Not a Sparrow Falls (38 page)

And then it ended. Just like that. No more. The last words. Samantha was crying silently, the tears coursing down her cheeks. She rose and went to her dresser, came back with a worn envelope. She handed it to Bridie, and Bridie recognized the writing. The beautiful, careful script was back, not the spiky slashes of the depressed months.

****

Dearest Samantha,

You must know how you fill my heart with joy. I desire only the best for you. I want you to have happiness and joy and no darkness at all. I know that is impossible, and yet I think that a clean sorrow is better than a lifetime of shadowy dread. In a perfect world you would have neither one. Only happiness and warm sunshine on your face. No storms or deep waters.

I read the Bible, and there I see God stilling the storm, parting the sea, holding back the mighty waters. He is ruler over even the most powerful and inexorable of forces. I wish I had lived in those days when He could reach out His hand, and the waves would be firm beneath my feet.

I love you, forever and always. May your life be full of joy and blessing.

Mother

Bridie blotted her eyes on her sleeve. Samantha wept quietly in her arms. After a minute or two the shoulders stopped
shaking. She took a tissue from the drawer beside her bed and blew her nose. The silence was calm and seemed emptied of all energy, good or evil.

“She killed herself,” Samantha said, and Bridie saw the dam crack and the first trickle of water begin to flow out. Samantha had known it all along. Now she was finally putting words to what she’d carried all alone.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I think she did.”

“Why?” Anguish loaded the word, and the tears returned. Bridie took her hand and stroked it, let her cry again. Possible answers flicked through her mind like a tape played on too fast a speed. Anna had struggled with depression all her life. Hints about Anna’s own mother’s death suddenly took on new meaning. But those weren’t answers. Not really.

“I don’t know,” Bridie said, taking a deep breath, “but here’s what I do know.”

Samantha lifted her face.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop it.”

Samantha shook her head. “What if I’d been home? I could have talked to her, and maybe she would have listened.”

Bridie shook her head, wondering how well-worn those questions were, how many times they had been asked in the silence of Samantha’s mind. “You read that last entry. She’d gotten to the place where she took things out of context. Whatever happened, she took it as a sign that what she’d decided was the right thing. She’d convinced herself that Lorna would be a better mother to you and the babies than she was. Nothing you said would have mattered. Look how many people tried to help her. Her father, your uncle Calvin, Lorna, you. Your father tried his best.”

Bull’s-eye. The head dropped again. The tears flowed. “I thought it was his fault.”

“I know you did, but it wasn’t.”

“Do you think he’ll forgive me?”

“I know he will.” Whether he would forgive himself or not was another matter entirely.

Samantha was quiet, but Bridie wasn’t thinking they were even close to being finished. After a minute Samantha edged around to the greatest of her fears. Bridie had seen it coming a long way off, since that day in the principal’s office.
Lord, give me the words,
she prayed.
I’m an unclean vessel, but use me anyway.

“Do you think she went to hell?” The words landed with the impact of an explosive, but Bridie was ready for them. Her head was shaking before they were even out.

“I most certainly, absolutely, without a doubt do
not
believe she went to hell.” And the Lord must have answered her prayer because there, just like a pretty little jewel dropping into her open hand, came one of the hundred verses. “ ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall
never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.’ ”

Samantha took that in, and her face lost that tight, pinched look. She cried a little more.

“What if I get sad like she did?”

Lord—again?
Bridie pleaded, holding her hand open as if the answer might literally fall into it. It did.

“Your mama’s sadness was her undoing,” she said, “because she ran from it. First she ran to college to get away from it. Then she ran away by putting all her attention on your daddy; then she ran away by coming here to America, thinking if she left the sad place she could leave the sadness. Then she ran away from it by putting her mind on you. But you can’t run away from things,” Bridie said, and she saw herself in the old rusty truck, coasting down the dirt road, the bag of money on the seat beside her. “They just keep after you if you try to do that. You finally have to stop, turn around, and face whatever’s on your heels. Otherwise it hounds you right into the grave.”

