Sparrow Migrations (8 page)

“Mom?” Amanda’s voice brought her back to the bedroom.

Brett looked down at her daughter. So trusting. She cleared her throat, and stepped in deeper.

“Yes, we. Me and Mrs. Longwood. Jackie Longwood. We were on the ferry together. I met her at the conference. She’s from a church in North Carolina. Charlotte.” On the firmer ground of the truth—albeit incomplete—Brett spoke more quickly now. “They’ve had a meal program and a delivery service for a long time. Much longer than we have. I wanted to learn more about how they did it all.”

“Oh.” Amanda’s brow furrowed. “But, then, why were you on the ferry? Couldn’t you just talk at the hotel?”

Brett thought rapidly.

“It was Jackie’s idea. It was her first trip to New York. She wanted to take the sightseeing trip. I figured we could talk on the boat just as well as inside a hotel, so why not?”

The furrow on Amanda’s forehead smoothed, but didn’t erase. Brett felt exposed in the gaping silence, willing her daughter to accept her explanation. The back door opened.

“Anybody home?” Richard’s voice filled in the void.

Brett stiffened. She opened Amanda’s door. The hallway stretched like a ship’s plank. What if he had seen the news, too?

In the kitchen, Richard was loosening his tie, glancing at the paper.

“Hi.”

“Welcome back.” His mouth smiled, but not his eyes as he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “How was the big city?”

“Fine,” Brett said, looking back at Amanda’s door. She’d expected her daughter to follow, but she hadn’t. Hmm.

“
‘Fine?’ Four days away, and that’s all you have to say?” Richard poked his head into the refrigerator, emerging with leftover Chinese.

“No, of course not. I’ve got lots to tell you. I—”

Richard held up his hand, cutting her off. Sitting down, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. “Come, Lord Jesus . . .”

The familiar grace rumpled Brett’s mood. Couldn’t he skip it just once?

His eyes opened. “All right, tell me all about it. What did you learn that might help us set up a mobile meal program here? Did you make any connections?”

“I think I did make one good connection,” Brett said slowly, measuring the words. She couldn’t afford another “I-we” slipup. “A woman from a church down in Charlotte.”

“All the way from North Carolina, huh? No kidding.”

“Right. Two years ago she started a mobile program building on the community meals they served at the church. Just like we’ve been talking about. At first, they used a ten-year-old van with a hundred thousand miles on it and some old pizza delivery bags to keep the food hot.” Brett was reciting the biography Jackie shared at the first, real conference last fall.

“Now they’ve got the attention of private donors. Some local car dealers just donated six brand-new delivery vans. They’ve got a volunteer waiting list, if you can believe that. They’ve even been nominated for the governor’s most humanitarian nonprofit award.”

“Really! I wonder if Pennsylvania has an award like that. Can’t buy that kind of publicity. It would sure boost the congregation.” Richard looked excited as he took another bite of cold kung pao.

Once, he would have been excited about the award for its own sake, not the publicity, Brett thought. “I don’t know. I think—”

“This is a wonderful report, Brett. More than I hoped for. That hotel room might just be worth it, after all.”

A vision of herself and Jackie, together in the king-size bed, emerged. Oh, that room had been so worth it. To feel so alive, so electrically alive, down to every last nerve—

“Brett?” Richard coughed. “Brett?”

The bed evaporated. “I’m sorry. What?”

“I said, what’s your next step?”

“I thought I’d go down to Charlotte to see their operation myself,” Brett heard herself say, without hesitating.

“A plane ticket.” Richard sighed, then brightened. “Maybe we could all go. Does your friend have children? We could go over Amanda’s spring break. Drive down together. Save the plane fare, get away from the cold and snow. Enjoy some family time and all help move our church forward together. Like that mission trip we took back in college, remember?”

As Richard talked himself down south, panic galloped through Brett. Was he reading her mind? Until this afternoon she hadn’t thought of the mission trip in years. Even if he wasn’t reading her mind, she and Jackie would be exposed. It was a crazy risk. It would be impossible.

