The Language of Sparrows (17 page)

“I know. That’s why I said thank you.”

He smiled like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. She knew it wasn’t. His parents must have been nice people. People like Carlos didn’t appear out of nowhere.

“But next time you do something like that, don’t spring it on me.”

He popped a shrimp into his mouth. “Yeah. I thought if I said a day on the beach, you might come. If I said a course in self-defense, you probably wouldn’t. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

They lingered over their dinner until Carlos reminded her that she was supposed to be home by ten. She shivered as they walked to the car, now that she’d cooled down. Her jacket was in the car, but Carlos insisted on giving her his. She nestled into it, letting it engulf her. It smelled like him—skin and guy soap.

They drove back to Houston through a close layer of darkness, zooming across the long bridge to the mainland and then onto the freeway, sailing past the lights of refineries, past glowing buildings downtown, and then into her part of town.

At her door, he circled her wrists, loosely this time. “One more time. Make me let go,” he said quietly.

His hands felt warm against her skin.

“Make me let go,” he said, his voice firmer.

She looked up at him, trying to get out the words she wanted to say. Finally, she forced them out. “I don’t want you to let go.”

He looked at her with those warm eyes. He brought her hands up to his face and lightly kissed each wrist. “Good night, Brown Eyes.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nick found his annual job evaluation in his in-box before the first bell. He opened it without leaving the mailroom, zeroing in on two short lines indicating he had failed to meet expectations. It came as no surprise, but that didn’t make the low scores any less infuriating.

Poor classroom discipline? Poor teaching methods? He didn’t think so. The dishonesty of the report swirled in the pit of his stomach. Reaching kids no one else could was the one thing he did well. Folding the paper into eighths, he shoved it into his pocket and strode to class.

As if the evaluation weren’t enough, Liza sent for him after school. She had the blinds closed and the office dim. Sitting behind the huge mahogany desk, she flipped through a file without looking his way even after he sat directly across from her.

“Emilio Cantu,” she said, without looking up.

“He’s a student of mine.”

She sent him a hostile glance. “It’s come to my attention he assaulted a girl in the hallway. You witnessed it and didn’t report it.”

“I had a long hard talk with Emilio, Ms. Grambling. And the girl’s mother happens to be a friend of mine. She
was
informed.”

“We have a code for handling assault, Mr. Foster. This is a serious matter.”

Nick sighed. “There’s a fine line between assault and intimidation. Emilio didn’t hurt the girl, though I’m sure he scared her.”

He didn’t mention Sierra’s name. The last thing Sierra needed was to get pulled into one of Liza’s interrogations.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, we have a zero-tolerance policy at Armstrong.”

“My mistake. I thought I handled it. It won’t happen again.”

Liza closed the file, clearly not satisfied. “It’s not the first time you ignored violence on campus.”

Nick cocked his head. “To my knowledge it is.”

“What about the incident with Ryan Brannigan?”

“I was the only one Ryan threatened. And a classroom conversation helped not only Ryan but all of his classmates think of better ways to handle their stress.”

She clicked her pen against the desk. “Zero tolerance, Mr. Foster.”

“I understand. It won’t happen again.” He stood to go. How did she even find out about Ryan’s threatening to hit him?

She slipped two pink notes into a folder. “I’m putting the notations into your file along with your refusal to follow the district-wide curriculum. You’re walking a fine line, Mr. Foster. I would hate to see you subjected to disciplinary action.”

Nick gripped the back of the chair. “Noted.”

He ground his teeth as he left. The reprimands were only weapons in Liza’s arsenal. They both knew what she was after. Fall in line. Drop everything else. Spend every second of class time prepping the kids for the state test for the next two months. Once he did that, the other complaints would disappear.

He started for his classroom, but changed his mind halfway down the hall. Today he was going home. On time.

That evening, Nick sat in front of his TV watching talking heads discuss college basketball. But in a short while, he switched it off and went upstairs. He was lucky. His punishment for having his own standards in his classroom was a possible suspension, maybe a transfer. It wasn’t prison.

The irony that he’d taken up his old man’s career was not lost on him. Not that he knew exactly why his father had been sent to prison. But according to his mother, Dad’s trouble with the secret police first began for speaking out in his classroom.

It had been a conscious decision for Nick to follow the same path. He wanted to be the man he’d believed his father to be in his idealistic youth. It didn’t matter that his father had turned out to be someone different.

He’d even tried to express his passion for teaching to Dad once. He showed him a file full of letters from his kids and told him about the students, adults now, who had let Nick know he’d made a difference in their lives. He thought perhaps they could bond over a shared calling, but his father’s only response had been to read the letters in silence and finish with a curt nod. He never brought the letters up again.

Nick went into his study, leafed through his files of letters from alumni students. Greedily, he drank in the letters from his kids, now grown and holding jobs as government officials, engineers, lawyers, ministers, even teachers.

They’d sent pictures of themselves with their husbands or wives and their children. There were even notes from kids who’d made mistakes, from teen pregnancies to crime. They still thanked him for helping them, though the truth of what they’d learned in his classes had dawned on them late.

How could he devote two months of school to work sheets and test prep? The kids who were assigned to him were at war with life.

He looked at the ceiling and swallowed a groan. He was not going to lose it. Fellow teachers had advised him to lay low for a while. “Play along,” they said. “Liza will be gone soon.”

Principals never did stay long, not at tough schools like Armstrong. But by the time Liza left, the Emilios and Ryans in his class would be gone too. There were no second chances. March, April, May—it was all the time he had left to feed their minds and hearts before they moved on to a different set of teachers or dropped out of school altogether.

