

“Sierra?”

“He’s
my
friend, Mom.”

Mom’s eyes widened. “I’m not stealing your friend, Sierra. You two have a special bond. No one’s going to crowd in on that.”

Mom’s rational voice tore a hole in her confidence, but she went on. “It was my story! What happened to Mr. Prodan in Romania …” She looked to the window, knowing she sounded crazy. “He couldn’t tell me yet, but he was going to.”

Mom furrowed her brow and got really quiet, giving Sierra a too-patient look. “Did he say he was going tell you his story?”

“No, he didn’t say. But he would have told me when he was ready.”

“Sweetie, he would have told you if he could. But he hasn’t even been able to tell his own son. He needed help for that.”

Sierra closed her eyes. The conversation was going nowhere.

“It’s really hard for him,” Mom said. “He’s only doing it because his son needs to know.”

“He could’ve told me. I’m a good writer. I could have written it for him.”

“One day, I wouldn’t be surprised if he told all of it to you. But there are some things you just don’t tell to …”

“To what? To a kid? I can write better than most adults. Even better than you, Mom. I could have done it.”

“Oh, sweetie, you’re a gifted writer. I have no doubt you could write Luca Prodan’s story. But he cares too much about you to fill your mind with torture.”

Torture.
The word splashed through her veins like Siberian seawater. She’d never thought of it like that, but it didn’t change things. Mr. Prodan was her friend, and she would listen to as many terrible things as he wanted to tell her. “I could have done it,” she whispered. “I could have helped him.”

Mom leaned forward and massaged Sierra’s knee. “You’re helping him more than you know. You’re his friend.”

Mom leaned back. “I want you to know, I’m not getting the story out of idle curiosity. Nick Foster
needs
this story. He doesn’t know what happened to his dad. And without that understanding, it’s hard to make sense of so much else in his life.”

Something gurgled into place in Sierra’s thoughts. “You really know all about what Mr. Foster and his dad need, don’t you?
Their
story. They need
their
story.” The biting words left her mouth before she’d known what she intended to say, but Mom didn’t respond. With a pat to her shoulder, Mom got up and strode toward the kitchen. She ran water in the sink and turned on the oven.

In the living room, Sierra doubled over, massaging her temples. “You never want to talk about him,” she finally said.

Mom turned off the water and looked into the living room. “Did you say something?”

“I said you never want to talk about him.”

Mom looked straight at her. At least she had the decency not to pretend like she didn’t know who Sierra was talking about.

“Is there something you would like to speak about? Something specific you want to know about Dad?” Mom’s voice didn’t invite questions.

Sierra closed her eyes. No, there wasn’t something
specific
she wanted to know. Anything and everything would do. The big nothing she knew about her father ate away at her. And so did Mom’s distaste when she talked about him.

Sierra opened her eyes. “Is there something
specific
you’d like to tell me?”

Mom looked away and began chopping strawberries with a furious knife.

Apparently not.

Sierra got up and stalked to her room. What was the use?

After school the next day, Sierra caught up to Carlos. He waited for her at the traffic light.

“Hey, Carlos. Do you ever have trouble remembering your parents?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Sierra laughed. Thank goodness for Carlos. He never let her get away without proper hellos and good-byes.

“And you?” he went on.

“Fine.”

Her internal clock ticked as she waited for him to return to her question. They crossed the street and walked on in silence. When they arrived at her apartments, he stopped. “A little bit. The memories fade more every year. I’ve visited my grandpa in El Salvador a couple of times just to hear him talk about old times. But I try not to think too hard about it, not about losing them anyway. They wouldn’t have wanted that for me.”

She walked beside him, studying the sidewalk.

“What’s on your mind, Brown Eyes?”

She switched her backpack to her left shoulder. “I can hardly remember my dad. That’s not normal, is it? I mean, I was thirteen when he died, but I don’t remember anything. I sort of remember what he looked like. But I can’t piece together more than two or three things we did together. And my mom won’t talk about him.”

