Sparrow Road (17 page)

Gray left me outside the Soap-N-Sudz while he went up for Mr. Bones. He said his place was too lowdown for company. It was a stopping-for-a-short-stay kind of place. A bridge between where he was and where he thought he ought to be. Not so far from the trailer in Missouri where he started.

When he stepped outside, Gray had Mr. Bones cradled in his arms. Mr. Bones was half the size of Beauty, with a bony spine that ran like a lumpy path straight down his skinny back. “I don’t let him loose,” Gray said. “Wouldn’t want him to get lost.”

“You sound just like Mama.” I laughed. “It’s the same way she treats me.”

“Sure,” Gray said. “I guess too much love is like that.”

He petted Mr. Bones behind the ears; together they made the perfect misfit pair. I wished I had a camera so I could save Gray in this minute.

“Uh-oh,” Gray said when Mr. Bones began to wiggle. We stepped inside the shadowed stairwell, shut the metal door, and sat down on the grimy steps so Gray could let him free. “He sure does like you, Raine,” Gray said when Mr. Bones curled up on my lap. It made me sad to think of Gray climbing those dirty stairs alone, eating the same supper at the Comfort Kitchen every night.

“Why’d you come to Comfort in the first place?” I asked. “And how do you know Viktor?” There were still pieces to Gray’s puzzle I hadn’t put together.

“Oh,” Gray said. “I thought we might go without my troubles for one day. Just have the here and now.”

“We have the here and now,” I said. Mr. Bones ran his scratchy tongue along my finger. “But I still want to hear it.”

“It’s long,” Gray said. “We got to meet up with Josie by two thirty. I don’t want your mama to worry if you’re late.”

“Just give me the abbreviated version,” I said. “Paraphrase.”

“Paraphrase?” Gray laughed. “You really are a wonder to me, Raine.”

 

I sat there on those steps with Mr. Bones purring on my lap and listened to Gray’s story. He said he’d come here for a place called New Connections, a place not too far from Comfort, a place for men like him who never could quit drinking on their own.

“And after I was finished,” Gray said, “Viktor came out to New Connections, offered me a home, a job out at his place. Not really for the money, just steady work to keep me far from trouble. I’m not the only soul he’s rescued, Raine. Viktor’s helped a lot of down-and-outs. Folks hoping for a hand.”

“Did you live at Sparrow Road?”

“I did,” he said. “That old house needs a lot of help. I joined on with his work crew through that winter. Painted. Plastered. Anyway, it’s how Viktor came to know I had a daughter. One I’d lost because of drinking. And somehow, without me knowing, he got your mama on the phone, told her I was sober, and talked her into meeting me for coffee in Milwaukee. It was Viktor who drove me to that meeting, and he sat right there beside me while your mama showed me pictures of you, Raine. All the years I’d missed. It made me know the family I’d let go.” A hint of tears washed over Gray’s black eyes. “Then Viktor offered her the cottage, so she could come this summer and see me for herself; see that my drinking days were really done. And maybe let me have a chance with you after all.”

“That’s how Mama got the job?”

“Yep,” Gray said. “But it wasn’t a job that Viktor offered. Your mama could have stayed at Sparrow Road for free. But your mama won’t take charity. So Viktor said he’d hire her for whatever work she wanted. His housekeeper was moving off to Fargo at the end of June. Still, it took more months of convincing. More trips Viktor made to Milwaukee by himself. Trips without me knowing. I couldn’t believe the day he drove over to my place and told me your mama had said yes. The two of you were coming here that week.” Gray shook his head. “It was an all-out miracle for me.”

“Viktor did all that so we could meet?” Suddenly, he wasn’t just the Iceberg anymore.

“Silent as he seems, Viktor’s life is mostly helping others. Not just me. Or the artists he offers his house to every summer. He’s a man who lives to help. I suppose it’s how he quiets his own troubles.”

“Troubles?”

“Sure.” Gray stretched out his legs. “Like the rest of us, I imagine Viktor’s had his share.”

“Have you ever heard his music?” I put my hands over my ears. “It sounds like children hurt.”

“I have indeed,” Gray said. “I never knew an instrument could make that kind of sound.”

I ran my finger along Mr. Bones’s soft neck. “Do you think Viktor might have been an orphan? Before he was a Berglund?”

“To tell the truth,” Gray said, “that very thought has crossed my mind.”

“It has?” I smiled. Gray James was a dreamer just like me.

When I got back to our cottage, I heard the little pluck of strings float out our bedroom window. And then I heard the hum of Mama’s voice, followed by a few high
la-la-las
. Then some words about a river, and I knew Mama was upstairs in our bedroom playing that guitar. Mama hadn’t touched it since the night Gray gave it to her as a gift.

I waited silent at the door so Mama wouldn’t stop singing. Most of it was just the sound of songs that couldn’t get started—Mama’s fingers plucking at the strings—she’d play a few sweet notes and then she’d stop. It was a sound I’d waited lots of years to hear, not just Mama singing, but Mama playing a guitar. The way she did in all our old-time pictures.

Mama’s fingers on those strings and her beautiful smooth voice reminded me of something I must have known once and then forgotten. A long-lost feeling, maybe my baby days in Amsterdam. Me on Mama’s back, or Mama barefoot singing on the streets.

Upstairs Mama’s voice skipped like a rock across the water. It rang beautiful and clear, pure and green. I knew why Gray had stopped to listen that first day in Amsterdam. And how Mama owned his heart.

I waited until the music finally stopped, until I heard Mama set the guitar back in the case and snap the latches shut.

“Mama,” I called up to our bedroom.

