Sparrow Road (12 page)

Outside the main house, silver Christmas tinsel sparkled in the branches and the weathered picnic table was covered in a velvet patchwork cloth that looked like Josie’s dress. We all had our own embroidered napkins; even G.J. had one now. A glittered WELCOME waited by his plate. All around the yard, tiny candles burned in clear glass jars. “My latest five-and-dime find!” Josie said. “Two hundred candles for three dollars. And all these old jars were just buried in the barn!”

I was relieved Gray James wasn’t there yet. Eleanor either. Mama said that if we were lucky Eleanor wouldn’t come to the barbecue at all.

Diego poured us each a cup of fruity punch. “Josie’s secret recipe,” he said with a wink. Strawberry bits floated on the top. “Be careful. She’ll probably put us all under a spell.”

Mama forced a smile. “Josie sure knows how to throw a party.”

“I sure do.” Josie grinned. She looked at Viktor. He was underneath the gnarled oak, sitting on the bench with Lillian. “Parties are my specialty,” she added, but Viktor only nodded. Strong as she was, I still didn’t think she’d get him to agree to the Arts Extravaganza.

“You look so lovely,” Lillian said to me. She patted at the empty chair beside her. “Please join me, dear. It’s nice here in the shade.” She lifted the dainty punch cup to her lips. “In all these years, we’ve never had a party. Not like this.”

“I believe there was a party every Christmas,” Viktor said. “With gingerbread you used to bake.”

“Did I?” Lillian blinked. “And was the party happy?”

“I don’t know.” Viktor combed his bony fingers through his hair. “I was a child then. What do children know?”

Viktor was a child at Sparrow Road? Did he visit the orphans with the Berglunds? Or was he an orphan once? Is that why he and Lillian were friends? Was he one of the children?

If I hadn’t been so nervous about Gray, I would have jumped out of my seat and rushed the update straight to Josie.

“Children know so many things,” Lillian said. She rested her wrinkled hand over my wrist. “This one is a wizard. She reads poetry to me.”

It was the grind of tire against gravel that made everybody freeze. My heart stilled in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I
really
couldn’t breathe. My voice was gone. The top of my head tingled. When I heard his car door slam, I wanted to bolt into the house, climb up to the tower, and slide the lock across the latch.

“He’s here,” Mama said. She looked at me as if it were the last time that she’d see me. I wanted her to hug me, to hold me until my heart slowed, but she stood frozen like a statue near the punch.

“Gray arrives,” Viktor announced. He glanced at me. Josie and Diego looked at me. Lillian was staring at the lilies.

I shrugged. “Okay,” I squeaked. I didn’t feel it, or mean it, but I said it because I didn’t know what else to say. More words wouldn’t have made it out my mouth.

“I enjoy a summer garden,” Lillian said.

And then Gray James walked into our yard.

He was small. Not small like me, but closer to Mama’s height than Viktor’s or Diego’s. Small shouldered and small boned. I saw right away I had his scrawny body. Shaggy bangs fell over his eyes. He wore cowboy boots and faded jeans, just like on the album, and his cowboy boots were still caked with crusty mud. Mama said he was her age, but he looked more like a boy. A battered old guitar case dangled from one hand.

“Hey there,” he said to nobody, and his voice had that same slow twang of his songs.

“Gray,” Viktor said. He ambled over and set his hand down on Gray’s small shoulder, almost the way a father would. Mama just stood silent. “You’re right on time. Let me introduce our summer artists: Diego, Lillian, and Josie.” Gray nodded toward each person. “Eleanor hasn’t joined us yet.”

“I met you my first day!” Josie stepped forward and swallowed up Gray’s hand. “When you were here working on the house. Painting those old windows.” Painting? Was Gray the painter we saw with Viktor on the street? The small man who barely waved? Wasn’t he a singer anymore? “Well, how cool that you’re Raine’s—” Josie stumbled on her sentence, then she stopped. “Raine’s Gray.”