“It would be perfect timing. Let you plan a little bit more up here, build some more success with the church meals, before making a big leap like this.”

Breathe. Just breathe. And think, Brett.

“I’d have to talk to Jackie. Maybe they’re busy. Or maybe spring break wouldn’t be a good time for them. Maybe they’ll be going on spring break themselves,” Brett said.
That sounds reasonable. It’ll buy me time.
Her heartbeat slowed.

“Of course, of course. It doesn’t have to be spring break. That would just be convenient,” Richard said. “But get in touch soon to find out what works for her, and we’ll figure something out.” He stood up and hugged her, the embrace feeling more like a vise to Brett. “The Lord will make this happen, Brett. I’ve just got a feeling about it.”

He threw away the empty Chinese container and turned on the TV.

In her room, Amanda stepped back from the door, deflated. They’d never gone on a spring break vacation. So she would definitely be at auditions tomorrow. If she wasn’t going anywhere for spring break, being in the musical would at least get her out of the house. Plus, it would give her something to think about besides her mom, who suddenly wanted to run all over the country instead of staying home like she’d always done.

She reached in her backpack for her copy of the lyrics. Now she just needed to make the cast.

EIGHT

D
eborah and Christopher. Good afternoon.” Dr. Marissa Singh strode into her office and shook their hands. “Lovely to see you again.”

Deborah smiled feebly. She wondered if the fertility specialist practiced saying that with just the right tone and expression, knowing everyone who faced her in these tastefully upholstered chairs wanted to be anywhere but there.

“Tell me about your consultation in New York.”

“They sent the report, right?” Puzzled, Deborah moved to the edge of her seat.

“Indeed.” She lifted a medical chart. “But I’m interested in your perspective, too.”

“Oh.” Deborah paused, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I was encouraged. The doctor corroborated what you said about the two—the two other times. That we’d done everything right, that after transfer, it’s really a matter of beating the odds. And he said with my age and health status, I’m still a good candidate.” She watched the doctor, who listened impassively.

“So we’d like to discuss transferring our remaining embryos,” she finished. “I asked for an evaluation when I called?”

“I have it right here,” Dr. Singh said, opening another file. “Three embryos left. All rated in very good condition.”

Deborah’s heart leaped. The doctor seemed to read her mind.

“That could change, you know.” The doctor looked up. “We’ll re-evaluate when the embryos are thawed.”

“We’re aware of that,” Christopher said, speaking for the first time.

“Good. And what do you think, Christopher? How do you feel about a third attempt?”

Deborah’s heartbeat accelerated. She had kept her word. The fertility books had gone to the library. She had unliked the Facebook pages and chat groups. And except for telling him of the appointment, she had steered clear of discussing IVF, pregnancy, and babies since the drive home from New York last week.

Her husband shifted in his twin chair. He turned to her and reached out his hand. Deborah took it. He pulled their clasped hands into his lap while he held her gaze for a long minute, and then turned back to Dr. Singh.

“I’m willing to give it one more try. One last try.”

Deborah exhaled audibly. The doctor regarded them both. Photographs of her family were arranged behind her on a credenza. It looked like two boys and a girl. Deborah fixed her eyes on their smiling faces, as if the doctor’s own fertility could somehow permeate to her.

“All right, then.” Dr. Singh flipped papers until she found a blank page. “It’s just a matter of determining when the next opportunity for transfer is, then. When was your last period, Deborah?”

Half an hour later, with the transfer scheduled for February 8, they parted outside the clinic with a plan to meet for dinner at their favorite Chinese restaurant, Campus Cantonese. In between, Christopher had a late meeting on campus. Deborah decided to call Helen.

Her new phone showed one text. Julia Adams again. Christopher had introduced them at the dean’s summer picnic and then gone off to hatch the grant proposal with Julia’s husband, Michael, the newest member in the bio department. What a difference a decade made, Deborah had thought while half-listening to Julia’s own pitch for fund-raising help for some nonprofit, remembering how she and Christopher had first paired off at the same picnic.

She deleted Julia’s message. She’d figure some way out of that. As she held the phone, it rang.

“Hi, Deborah. It’s Helen.”

