Sparrow Road (10 page)

“Before we moved back to Milwaukee to live with Grandpa Mac?”

“Yes,” Mama said.

“Well, if you loved him, why didn’t you get married?”

“Oh, Raine.” Mama blushed, embarrassed. It was a blush that made me worry that Mama was in this love alone. “I don’t want to talk about those things.”

“But did he disappear? I mean, all these years, where was he?”

Mama stared into my eyes, the kind of long look she gave before she told me something serious. “Gray has things he plans to tell you for himself. It’s not for me to say.” She lifted up our dirty plates and walked over to the sink.

“But why?” I said. “And if he wasn’t really dangerous, why didn’t I ever know him before now? Not even his name? Or that he was a singer from Missouri? Things you could’ve told me.”

“I could have.” Mama stared out at the meadow. “And I know you think I should have. But I wanted you to have a family you could count on. Stable. Steady. And I couldn’t count on Gray. Plus Grandpa Mac didn’t want him in our life. I thought the family that we built would be enough.”

“It was,” I said. “But I wish he hadn’t been a mystery. I wish I would have known his name at least.”

“I’m sorry,” Mama said. “But what I did, I did with love.”

 

It wasn’t until Diego showed up at our cottage with a plate of oatmeal cookies that Mama remembered the artists needed supper and I remembered that Diego said we had a date out on the lake.

“We already ate,” Diego said. “A feast of leftovers and cookies we scrounged out of the freezer. The electricity’s still down. And I’m afraid the butter-brickle ice cream melted to a mess. But we can still go on the boat.”

Mama wrapped her arm around my back. “We’re not up for company tonight. It’s been a big day here.” The way she said
big day
, I knew she was sending a signal to Diego.

Diego nodded like he knew the truth was finally told. He stepped back from the cottage. “In that case, our rowboat ride can wait.” He took a little bow and set the plate of cookies in my hand. “And Raine, Josie said to tell you that the rhubarb taffy’s still a go.”

“The rhubarb taffy!” In all this talk of Gray James, I’d forgotten the Rhubarb Social was tomorrow. Our rhubarb taffy still needed to be made.

“But first you’ll need electricity,” Diego said. “Josie plans to brew it bright and early. She’ll probably be at your door at sunrise.”

“Oh,” Mama moaned like she was sick. “That Rhubarb Social is tomorrow.” I knew now why Mama didn’t want us to go. Gray James lived in town. “We might just stay home.”

“No,” I said. “I have to go. We’ve been planning it all week.” Josie said there’d be people at the picnic who remembered when the orphans lived at Sparrow Road. Maybe someone who knew Lillian. Someone who could tell us the way things used to be.

“Josie’s got everybody going,” Diego said to Mama. “Even Lillian and Viktor.”

“Eleanor?” I asked.

“No.” Diego laughed. “I don’t think she recruited Eleanor.”

Mama pulled me closer. “Tomorrow’s just too early. Raine doesn’t even know when or where or
if
she wants to meet him.” Mama had said that just because Gray lived as close as Comfort didn’t mean I’d have to meet him if it wasn’t what I wanted now.

“Of course,” Diego said. “Raine will need more time. But that doesn’t mean she has to miss the Rhubarb Social.”

“But what if Gray is there?” Mama said. “Eating rhubarb pie? And the two of them just meet? I want Raine to have a choice. To meet him when she’s ready.”

Tomorrow
was
too early; after twelve long years without him, I needed time to get used to Mama’s news. Figure out what I wanted next. But I didn’t want to miss the Rhubarb Social either. I’d already had one good day with Josie ruined. “Mama,” I said. “We’ve been planning this all week. Can’t you call him on the phone? Ask him not to go?”

“I can try,” Mama said. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“Wow!” Josie whistled. “This is guite a crowd for Comfort. You ready for a party, Raine?” She pulled our tins of rhubarb taffy from her backpack and set them on the table with every other rhubarb recipe the folks from Comfort cooked.

“Sure,” I said. I was, but not as ready as I had been before Gray James became a name, a
what-if
as close as Comfort. Now I mostly had him on my mind.

“Well, we’re the only rhubarb taffy!” Josie said. There was rhubarb crisp and rhubarb ice cream, rhubarb bars and cookies, rhubarb cake and bread, rhubarb soup and rhubarb tea brewing in the sun. “We win for originality at least!”

“True.” I tried to smile. It might have been original, but our taffy tasted terrible—sweet and sour and stringy. I was glad my name wasn’t on the tins.

“Come on.” Josie yanked my arm. “Let’s go make some friends!”

The two of us worked the Rhubarb Social as a pair while Mama watched us from a table in the shade. She kept her worried eyes on me like Gray James just might be here after all.

“And this would be our writer, Raine,” Josie said to everyone we met. She dragged me through the picnic and made me shake so many hands I felt like I was running for election.

Most the men I saw made me think about Gray James. Was he somewhere at this picnic? Would I shake his hand by accident and not know it was him? That singer from Missouri? That gentle spirit Mama couldn’t count on?