Samantha heaved a huge sigh. Bridie took a close look at her face. It was sad but calm.

“If you feel sad, tell your daddy. Tell Aunt Lorna. Turn
around and look the sadness in the eye, and it won’t get the best of you. Everybody feels sad,” Bridie finished. “There’s nothing there to be afraid of. It’s running from things that gives them strength.”

Samantha nodded. She threw her arms around Bridie’s neck, and Bridie rocked her for a long time. She stroked Samantha’s hair and wiped her own eyes on her sleeve again and again.

****

Alasdair looked down at the half-finished pile of sermon notes on the desk before him. He should put them away and prepare for his trip to Richmond.

Why? another part of him asked. Why was he going to Richmond in one last attempt to save his career? Why was he doing any of this? He imagined himself standing in the pulpit, the sea of faces before him. Hungry people, waiting for him to turn the five loaves and two fishes into food for a multitude. All holding pens poised over blank pages. Pages he should fill with words of wisdom. He felt unbearably weary.

What did he have to tell them? Where would he point them to? When was the last time he’d heard the voice of the Lord? Felt that swelling in his heart at the movement of the Spirit? When had the Scriptures last come to life before his eyes? How long had it been? Was it any wonder the people he led were dull and hard of hearing?

His own desire for the Lord had become deadened along with the rest of him. He had his own stone rolled firmly against the mouth of his tomb, blocking any resurrection. It remained there, regardless of his straining and pushing, his despairing prayers. And there didn’t seem to be any angels nearby.

He knew when it had sealed him up. He recalled the very day. He had come home from the radio studio after a long day of recording. The police car had been waiting in front of the house. No sirens blaring, no flashing lights. It had been
pulled to the curb, idling, waiting. And he had known. Immediately he had known. The only question had been how, and that had been answered in short order.

He had tried to take care of things after that. Tried to clear away the debris as quickly as possibly, to keep it from hurting anyone else. To put out the fires and bury the dead. He had done the best he could, but obviously it was not enough. It was never enough, was it? It never had been.

He dropped his pen and rubbed his neck. Why had he become a pastor? Why was he enduring so much misery to hold on to something he’d never wanted in the first place? He thought and thought, and to save himself, he couldn’t remember. His father had told him to do it, and ever the good son, he’d obeyed.

He sighed, tried to gather the pieces of himself together. He could hear Bridie’s and Samantha’s voices twining together from the next room. None of this was Bridie’s fault. He had seen the hurt on her face when he’d left after dinner, barely speaking to her. It wasn’t too late to approach her. He stood up. He would ask her to come downstairs and talk to him. Not out of any sense of obligation. He wanted to, he realized as he walked toward the door. He needed to.

Thirty-Three

Samantha watched Bridie put the last journal back into the box and looked again at the picture she’d kept out—of Mom in the party dress. She wondered what her dad would say if she hung it on her wall. The door opened.

Oh, my gosh. This was so not good.

Dad came in all smiling and everything, and then he saw the picture in her hand. He looked over at Bridie and then down by her feet at the box of journals, and his face went completely white. Like the refrigerator or something. He looked straight at Bridie then. It was like she wasn’t even there.

“What have you done?”

“It was my idea,” Samantha said, trying to explain.

“What is all this?” he asked, still talking to Bridie. “Where did you get these?”

“Don’t get mad at her.”

“You stay out of this, Samantha.”

“They were in the attic,” Bridie said. “I never meant to deceive you, Alasdair.”

Dad got totally stone-faced then. “There are things in there she shouldn’t know.” His voice was sounding funny.

“I already knew,” Samantha said. “I knew she did it on purpose.”

Dad looked at her, then turned around and looked at Bridie again, and for the first time Samantha got a little scared. He didn’t say anything for a huge long time, and Bridie’s face got white. Samantha thought maybe she was going to cry.

Then Dad said, really quiet, “This is what you’ve been doing in here.”