“Helen! I was just going to call you. How are you?”

“I’m—well, I’m OK. Been better, actually.” She paused. “Is this an OK time for you to talk? Do you have a few minutes?”

“Sure.” Deborah’s brow creased. Helen sounded breathless again. But she couldn’t be doing her morning workout now. “What’s going on?”

She heard a long sigh. “I’m not really sure how to start.”

“Just start.” Deborah frowned.

Helen sighed again. “OK. Well. It started a couple months ago. I wasn’t feeling so great. Tired all the time. Achy. Sore muscles.” She paused again. “What felt like a sore throat. I couldn’t swallow anything.”

“How awful.” Deborah said sympathetically. “You went to the doctor, right?”

“Right.” Helen breathed deeply. “A lot of doctors, actually. My GP sent me to a specialist. That specialist sent us to another one, at the University of Washington.”

She hesitated. Deborah’s skin prickled. The pauses felt like a tsunami building from the West Coast, looming over flyover country, poised to crash over her on the East.
Say it. Get it out
, she silently urged her sister.

“They put me through a whole slew of tests. Genetic tests.”

“OK,” Deborah said, filling in the pause left for her. “And?”

“They showed I have the gene for Huntington’s Disease.”

Huntington’s Disease. Deborah ran the name through the database of fund-raising groups she stored in her head and came up negative. That meant no awareness, no money, or both. Not good.

“I don’t know—” she started.

“It’s a neurological disorder. It leads to muscle degeneration, then dementia. Symptoms typically emerge between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five.”

Deborah exhaled deeply. “Helen, my God, I’m so sorry. But what does it mean, exactly? Does having the gene mean you have it now? What’s the treatment? What can I do?”

“I have it now. The symptoms indicate it’s in the early stages.” Helen paused, her voice faltering. “There’s—there’s no treatment. There are some things they can do to alleviate symptoms, but there’s no cure.”

Silence stretched over the continent again. Deborah couldn’t speak.

“Deborah? Are you still there?”

“I’m here.” Her voice sounded strangled, to her own ears. Helen was only forty-five. She couldn’t have some fatal, untreatable disease. Not after they lost their parents so young in the car accident. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m so sorry to tell you this over the phone. I wanted to tell you in person, when you came out here. That’s why I was so upset after the crash. But when that didn’t work out, and you started talking about another IVF cycle, I knew I had to tell you as soon as possible.”

Her last sentence echoed. “Tell me because of the IVF? What does that have to do with anything?”

Helen spoke softly, sorrowfully, delivering her sentence. “Huntington’s is a genetic disease, Deborah. I inherited it from Mom or Dad. And there’s a fifty-fifty chance you did, too.”

As the school bus growled away from the curb, Robby reached into his backpack for his Sibley’s guide. They had bought it in New York, at a bookstore on the way back to the hotel. The bookstore was on a corner and had a revolving door just like the museum. The author was David Sibley. In the cafeteria Dr. Felk said it was the best guide there was, and so did the guide, on the cover. “More than 6,600 illustrations in all,” the back cover informed him.

At least a dozen were of Canada geese. It wasn’t quite as good as the stuffed gander in the basement of the museum, but it would do. He had spent the entire plane ride home reading and knew the sections about Canada geese by heart already. He flipped there again now.

“The markings of this species do not differ significantly from male to female,” he read. Robby frowned as he chewed his sweatshirt string. Which were the geese in the crash? He’d already learned only females incubated eggs. What if the geese that flew into the plane were females, with eggs about to hatch? Or had babies already? Left back in a nest somewhere around the airport? What would happen to them if the mother didn’t come back? Would they be safe? Would they go hungry? Would some other mother goose take care of them? Who could find out?

Dr. Felk. He’d e-mail him after school. How lucky that Dr. Felk had been at the museum that day. He had told Robby that today was his first day back after a week of being out with a bad cold.

Robby exhaled against the window, his breath fogging the cold glass, relieved by his plan.