“Glad to be.” Gray gave a little grin. Then he turned to Mama and tried to hand her the shabby old guitar case. “It’s an old Martin I picked up at a pawn shop. For you.” He looked shy and scared and small in front of Mama, and Mama didn’t look happy to see him.

“Great gift,” Diego said. He shook Gray’s hand. “I can’t wait to hear her play.”

“Thanks,” Mama said to Gray, but she wouldn’t take it. “But I don’t play guitar anymore.”

“Yeah,” Gray said. “You told me. But that’s a terrible shame. So I did a little shopping.” He held it out to Mama until she gave in and took it from his hand.

“Raine?” Mama called. She motioned for me to stand up from my lawn chair, to come over and say hello to Gray James, but my legs were too weak to walk across the yard. Instead, I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my hands around my flip-flops, and waited while Gray James followed Mama to my chair. I wanted a giant box to drop over my body. A fishbone was trapped inside my throat.

Gray James sank his hands in his back pockets. “Raine?” he said. His black deer eyes had a little bit of Lillian’s confusion, like he wasn’t completely certain who I was.

“She’s waiting for her father,” Lillian said.

My cheeks washed red; I didn’t want Gray James to think I was waiting here for him.

Gray grinned. “That so?” he said to Lillian. “Well, that’s good news for me.”

“Okay,” Mama gulped before she left us. “I’m going to get more punch.”

Gray sat down next to Lillian. “Hey,” he said to her, but he kept his smile on me. “Raine?” He shook his head a little. When he said my name it sounded like a question. “I hardly can believe it.”

“This one is a gift,” Lillian said. She touched my sleeve. “She reads poetry to me. I didn’t write poetry until after I was sixty.” Lillian ran her wrinkled hand over her book.

“Well, good for you.” Gray grinned. His shy, crooked smile never left his face. “Oh,” he said. He reached into the pocket of his shirt. “I got something for you, too.” He handed me a tiny box tied closed with curly ribbon. “You don’t have to open it right now.”

“Thanks,” I said. I tried to sound more sincere than Mama.

Mama propped the guitar against the table, then disappeared into the house. A second later Diego went in too. Josie lined the ears of corn up on the grill. “I hope everybody’s hungry,” Josie said.

Gray bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His skin was tan like mine, olive, but with tiny specks of paint. “You surely are a sight.” He cupped his hands together and put his cheek down on his fist. “You as scared as me?”

I nodded. One nod and my eyes already watered.

“We don’t have to be anything,” Gray said. “Not tonight. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Or ever, if that’s what you decide.”

“I’m not sure how long she’ll stay,” Lillian interrupted. “The little one has hope.”

“Hope’s good,” Gray said. Whenever Lillian added her two cents Gray’s eyes lit up, his crooked smile lifted to one side. “Your mama told me some things. You like to read?”

I sounded simple and stupid in Gray’s slow country voice. “Sometimes,” I said. After all these days of waiting, I didn’t have a word to say to Gray. This wasn’t how I pictured it at all.

“Raine and I are going to throw a party,” Josie blurted suddenly. She was at the grill, a wavy veil of smoke covering her face. “The Arts Extravaganza. So folks can come from Comfort.”

“What?” Viktor glared at Josie. “What exactly do you mean?” I could see he was confused. Me too. Why would Josie bring up the Arts Extravaganza now?

“A party!” Josie said. “But bigger than this barbecue. So the folks in Comfort can get to know the good at Sparrow Road. Can see the art we’ve created here this summer. We’ll make the food ourselves. Plan all the activities. Raine’s in charge of games. It won’t cost you any money.”

“Wow,” Gray said. “That’s really quite a thing.” He leaned back on the bench.

“And you’ll come, Gray,” Josie ordered. “You’ll sing. You and Molly both.”

I was glad Mama had gone into the house. She didn’t know about the party, didn’t know Josie just had invited Gray or that I’d already planned to ask Grandpa Mac to come.