He swallowed his anger and went downstairs for his tools before swinging out to the back deck. Dark was already falling, but it was time to do something with his hands, something that gave back more than it took.

April dropped Sierra and Luca off at Barnes and Noble, their standard haunt now. A lady from her church worked at the coffee shop there, and April had given her instructions to call if anything went awry. But it had been a few months now, and with Sierra in tow, nothing in the public place had set Luca off.

She used the opportunity of being on her own to stop by Nick’s. He needed to know what she was doing with his father. No one answered when she rang the doorbell, but a scraping sound came from the back. She peeked around the corner of the townhouse and found Nick sitting on the deck’s railing, wearing jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt.

He held something—a block of wood and a knife. His face furrowed in deep concentration as he carved slowly, shaving strokes along the block with only the dimness of the deck light to see by.

She’d told herself she’d come about Luca. But when she saw Nick, she had to admit that Luca wasn’t the only reason. The air came alive as Nick focused on the block of wood as though it were the only thing in the world. She liked being near him. It was as simple as that.

April coughed. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting.”

He looked up, startled, and then sent her a slow smile. “You’re never an interruption, April.”

Her heart did a little flip, and she sent it a quiet warning to behave itself.

He motioned her to a patio chair and joined her, setting the wood and knife on a table.

Trying to still her tapping feet, she sat on the edge of her chair and paused. “I’ve been visiting your father.”

He pulled his chair to face her.

“You’re going to think I’m interfering.”

“And are you?”

It had been a few weeks since she’d seen Nick in person. She had forgotten that gaze, that deep voice. She’d forgotten what his nearness did to her. She sat up straight, trying to shake off this feeling. She wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid anymore, and there was nothing she could do with the feelings Nick brought out in her.

She forced herself to speak. “I’m getting your dad’s story about his time in Romania.”

Nick let out a short laugh. “Good luck with that one. As far as I know, he’s the only one who knows that story. And it’s not one he tells.”

“He
is
telling me. He didn’t think he could tell it to you in person, but he wanted you to hear it.”

His stared at her with a quizzical smile.

“He’s
your
dad, Nick. It would mean a lot to me if I had your blessing.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “You’ve got it. For all the good it will do.”

April looked at the stars, bright in the clean, cold sky. Neither of them said anything. The silence dropped around them like a soft quilt.

Finally, Nick rested a leg over one knee and cleared his throat. “Mind if I ask what you’re up to? I know you want to make things nice, but my old man isn’t going to make that easy for you.”

Strength emanated from him. She could feel it, and it bothered her how much she liked it.

As if she were his echo, she cleared her throat. “Nick, I know what it’s like to love someone who isn’t as whole as you need them to be. I can only imagine what it’s like to live a story where you don’t know the first chapters driving the plot. I wanted you to have your dad’s story, and I wanted him to have the chance to tell it.” She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. Her skin felt warm despite the cool air. With a weak laugh, she added, “Like I said, I’m interfering.”

He gave her a long hard look. She’d let a few of her secrets drop and with his silence, Nick gave her an invitation to go on, but she couldn’t do it. The truth had just slipped out with Luca, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t get out the words
suicide
and
my husband
tonight.

“Don’t be upset, Nick. It’s a good thing, your dad talking.”

“Tension is how my old man and I do things. I’m not upset. It’s just been a hard day.”

“Want to talk about it?” she asked.

“Not really. I’d rather talk about you.”

“Me?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then came to stand beside her, resting his hand on her shoulder. It was only a touch, but it made her feel boneless. How long had it been since a man had touched her? How much longer than that since a man had made her feel sheltered? She looked up at him but then quickly looked away.

Nick dropped his hand, and she felt unaccountably bereft. He went to the railing, his back to her. April willed herself to tell him good-bye. It would be the right thing to do.

Instead, she joined him.

He turned to her. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since Christmas, April.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not honest. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since I saw you in that park with your camera and you looked like you were lost in some no-man’s-land between heaven and earth.”

There it was, said out loud—he shared her feelings. April stood mute in the silence.

A streak of uncertainty flashed behind his eyes when she didn’t say anything.

She wanted to draw him to her. She wanted to tell him how she felt. But it wouldn’t work. They both had too many demons. And Gary had taught her too well how those demons smother romance.

He was so strong, so generous. And he brought out a part of her that had been long forgotten. But she had nothing to offer Nick. Neither could she walk away. She was caught in the net of his nearness.

“April. Say something. Don’t leave me hanging here.”

“Nick, I—” What she wanted to say and what she should say battled it out, leaving her speechless. She tilted her face up to his, trying to find the words that refused to come to her. How could she tell him no? And how could she tell him anything else?

Nick bent to her, drawing her face close to his with his hand. He lingered close, giving her a chance to draw away.

His mouth covered hers, slow and questioning. She answered him with a returning kiss.

It was the wrong answer. It didn’t matter. Her head could scream “Run fast and far!” all it wanted, but her heart knew what it wanted—this.

He drew back.

“Nick, I-I …” she stuttered.
Hold me and don’t let me go.
It was on the tip of her tongue, but she said what she had to. “Anything between us … It wouldn’t work.”

His face grew tight. “I’m sorry. I thought …”

“I’m sorry too.”

She wanted to erase the hurt on his face. But if she let him know how she felt, it would only be a matter of time before loved bloomed … and then died under the pressure of their families and past hurts. A broken heart would only add bitterness to his life, to Sierra’s, maybe even to Luca’s.

So she searched for words to soothe the rejection without offering hope. “You’re an amazing man, Nick, and the best of friends. Like a brother, really. I wish it were different.”