“You’re smart enough to scrounge up some memories if you want. There’s photos, right? And friends and relatives. Places he went.” He opened the gate for her. “You sure you really want to remember?”

Sierra stopped inside the security gate, looking back at the busy street. Not want to remember? Why wouldn’t someone want to remember their own father? Maybe if their dad was a drunk or something. But Dad wasn’t like that. Even without her memories, she knew that.

“What places did your dad go?”

“We lived in other places most of my life. Colorado, California, Virginia, New York. My mom and dad met here though. At Rice.”

“So you got your brains legally. I’ve got to get to work, but tomorrow we’ll take ourselves a university tour. We’ll drive to Rice and you can see where your dad used to study.”

Sierra didn’t sleep much that night. To walk the same paths her father had, to see the library where he’d researched. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

The next day they drove to Rice. It was just a few minutes beyond the hospital where Mr. Prodan had stayed when he had pneumonia. Carlos took the car down a long drive with trees on either side that were so full they met overhead, and then parked. Sierra got out of the car, taking in the scents of mingling flowers and the smell of French fries drifting across the commons.

Harvard probably looked like this. Carlos led her past the red brick buildings and down the cobbled paths. Ivy climbed brick walls. Packs of students laughed or argued over this or that. There were Greek columns and manicured hedges. She could almost dance for being here.

“Your kind of place, isn’t it, Brown Eyes?”

She stretched out her arms and turned in a circle. It was.

He hefted his backpack next to a bench. “What’s our plan?”

She looked up in surprise. “You don’t have one?”

“This is your adventure. You feel any closer to your dad here?”

She nodded. She did. This was her dad’s world. Without being able to put her finger on any specific memory, she knew he’d breathed easier here too.

“What did your dad study?”

“History.”

Carlos waited on her to make the connection. “It was almost twenty years ago though. No one in the history department will remember him.”

“You sure? I bet there’s people he went to school with who stuck around.”

Sierra gave a slow nod. “But how would I find them?”

“I know you can figure this one out, Sierra.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess.”

She glanced around. How would she even find out where the history department was? She could ask one of the groups of students, but she didn’t like speaking to strangers. They walked until she found a security guard and asked him for directions.

Carlos let her lead. At the reception desk in the history department, she looked back at him, willing him to speak for her. He nodded encouragement but stayed in the background.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly to the girl.

She held up a finger telling Sierra to wait, and Sierra saw she had earbuds in and was transcribing something. After a moment, the girl said perfunctorily, “May I help you?”

Sierra stood straight, trying not to fidget or look too young. “I was wondering if there was someone who was here about eighteen, nineteen years ago—either as a professor or a student. I’d like to speak with them, please.”

The girl eyed her suspiciously. “May I say what this is regarding?”

“I need to find information about my father. He was a history student then.”

The girl got up with a huff and meandered down a hall. In a few minutes she came back with a gray-bearded man with rolled-up shirtsleeves. He smiled pleasantly. “You’re researching the good old days, eh? Eighteen years ago?”

Sierra nodded.

He pushed up his shirtsleeves even farther. “Sure, I was fresh out of grad school back then. Who was your father?”

“Garrison Wright.”

“You’re Gary Wright’s daughter?” The light banter was gone. The air felt chillier somehow, and Sierra dug her hands into her pockets to warm them. Gary, he said. He knew something about her dad. She could tell he didn’t want to talk by the way he took off his glasses and looked absently down the hall, but she forced herself to keep talking.

“Were you one of his professors?”

“Not exactly.” He scratched his head. “What kind of information are you looking for?”

“My dad passed away a few years ago. I’d like to understand him better. General stuff. Memories. What he was like. Things he did.”

The man screwed up his mouth, then took a pencil and notepad off the desk. “Why don’t you give me your email address? I keep in contact with some guys who were friends with your dad. I’ll send you their contact information.”