“We’re from Sparrow Road,” Josie said to everybody. “The artist retreat. Raine writes. Me, I sew fabric art from scraps. Quilty kinds of things.” For some reason, the quilting part put most folks at ease. The ladies talked to Josie about their own quilts they were sewing; a couple of men asked about my stories. Everyone we met took a few odd looks at Josie. “Reuse and recycle,” Josie joked whenever someone stared too long at her dress. Still, I could tell they liked the happy gap between her teeth and the kind way she offered everyone our terrible rhubarb taffy.

We sat down at table after table, and at every table Josie invited strangers to our Arts Extravaganza. In just one day, the Arts Extravaganza had turned real. Real, but Viktor still didn’t know. Mama either. I was glad they sat far enough away that they couldn’t hear Josie’s plans.

“So you’ll come?” Josie asked at the end of every conversation. “We can count on you?” Most folks didn’t seem eager, but everyone was too polite to say so. The Comfort folks were a distant kind of friendly—nice enough, but not in any hurry to have you to their house. Not Josie’s brand of friendly.

Whenever Mama caught my eye, she’d pat the empty seat beside her. She already had Diego, Lillian, and Viktor, but I knew it was me she wanted close in case Gray James suddenly appeared. Mama wanted me to sit, but I just couldn’t. We still had our research to get done.

“Did you know any of the orphans?” I asked a man who looked as shaky old as Lillian.

“Well, no,” he rasped. “I can’t say that I did. Although they came to church on holidays, of course. A few hitched rides on the highway when they tried to run away.”

“Run away?” I asked.

“I suppose to get back to where they came from. They weren’t original to Comfort. Never were. We’re not a town of orphans. Children here have parents. We’re a family kind of place.” He squinted at the sun. Across the lawn a group of kids played a game of rhubarb toss.

“Good invention,” Josie said to me. “Rhubarb toss. We’ll need good games at our Arts Extravaganza.”

“You know.” He tapped his cane against my leg. “There may be one orphan. A lady in Spring Valley. Married to a Lutheran preacher. I believe she settled in these parts.”

“A lady in Spring Valley?” Josie jumped out of her seat. “Any chance you know her name?”

“Nope,” he said. “I can’t say that I do.”

When I turned back to Mama’s table she was gone. Viktor too. There were people crowded everywhere, families gathered on old blankets, but Mama wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Josie. Mama’s sudden absence made me certain something strange was going on.

“Where’d Mama go?” I asked Diego. “And Viktor?” I had a hunch Gray James was at this picnic and Mama was somewhere at his side.

“How’s the research going?” Diego joked like he hadn’t heard my question. “I think you and Josie better plan to run the world.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a purple bead. “My big find so far at this picnic. Must be left over from a Sunday school project.”

“Oh, Sunday school.” Lillian pointed toward Good Shepherd. “Our children never go to Sunday school in town. But of course we always pray.”

“Diego?” I interrupted.

“More rhubarb tea, sweet Lilly?” Diego picked up her empty cup.

“Is he here?” I asked Diego. Everywhere there were men in Sunday suits. Men in ties. Men in sport shirts and long sleeves. Men in baseball caps and glasses. Somewhere out there Mama was talking to Gray James. I knew it in my heart. “Tell me.”

“He was.” Diego finally nodded. “But I believe your mama asked him to go home.”

That night after the social, I pestered Mama with my questions. Even though she said Gray didn’t see me at the picnic, I couldn’t escape the feeling that I’d missed him by a minute. The answer to a question I’d wondered my whole life. He’d been there in the crowd, then he was gone. A man I could have met by accident, and all of my decisions would be done.

The little Mama told me—how he grew up in a trailer in Missouri, how he made records for a living, how his melancholy songs went straight to people’s hearts—she told me in a hurry, like Gray James was a subject she couldn’t dwell on for too long.

 

Did you think about your father’s face?
I wrote Lyman the next morning. Lyman knew the feeling of having someone gone.
Wonder what he looked like?
I closed my eyes and imagined Lyman sitting right beside me, the two of us just talking at Viktor’s turtle pond. The white sun waving in the water. The timid turtles sunning on the rocks. Turtles were the perfect pets for Viktor.

Sure,
Lyman said.
I saw him in my mind. And other times when I looked into the mirror. I liked to think I saw his face in mine. But who knows, he might not have looked like me at all. But you’re a girl,
he said.
A girl would take after her mother.

I know my mother,
I said.
And we don’t look alike.

Then I guess you take after him.
Lyman ran his fingers through the water. It was too slimy green and murky for me to ever touch.
But you’ll see that for yourself when you meet him face-to-face.

Three days had passed since I learned about Gray James, and still I didn’t know when or how or if the two of us would meet.

You think we’ll really meet?
I asked.

Sure,
he said.
If I were you, I’d want to meet him now.

It was late that afternoon when Viktor found me in the tower. He reached his pale, skinny arm up through the trapdoor and without a word left a wrinkled envelope beside me on the floor. Sealed, so I knew he hadn’t read it. In blocky penciled letters on the front someone had written RAINE O’ROURKE. All capitals, just like every word printed in the letter.

Only his name was signed in messy cursive.
Gray
, he wrote, not
Dad
, which felt exactly right to me. Gray James—who would be ready when I was.