“I don’t know about the singing.” Gray rubbed his hand across his face. “I’m on a little break.”

“And Lillian will read her poetry,” Josie said, like Gray would sing regardless. “Eleanor can read from her
masterpiece
if she feels so inclined. Raine is still deciding what she’ll make.”

“No,” Viktor said. “No party.”

“Diego and I will open up our sheds. Have our summer work out on display. And everyone who comes will make some art. We’ll set up creation stations. Embroidery. Collage. Memory patches. Poetry.”

“I will read my poetry,” Lillian said.

“Josie,” Viktor said. “You can’t just plan a party.”

“But it won’t be any trouble to you.” Josie planted her black boots firmly on the ground. She raised her tongs toward Viktor like she was ready for a battle. “And we’ll have it on a Sunday. August eighteenth. So it won’t interrupt the silence.”

“You already chose a date?” Viktor dropped his head.

“Raine and I have been busy making plans.”

“Plans?” Viktor sighed.

“And Raine’s grandpa will be coming. He’s driving from Milwaukee.”

“Your grandpa will be coming?” Gray’s crooked smile drooped a little bit.

“I hope,” I said. I hardly knew my own voice; it felt like I was talking through a tunnel. “I haven’t really asked him yet.”

“And I will read my poetry,” Lillian said again. She pressed her dress down on her legs.

“You see!” Josie said. “The party will be great!” She flipped the ribs and waved the smoke back from her face.

“No party,” Viktor said.

“It’ll be amazing,” Josie said. “An Arts Extravaganza like no other!”

“No,” Viktor repeated.

Gray smiled. I could tell he thought Josie was the sun. Strong and bright and big. Maybe strong enough to melt an iceberg. “Hey, Raine,” he drawled. “How ’bout we have a walk?”

 

That walk with Gray was the longest of my life. Gray said his favorite spot at Sparrow Road was the hill that overlooked the lake, because after a long hot day of painting he’d go down and take a dip. “Haven’t done it since,” he said. “And today is one hot day.”

“You don’t sing?” I asked. “What about your records?”

“I’m on a break,” he said. “Painting houses in between. The steady work helps me dream up songs.”

Gray James wasn’t a fast talker or a mover. But as we walked across the meadow, my heart started to still, my hands calmed, my old voice was coming back. We didn’t talk about us being father-daughter, or Amsterdam or why he never saw me in Milwaukee. His side of the story. Or why Mama never told me who he was. All the mysteries I thought this night would solve. Instead, Gray told about a scrawny near-dead kitten he’d rescued off the road. Mr. Bones. Gray said he’d found him starving and now Mr. Bones liked to sleep draped around Gray’s neck like a scarf. And when Gray let him have a taste, he was crazy about cantaloupe. I told him about Beauty, the way she only purred for me and how I bought her a can of tuna every Christmas. I said I hoped I’d have a dog someday, and Gray said that as a boy his best friend had been Buddy, a spaniel mutt his dad won in a poker game. “Shaggy black, with a white stripe down his muzzle.” Gray ran his finger down his nose. “Just thinking of that stripe still makes me miss him. I sure wish I had that dog today.”

When we finally stopped to look down at the lake, Gray said he wasn’t sure about the present. “It may not be a thing a girl would like. I don’t know too many girls your age.” He tugged a little on his shirt. I’d already forgotten that he gave a gift to me; I’d left the box sitting on my chair. “I spent a lot of hours hunting down the perfect thing. I was so nervous for tonight.” Gray let his bangs fall over his face. “But I never did believe something bought could take the place of feelings.”

“No,” I said. “Me either.” I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but it sounded right to me. Something bought couldn’t take the place of feelings. Maybe it was the same thing Grandpa Mac meant when he said money can’t buy love. If I’d had the words, I would have told Gray it didn’t matter what he bought me. What mattered most, standing there, staring at the lake, was that I had a name and face for my beginning. He was small and slow and sad and kind of country, but I was glad Gray James belonged to me.