The Language of Sparrows (11 page)

He put his jacket around her shoulders, unraveled a scarf from inside a pocket and wrapped it around her neck, and then took her hands in his and began to chafe them into warmness. She was too cold to resist and fell into his arms of warmth.

Neither of them spoke. If only it could stay that way. She didn’t want to hear him say it was time to go home. She didn’t want to tell him she was never going back. But eventually, one of them would have to break the silence. It would have to be her.

Sierra pulled back. “I-I wanted to make sure he was okay.” That was all she could say before her teeth began chattering.

Carlos nodded, stood, and pulled her up with him. “I know.” His voice was low and sad.

He wrapped his arm around her. Too tired and frozen to ask where they were going, she let him lead her to the car and drive her wherever he wanted to take her. He stopped by a drive-through and got two hot ciders. Thawed by the warm drink, she knew what had to come next. But he didn’t talk about what came next.

“So what is it about this old man, Brown Eyes?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Carlos didn’t accept that answer. He waited for her to say more.

“I can be who I am when I’m with him. I’m not too smart or too uncool. And I don’t need to be saved from myself. We talk, that’s all.”

Carlos blew on his cider and turned a corner with one hand on the wheel. “Sounds like a nice guy.”

“The thing is, I think he liked me being there too. I don’t think anyone pays attention to him either.”

“You’re friends.”

She nodded, pleased. That’s what Mr. Prodan was: her friend.

The conversation trailed off, and Sierra looked out the window. Headlights filled the road as people hurried to work. They stopped at a red light a block from home.

“I don’t want to go home.”

He looked at her hard. “Don’t turn your back on your mom, Sierra. Family’s not something you want to give up.”

She knew why he said it. He wished he had his family back. Well, that was fine for Carlos. He had warm memories of his parents.

He drove her home, as she’d known he would. It was sunrise when they walked up the steps to her apartment. Sierra slid out of the jacket and handed it back to Carlos before she opened the door.

Chapter Sixteen

April leaped off the couch with a strangled cry. She threw her arms around her little girl. “Where
were
you?”

Sierra stood like a statue in April’s embrace, then broke away and ran into her room. April was alone again in only a matter of seconds. She buried her face in her hands. After a long night speaking with the police, calling everyone, anyone who might have seen her daughter, and then sitting tight as they told her to do, she felt like splintered glass.

“Give me wisdom,” she whispered, looking up to the ceiling. “Give me light.” It was a prayer of habit, more than anything. April was accustomed to unanswered prayers, but she couldn’t stop praying altogether. She wasn’t ready to admit that kind of defeat.

She marched to Sierra’s bedroom and raised her hand to knock on the door, but stopped to take a deep breath first. She didn’t want to storm in on the offense. She had to win this battle with love, not force.

She tapped on the door, and when she got no answer, opened it with a gentleness she didn’t feel. Sierra lay huddled in the rumpled bed. April sat on the corner of the bed, waiting for the storm, stroking her daughter’s back. The tears never came, but still, Sierra kept her face buried in the pillow.

“Sierra,” April said in her softest voice. “I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here to help you.”

Sierra looked up from her pillow. “He’s got pneumonia.”

“Who?” But who else? “Don’t answer that, sweetie. I know who you mean.” April smoothed the blankets, searching for the information Sierra wasn’t sharing. “Where were you? At the hospital?”

Sierra’s mouth quivered, and her face crumpled. She shook her head.

“Where did you go?”

“Mr. Foster said he was in the medical center. But there were so many hospitals. I couldn’t find him.”

All of April’s anger melted at the thought of Sierra wandering through the blocks of unending hospitals, all alone in the cold, wet night.

“I went back to his house and sat on the patio in his backyard.”

“Sweetheart, I am not your enemy. Did it occur to you to tell me he was sick?”

Sierra shook her head violently. “You wouldn’t have let me visit him, Mom. You and Mr. Foster think he’s dangerous, but he’s not.”

April pulled Sierra into her arms. She rocked her daughter as if she were three again and a hug could make everything better. She smelled of apples and ginger, reminding April of the days of applesauce and bath times.

Finally she stood to go. “Rest, baby. I’ll take you to see him after you’ve had some sleep.”

Alone in the living room, she looked up at the center tile on the wall—mother and child in outline. They were in this together. How could Sierra not see that?

That evening they walked through miles of corridor before they reached the hospital’s main elevator bank. On the ninth floor, another long corridor brought them to a set of double doors. April guided Sierra through them.

The nurses at the station waved them in. But when April opened the door, Luca was asleep. With only the fluorescent recess lights on, the room was left in a dim glow. His breathing rattled. His color was a shade lighter than skim milk. Sierra looked back at her, and April gave her an encouraging nod.

Nick sat in a window seat, grading papers on his knee. Keeping the quiet, he stood and motioned for them to sit on the padded bench next to him.

A newspaper lay on the bench and April picked it up, preparing to fold it and put it in the corner. She stopped when she saw it was probably in Romanian and handed it to Sierra, who began poring over it.

She felt Nick’s eyes on them before he whispered to Sierra, “So what’s happening in Bucharest?”