Bridie nodded, and then Dad said, “I need to talk to you.”

Bridie went with him and Samantha followed them out. Dad led the way downstairs. It was so not fair that Bridie was getting blamed for this.

“Go to your room, Samantha,” he hollered back at her.

“Fine,” she said and went straight to the heat vent. She lay flat on the carpet and put her ear against the grate. After a minute she heard them. Perfectly. They were both talking really loud.

“I did it for Samantha,” Bridie said.

“For Samantha.”

She knew that tone. He used it when he was just trying to get it straight exactly how you’d messed up.

“Yes,” Bridie answered. “She’s why I came here to begin with. I saw her in the church. She pinned a note to that board—the one with the falling sparrow—that’s why I came, and this is what she needed.”

Samantha blinked. She hadn’t thought that prayer had been answered. Huh.

“She needed for somebody to tell her the truth,” Bridie said. “She already knew it, but since nobody would say it, it was eating away at her.”

“You have no idea what the truth is.”

Dad sounded mean.

“I know Anna killed herself. It’s obvious if you have eyes to see. She got more and more depressed, and nobody could help her no matter how hard they tried. Finally she just got tired of fighting and drove into the river.”

There was this huge long silence. Samantha could feel her heart thumping. She wondered if she should go downstairs.

“Did Anna write about
her
mother?” Dad asked, a little quieter, but in this dead sort of voice. Samantha pressed her ear down so hard it hurt. “How she took an overdose of sleeping pills when Anna was six weeks old? Did she write about how her father talked of it time and time again, trying to get Anna to open up? Did she document the parade of counselors that marched through her life and how powerless they were to keep history from repeating itself? Enlighten me. What should I have done? If silence doesn’t work and talking doesn’t work, what would?”

“I don’t know,” Bridie said, and now
she
sounded mad. “But maybe there’s something in between those two extremes of pretending nothing ever happened or being so sure she’s a ticking bomb that she finally explodes just to end the tension.”

Uh-oh.

“How dare you accuse me of pretending Anna’s death never happened? Her death has colored every moment of my life, every movement of this household since the day she died.”

“Then maybe it was time she was laid to rest.”

“And how should I do that?”

“I don’t know,” Bridie said. “But this is a start. Raise your voice. Cry out to God. It’s those who mourn who’ll be comforted.”

They were both quiet then. Samantha waited for a really long time, and still nobody said anything.

“Do you want me to come back tomorrow?” Bridie finally asked.

“I suppose so,” he said, and he sounded really mad. “It’s too late to make other plans now.”

Then Samantha heard the door open and shut, and she got up and ran into the guest room so she could look out the window to the street. There went Bridie. She didn’t even bring her coat. Just her purse. That made Samantha feel better. Bridie would be back.

Samantha dropped the curtain and went back into her room. A couple of months ago she would have gotten mad at Dad, like maybe even hated him and all. But now she felt sort of bad for him. But he was just going to have to get used to the idea that she knew stuff.

****

Jonah had been waiting out in front of the Bag and Save forever. He idled the engine and felt like he was going to explode if he didn’t get out of the car. He needed to move around. They were working their way out again, those little glass splinters. He picked at one place on his arm, then
another. He scratched until his hand came away sticky with blood. He chewed his lip and lit another cigarette. His hands were shaking. He put in another CD and turned it up so he couldn’t hear that chopping anymore. He wished they’d stop, but he knew it wasn’t any use.

The automatic doors opened again and he flicked the cigarette out the window. It was an old woman, and that kid who’d pointed out Carmen to him was carrying the woman’s groceries. He leaned back in his seat and beat the rhythm of the music onto the steering wheel. He needed gas. That little dark-headed fellow staying in the room next to his at the motel had been sucking it out at night while he slept. He’d seen him over there with his lips pressed against the gas tank.

The kid went back inside with the empty cart. The doors opened again. A woman came out. She was fat and had a little fat girl trailing after her, and her fat husband came along after the both of them pushing the cart.