Sparrow Road (19 page)

“We are,” Grandpa Mac said.

“No,” I said. “Not really. Not with you and Mama.”

“No?” Grandpa Mac said.

“You need to say you’re sorry.”

“Sorry?” Grandpa Mac stiffened on the bench. “To whom? Not Gray James?”

“No,” I said. “To Mama. You need to let her know she did the right thing coming here this summer. Letting me meet Gray.”

He folded his big hands; Mama always told me sorry was a bitter pill for Grandpa Mac. “Okay.” He tapped his thumbs together. “I’ll do my best. But I’m not sure your mama wants my sorry. If her mind’s made up already, I might as well say I’m sorry to the moon.”

Early the next morning, Grandpa Mac’s breakfast basket was waiting at our door. Painted eggs, fresh blueberries, and Josie’s trademark golden glitter WELCOME. “Will you look at this?” Grandpa Mac held up his hand-stitched napkin. “G.M.” He laughed. “That Josie’s something else.”

When Mama stumbled sleepy eyed downstairs, Grandpa Mac got up from the table and handed her a cup of steamy coffee. “You sleep okay, sweetheart? You stayed up awfully late working on that party.” I’d forgotten Grandpa Mac watched and worried over Mama, just like she watched and worried over me.

“Not so late, Dad.” Mama smiled at the welcome basket.

Grandpa Mac cradled Josie’s egg. “I couldn’t stand to crack a thing this pretty. I think I’ll take mine back to Milwaukee, show the customers. They’d want to have a look.”

“Sparrow Road won’t seem real in Milwaukee,” I said. “It’ll be more like a dream.”

“You might be right about that.” Grandpa Mac set the egg back in the basket. “Raine sure is lucky that she got a chance to live here, Molly.”

“Really, Dad?” Mama said, surprised. “Is that what you
really
think?”

“It is,” he said. “And you were right. Sparrow Road, the country, it was a good place for a child.” I was so happy I wanted to jump up and knot my arms around his neck. It wasn’t quite a sorry, but it was as close to an apology as Grandpa Mac would come.

 

The three of us were lounging in pajamas when Josie and Diego showed up at our door. “Josie’s like a kid at Christmas,” Diego moaned. “She won’t even let me sleep. That’s two days in a row I’ve been yanked out of my dreams.” Diego gave me a quick wink. “Doesn’t anybody sleep past sunrise anymore?”

“Sleep?” Josie threw her arms up toward the sky. “Who can sleep?” She was so wide awake it looked like she couldn’t stay put in her own skin. “We get to see Diego’s art this morning! And after all these months locked up in my shed, I get to show you mine. Come on.”

“In our pajamas?” Mama said. “I haven’t even showered.”

“Molly!” Josie stamped her feet.

“I’m good to go,” Grandpa Mac said. He was dressed in plaid pajama pants and the World’s Best Grandpa T-shirt I bought for him this Father’s Day. “And thank you for that basket, Josie. It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”

Josie looped her arm through Grandpa Mac’s. “We’re just so glad you came. Raine’s sure missed you a lot.” She pulled Grandpa Mac out through the door, and left the rest of us to follow. “Our sheds have been off-limits,” she told Grandpa Mac. “So everything inside them is a secret. Raine’s the only person who’s seen my work in progress.”

“Raine?” Mama frowned. “You went into Josie’s shed?”

“Oh, forget about it, Molly,” Josie interrupted. “It’s too late for Raine to get in trouble. And I needed Raine’s great wisdom to go forward with my art.”

Inside Josie’s shed, everything looked different. The scraps of cloth were gone. Every inch was clean. Still there was the smell of cinnamon and Christmas. On the table in the corner, Josie’s pile of memory patches sat waiting to be stitched into a quilt. “Ta-da!” She pointed toward her artwork on the wall. “So?” She threw her arm over my shoulder. “Did I get the feelings right, Raine?”

We all stood there silent, staring. Josie’s fabric scraps and shapes had turned into a story. A giant wall quilt covered with the haunted shapes of orphans, the rows of beds, the hills, and above the house their parents floated through the sky. A long black strip of ribbon split the quilt in half. There was Sparrow Road on one side, and on the other was the world.

For Lillian and Nettie and Lyman and the children
. Josie’s embroidered words were scattered like dust across the quilt.

“Wowee, woo-woo-woo,” Diego whistled. “Josie girl, you’re totally amazing. It takes my breath away.”

“Mine too,” I said. “
What was or what could be
?”

Diego caught my eye. “Yep,” he said.

“But it’s so sad,” Mama sighed.

Grandpa Mac put his palm on Mama’s back. “Very sad indeed.”

Before we stepped into Diego’s shed, I reached up and blinded Mama’s eyes. “Wait!” I said. “Before you see Diego’s work, you have to promise me one thing.”

Mama tugged my hands away. “What?” she asked like she didn’t trust me.

“You have to show your art today. You have to sing at least one song at the party. One song with your guitar. And if you do, I’ll read my story to the group.” All week, Mama had been begging me to read my writing at the party. One story. Anything. And now that mine was finished, I was ready to trade it for her song.

“Raine’s right,” Diego said. “You have to sing. You’ll sing and Raine will read. Art by the O’Rourkes. What more could anybody want?”

“No,” Mama sighed.