Sierra looked up at the wall, at the TV. “The government is meeting to make their budget stronger. And they’re preparing for the anniversary of the December Revolution.” Sierra looked down then. This was the part where she’d downplay what she’d said. It’s what she always did when she got caught being brilliant. “At least I think that’s what it says. I can’t make out all the words.”

Nick looked directly at Sierra. “It sounds like you made out the words just fine.”

There was no doubt in April’s mind what he was thinking. Sierra had a way of throwing people off when they realized what she could do. She wasn’t just bright.

They dropped back into quietness. April watched Mr. Prodan, only vaguely aware of Nick and Sierra on either side of her. Luca was a shrunken, pale version of the man he’d been only a few weeks ago, and he hadn’t seemed strong then.

He stirred and opened his eyes, but didn’t appear to see them.

Sierra drew close to his bed and leaned over to take his hand. “Mr. Prodan,” she whispered. “It’s me, Sierra. I’m here. Is it all right?”

“Sierra Wright,” he said with wonder in his voice. He struggled to sit, and April could tell even that small effort cost him. He looked at the window where April and Nick sat. “If I knew this is all I should have to do to earn your visit, I should have gone swimming in the bayou with the first chill in November.”

“I won’t stay long,” Sierra whispered.

Her daughter was at ease with Luca Prodan, and the man appeared to relax with her by his side. It all seemed so right.

Luca smiled at Sierra. His face appeared blue in the artificial light. The lighting made the scars stand out across his hands. April winced, recalling the picture taken after Luca’s release from prison. She didn’t want to consider what might have made the scars on his hand or how vicious his life must have been during those years.

But the thought that really plagued her was the suspicion that what made the relationship between this man and her daughter work was an unnatural bond of pain. Sierra had suffered. Gary’s illness, and then his death, had left a scar. But was a man who had lived through a gulag the only one who could understand her?

Mr. Prodan caught April’s gaze. He had such gratitude in his glance. She wanted to give him something of worth. And there was only one thing April had to give him—time with her daughter.

She motioned to Nick, and they stood. “We’ll leave you two to talk. We’ll be in the lobby if you need us.”

With winter coming on, it grew dark early. The lights from the other buildings in the medical center shone outside the ninth-floor lobby, but the hospital had turned the inside lights down for the evening. The smell of waxed floors mixed with coffee from a nearby kitchenette. Nick stood beside her, looking into the darkness.

April turned from the window and leaned against the windowsill to face Nick. It was clear what she had to do. “I’m going to allow Sierra to visit with your dad again.”

She waited for some kind of response but only got wary silence. Nick had such natural goodness when he was with her, with Sierra. He was at ease. But when the subject turned to his father, he always took on such tension.

“She ran away last night,” April went on, needing to make him understand.

Nick shot her a worried glance.

“She was trying to find Luca, but didn’t know the hospital name. Spent the night in his backyard. She’s teaching herself Romanian. Studying Romanian history. Luca is all she can think about.”

April shook her head, her voice rising a notch. “She’s so like her dad. It doesn’t matter how high the stakes are, what the cost is to herself or her mental health. She’ll grieve for your father until I allow her to see him. I know you’ve said he can be mean-spirited. And I’ve seen firsthand he can’t always cope.”

April’s voice grew hoarse. “Sometimes faith is all that’s left. And I’m going to have faith that your father will be good to my daughter.”

Nick stopped her with a raised hand. “April, you don’t owe me an explanation.”

She didn’t. But she wanted him to approve. She wanted him to say something encouraging, to remove the doubt that she was endangering her daughter.

“You know her best,” he said. “Trust your mother’s intuition. I do. ”

It would have been nice if he’d said, “You can trust him with your sensitive daughter,” but he’d given her the most optimistic answer he could.

She stole a glance at him, imagining what she would see if she aimed a camera his way. She’d been afraid to take his photo at Ali’s shop. Pictures were intimate things. But today, she felt she needed to know. He was Luca’s son. He held a key of sorts to her daughter’s future. What kind of man was Nick?

He held his shoulders straight and kept an unwavering gaze. He had a certainty about him. A sense of being in charge. He was a leader, she thought, able to lead others under fire. That was the kind of man he was. Who were his troops? His students?

But there was something else. It wasn’t in his eyes or the way he held himself. A camera might not even capture it. It reverberated off him—a rugged loneliness, a sense that if anything had to be done, it would be up to him and him alone to do it.

How much did Luca have to do with that loneliness? And if Nick could reach out to others—to his students, to Sierra, to her—why couldn’t he reach out to his own father?

He stretched his hands on the sill next to her. “Don’t forget one thing, April.” His voice startled her, as if he’d caught her aiming her invisible camera. He waited for her full attention. “Sierra is your daughter.”

April shook her head, not following.

“You’re modeling strength for her. And compassion. You’re showing her a dozen other traits that will serve her. Whatever road she’s got to go down, my guess is she’ll find the way with you showing her the route.”

April fiddled with a strand of hair at her neck, looking into Nick’s eyes, holding on to the words for all they were worth. He suddenly seemed nearer than he’d been, though neither of them had moved.

Nick
was
Luca Prodan’s son. As far as April was concerned, that was a good thing. Her daughter would profit from the old man’s wisdom and directness. Those were traits he had given his son, whether or not Nick realized it.