Linda waved at Robby’s hooded profile framed in the school bus window, driver’s side, six rows back, as usual. She stood in the driveway, arms wrapped around herself, puffs of breath dissolving in the chilly morning air, savoring the moment alone, free of obligations, to-dos, and follow-ups.

At the end of the block, the bus turned and disappeared. Sighing, Linda turned back to the house. Twenty minutes before she was due at the sales meeting to review year-end figures. Enough time to make some calls for her unofficial job: managing Robby’s autism.

On the spectrum of autism disorders, he was considered “high-functioning,” somewhere between an Asperger’s profile and classic autism. For the future, that meant hope that Robby would live independently. For now, it was a sentence to the no-man’s-land between the neurotypical world and that of the “low-functioning”—six-year-olds who communicated in syllables, eight-year-olds still in diapers.
There but for the grace of God
, Linda thought silently at more than one heartrending parent support group meeting.

Yet there were still Robby’s high-functioning meltdowns to endure, the battles for school services, the summons from school, the hours arguing with the insurance company over coverage of his therapies. And now, exposure to aviation and ornithology to arrange.

Dr. Felk’s contact at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum hadn’t been able to help. But there was the Henry Ford, a museum with historical aircraft in its collection. She knew Cathy Turner at work had a nephew or niece stationed at Selfridge on the other side of town. There was bound to be an Audubon chapter around. She went to Google.

Twenty minutes later she had marked her calendar with the next meeting of the Western Wayne County Audubon Club, found out the hours and rates at the Henry Ford, and e-mailed an appeal to Blue Cross over their latest denial. She’d stop by Cathy’s cube sometime that day.

Not bad progress, even though she’d pushed the clock and would be late for the sales meeting. It was worth it. She often thought of Robby’s brain as a kaleidoscope. It spun. It fractured. It was fragile. But it was also beautiful and original and bright. Dr. Felk had seen it. Maybe one of these others would, too.

Her cell phone rang as she thrust her arms into her coat.

“Mrs. Palmer? John Drake from Lindbergh School. How are you today?”

Linda’s arm froze halfway through her sleeve as Robby’s principal identified himself. “Fine, Mr. Drake. Is everything all right? Is Robby all right?”

“Yes, yes, everything’s all right. Quite all right, in fact. Robby’s teachers tell me he’s been doing very well lately.”

“I’m glad,” Linda said cautiously.

“Yes, it’s wonderful news. His behavior’s improved significantly. It’s been almost two months since he’s been to my office. His homework is nearly always turned in complete. And of course you knew about his aptitude for math and science, but I’m hearing from his other teachers that he’s keeping up this year.”

“That’s good to hear,” Linda said, wedging the phone between her ear and shoulder as she buttoned her coat. “Mr. Drake, I’m just on my way to work. Is there something—”

“Oh, well, then, don’t let me keep you. I just wanted to share the good news, and tell you that we feel the changes in Robby’s—um—situation warrant revisiting his IEP.”

Reaching into her purse for her keys, Linda’s fingers froze again.
Revisit his IEP
. School-speak for cutting back his services. He’s doing so well, might as well cut off the services that got him there.

“You want to get rid of Laura,” she said abruptly. For the first time this year, they had managed to get the services of a one-on-one aide written into the Individual Education Plan. She spent one study hall period a day working with Robby.

“Now, nothing is a foregone conclusion. That’s why we’re convening the IEP team.”

“Mr. Drake, Laura’s the reason Robby’s homework is complete. She’s the reason he hasn’t been to your office in two months. She just gets him.” Linda slid into her car.

“I’m glad she’s been such a positive force for Robby,” the principal said smoothly. “It’s my job to manage limited resources as efficiently as possible. If Robby no longer needs her—”

“He
does
still need her! He only sees her one period a day. I don’t see how you can be more efficient than that,” Linda protested, punching the garage door opener.

“I know this is difficult. And as I said, we’re only revisiting the IEP at this point. You and your husband will have equal input on any decisions made.” He paused. “How does next Wednesday work for you? One o’clock?”

The garage door creaked its way up. Her phone pulsed with a text message reminder of the meeting she would be late for. Mr. Drake waited. Silently, Linda screamed.