“She does sing like an angel,” Grandpa Mac said. “The best voice I’ve ever heard. Molly had a music scholarship to college.”

“Dad,” Mama groaned, embarrassed.

“So?” I grabbed on to Mama’s hand. “Your song for my story?” Mama was an artist as much as everybody else. I didn’t want Mama acting like a servant at the party, just pouring drinks and putting cookies out on platters. I wanted her to sing the way she did that day at the cathedral. The day Gray first fell in love.

“Okay, okay,” Mama said. “I’ll think about one song.”

The second she said it everybody clapped.

“Enough!” Mama said. “Let’s see Diego’s work.”

“This is it,” Diego said when we stepped inside his shed. He pointed to an old door propped against one wall. It was plastered with a mishmash of odd items: buttons, shells, seeds, the plastic spoon from the ice cream social, the Orange Crush cap Josie snatched up off of the ground, labels off of pickle jars cut into tiny pieces and pasted into trees, a broken clothespin, dried wildflowers from the woods, a faded photo cutout of Mama planting in the garden, a pencil sketch of me writing underneath the willow. The sparrow feather I found in the field. Tiny scraps of Josie’s velvet were glued along the edge. A line from Lillian’s poem floated through the center like a wave.
There will never be a way to save one summer.
It was like a mosaic of our days made from a thousand tiny pieces of found junk. And it was beautiful and peaceful—golden and lavender and green—as if all these odds and ends were meant to come together in a picture. It reminded me of sunset or the way the morning sun sparkles white against the grass and then it’s gone.

“So?” Diego winked at me. “My
what if or what could be
?”

“If someone opened up that door, they’d walk straight into our summer,” I said. I wanted to stare at it forever.

“That was my hope,” Diego said to me. “The door to Sparrow Road.”

Grandpa Mac crossed his arms over his chest. “Who’d have guessed,” he said, “that you could make something this pretty out of garbage?”

“Diego guessed,” I said. “Diego guessed it all.”

“I suppose I better put some of those cookies back into the freezer,” Mama said.

We’d baked sweets to serve at least two hundred guests, but so far the Arts Extravaganza looked like it might get twenty people tops. The few who came took a cup of lemonade, grabbed one of Mama’s cookies, but most seemed too out of place to speak. None of them stopped off at our stations to make art. All these weeks I’d pictured our Arts Extravaganza as a giant carnival with banners on the highway and Christmas lights twinkling in the trees. But now it felt more like the rummage sale at church. Hot and dull and sticky. Grandpa Mac’s pail of penny candy melted in the sun.

“I’ll help you with those, Molly.” Grandpa Mac grabbed a second tray of cookies and followed Mama to the house. Josie stood out in the driveway greeting the two or three new visitors who came. I set up my doll stand. Lillian sat beside me with a stack of Josie’s napkins for people to embroider. Gray still hadn’t come.

“It’s a flop,” I said to Diego. Where were all the people who packed the Rhubarb Social? Why didn’t they come to Sparrow Road? Dave from the Comfort Cone wasn’t even there.

Diego sat down at my station. “It’s early, Raine. And in the meantime, I’m ready to get started on a doll.”

“First you need a question,” I said.

“Got it.” Diego winked. “I’ve had it for a while, Raine.” Diego traced the pattern on a piece of flowered sheet. “You promise me an answer?”

“It worked for me.” I looked out toward the driveway; I didn’t understand why Gray was late. “Unless it’s about a real date with Mama. Then you can just ask me. I’m pretty sure Mama would say yes.”

Diego laughed. “Isn’t there some rule about the question being secret? Like the wish you make before you blow out the candles on your birthday cake?”

“No rules,” I said.

“Of course,” he roared. “No rules! Josie made it up.”

When Gray’s old van finally pulled into the driveway, I was glad Grandpa Mac was in the house with Mama. “Your dad’s here,” Diego said.

My heart skipped. I didn’t know what I’d say to Gray or how Grandpa Mac would treat him; I just wanted that hard part of the party to be done.

“Go on, I’ll supervise your stand. I’ve got the dolls down now. And Raine?” He tugged on my shirt. “Your Grandpa Mac and Gray? They just want to see you happy. Your mama, too. You’re all on the same team.” He gave my back a quick “go get ’em” pat. “They just don’t know it yet.”

You’re all on the same team.
Diego’s words sounded strong and definite and happy. Just the way I wanted things to be.

 

Gray lugged an old guitar case, more scuffed and scabbed than the one he’d given Mama. “Hey there, Raine,” he said, a toothpick stuck between his teeth.

“You ought to give that up,” I said. “You’re done with smoking.” I didn’t want him gnawing on a toothpick when he first met Grandpa Mac. Or met him again as the Gray who didn’t drink.

“This?” Gray took the toothpick out and slipped it back into his shirt pocket. “I’ll do my best.” He looked around the almost empty driveway. “It’s slow on the front end, I see.”

“No one’s coming,” I said.

“They’ll come. Comfort folks won’t be here in a rush but they’ll be here,” he drawled. “Your grandpa make it in okay?” I could tell he held a little hope my answer might be no.

“He’s here,” I said. “He finally got here yesterday. And this morning we got to see Josie and Diego’s art. I can’t wait for you to see it. And Josie made him his own breakfast basket.”