“I’m up here, Raine.” She was sitting on the bed, the guitar case right beside her. “How’d things go this time with Gray?” I saw the old fear in her eyes.

“Good,” I said. “Lots better.” I didn’t want Mama to worry about Gray. Or me. I wanted the little time we had left here to be happy. “I heard you play.”

“You did?” Mama hung her head. “I can’t play anymore.” Once Grandpa Mac said Mama threw away her future living like a hippie.

“You sure can. I heard you play and sing. And it was beautiful. It really, really was.”

“I wish Gray hadn’t given this to me,” Mama said. She shoved the case away. “I’ve forgotten how to play. Some of it comes back, but most of it is gone.” Then she opened up her arms for a huge hug. “But anyway, you’re my music now.”

“You could play that song you were just singing for our party. Let everybody hear it. Grandpa Mac and Gray.”

“No,” Mama said. Then she wrinkled up her forehead. “Grandpa Mac and Gray. There’s a frightening thought. I don’t even know how Grandpa Mac will be with me. I’m sure he’s still mad we even came to Sparrow Road.”

“Mama.” I sat beside her on the bed and dropped my cheek against her shoulder. “When Grandpa Mac gets here for the party, I want things to be okay.”

“Okay?” Mama said. “Okay in what way, Raine?”

“The way they were before we left Milwaukee. All those years before Grandpa Mac got mad about this job. He wasn’t mad at you, Mama, he was worried about Gray.”

“I know.” Mama pushed a curl back from her face. “But he should have trusted me. I wasn’t going to put you in harm’s way. I wasn’t going to take a chance if Gray’s drinking days weren’t done. And you’re my daughter, Raine. In the end, it’s up to me to do what’s best. Not Grandpa Mac. I can’t stay his little girl forever.”

“You’re right.” I smiled at Mama. “Just like I can’t stay yours.”

Mama kissed me on the forehead. “I’m learning that too, Raine.”

“I just want the Arts Extravaganza to be happy. Everybody. My family. And all the people who come to Sparrow Road. Even Nettie Johnson, when she sees this place again.”

“Nettie Johnson?” Mama said.

“The woman Josie and I met for pie that day. The one who was an orphan here.”

“Do you think she’s really coming?” Mama asked.

“I hope,” I said. “I hope everybody comes. And when they do, I want it all to be pure happy. I want Grandpa Mac to see our time here wasn’t a mistake. And for him to give Gray a second chance. Because I did.”

“Whoa!” Mama laughed. “That’s quite a list. I’m afraid you’re getting as headstrong as dear Josie.” She lifted up my chin. “I’ll try to make my peace with Grandpa Mac, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for Grandpa Mac and Gray. Grandpa Mac’s not one to let go of a grudge.”

“He can do it for the party,” I said.

“Well,” Mama sighed, “we’ll see.”

Preparations for the Arts Extravaganza gave a new hum to the house. Mama and I baked so many bars and cookies the freezer was stocked full. Lillian cut linen squares for napkins; Diego scrubbed the floors. Josie spent hours in the barn fixing broken chairs and tables, digging out boxes of old dishes, silverware, crystal trays, things she said we’d need to serve the guests. Even Gray stopped by one day to string Christmas lights through trees.

Busy as we were, it still seemed to be forever before Grandpa Mac would get to Sparrow Road. Mama said his visit would come sooner if I quit counting down the days. But all that I could picture was Grandpa Mac in his big Buick pulling into our long driveway and the shocked look on his face when he saw Sparrow Road. The sprawling artists’ house, the sky-high tower, the miles of rolling hills.

“You here, Josie?” I called into the barn. Lately all the party work kept us both too busy for our nightly sojourn to the attic. I missed sitting there with Josie and dreaming Lyman’s story, all the orphans’ stories, thinking of
what was or what could be
.

“Buried under treasures,” Josie called.

Even though hay and horses were long gone from the barn, I could still smell the old life in the wood. Mice darted between boxes. Birds nested in the rafters. Of all the buildings at Sparrow Road, I liked the barn the least. It reeked of mold and mildew, and it was filled with things left too long to rot. School desks and lamps and chests, blackboards, broken bikes, baseball bats and mitts, metal cribs, an old wheelchair pushed back in the corner, a black upright piano covered with thick cobwebs. And around it all, boxes stacked on boxes that Josie said were filled with years of life. It was Josie’s favorite treasure-hunting place.

“This barn is amazing,” Josie said. Her patchwork dress was smudged with streaks of dirt. “I could spend a year just searching.”

She pointed to an old piano. “A little out of tune, but it still works. Try it out, I’d love to hear a song.” So far all the songs that Lillian had taught me were little kids’ songs. Nursery rhymes to music.

“We’re not to ‘Happy Birthday’ yet,” I said. I’d promised Josie that as soon as I learned “Happy Birthday” she could hear me play.

“Here!” She handed me a suitcase, child-sized, brown and battered at the edges, with a little leather handle and a sticker that said Austria peeled back on the front. “It’s a stash of music. You can use it when you’re finally done with that kid book Viktor found.” I was learning from an old piano book that once belonged to Viktor, with the silver stars he earned for every perfect lesson still stuck on the page. It was hard for me to think a prodigy once learned songs that simple.

I snapped the metal latches open; inside a stack of old piano books was piled to the top.
Teaching Little Fingers
.
Ten Christmas Tunes. Songs for Happy Children.
None of these looked much better than playing “Twinkle, Twinkle.” “I bet these were Lillian’s,” I said. “She probably used them for her lessons.” I picked up
Ten Christmas Tunes
; maybe Lillian could teach me “Silent Night” before the summer ended.