Birds of Summer (18 page)

Summer put the letter down quickly to keep from wadding it into a ball and throwing it across the room. She wanted to scream. She wanted to scream things about free air, and lawyers and roses that weren’t free. And babies that weren’t either. That shouldn’t be, at least, because after a while they stopped being babies and definitely stopped being free. But she didn’t scream because she couldn’t without scaring a lot of people to death. In a house as small as the Pardells’, you couldn’t scream, and you couldn’t stay for very long either. Not when you had to sleep on a hide-a-bed in somebody’s study so that most of the time he couldn’t even get to his desk.

It was several minutes before she trusted herself to put the letter back in the envelope. She’d forgotten all about the postcard, but when she picked up the envelope there it was. It was from Nan Oliver and it said that she and Richard would be back in Alvarro Bay at the end of the week.

That was on Wednesday, and on Thursday Summer went with Sparrow to the Fishers’. Galya had been driving in to town every morning to leave Marina at the Pardells’ or to pick up Sparrow. But when she arrived on Thursday, Nicky was with her. Summer was weeding the flower garden, and while Galya was in the house collecting Sparrow, he strolled over and stood around watching. After they’d both said “hi,” Summer went on weeding while she waited to see what was coming next. She was beginning to think nothing was, when Nicky said, “You want to play
Star Wars?
You can be Darth Vader.”

In the old days who got to be Darth Vader was one of the things they always fought over. She sat back on her heels and looked at him. “You mean I don’t have to wrestle you for it?” she asked.

“Not unless you want to,” he said, and then he grinned and raised his right hand and said it again. “Not unless you want to.”

It seemed very strange to be at the Fishers’ again. It was the first time in more than six months, except for the night of the raid and the other night visit when she’d come looking for Sparrow. Adam was home from the hospital with his arm in a sling, looking palely heroic and taking himself even more seriously than ever. Jerry and Galya and Nicky were busy preparing the huge greenhouses, five of them now, for some new varieties of berries; and Sparrow and Marina were in a seventh heaven of imaginary adventures and giggly secrets.

Most of the day Summer helped out in the greenhouses, but in the afternoon she accepted Nicky’s invitation to go for a hike in the woods. It was a cool day, with a high, thin overcast filtering the sunlight and a slight tang of surf and spray in the breeze. They followed a deer trail to the top of the ridge to where they could see clear down to the town and beyond it to the dim line where the sea met the sky. Near the highest point of the trail, they found a fallen log and sat down to rest.

When Nicky put his arm around her shoulders, Summer didn’t resist; but when she took his other hand and held it, it was partly to keep it under control. She remembered his hands as almost as small as hers, with close-bitten grubby nails and scraped and scabby knuckles. But the hand she was holding was large and lean and masculine, with long sensitive-looking fingers. She thought of saying something about the change; but when she looked up at him, he started to kiss her. She pulled away instinctively, but he stopped and said, “Okay, Darth. You got it.” So after a few minutes she looked up at him again.

They’d tried several kinds of kisses, and Summer had found that she liked most of them when Nicky started talking about next year at school and what the reaction was going to be to a Fisher-McIntyre item, and how she felt about going, not steady, which was pretty passé, but at least fairly steadily. As she listened, Summer went stiff and silent, and when he finally noticed and asked her what was the matter, she had to tell him.

He didn’t believe her at first, and then he said he didn’t understand it, and then he got angry and said, and what was he supposed to do, and what in the hell did she think Oriole was going to do when she got out of jail.

And then suddenly she was very angry, and she told him that Oriole would go right on doing what she’d always done and anyway it wasn’t any of his business. Then she got up and ran down the path. He caught up with her after a while, but she refused to talk to him. They went all the rest of the way down the hill in silence.

When they got back to the Fishers’, Galya was getting ready to leave for Alvarro Bay. Before they left, Summer reminded Nicky that she’d told him about her plan in strictest confidence and asked him not to mention it to anyone. “Okay,” he said. “But I don’t see why it matters. They’ll all know soon enough, anyway.”

“Maybe not. It may not happen.”

“Oh yeah? Well, wouldn’t that be too bad. That would be a real disappointment, wouldn’t it?”

Nicky’s sarcasm usually drove her up the wall, but for some reason she didn’t flare up this time. There was something in his face that revealed the pain that lay beneath his anger, and anger that hurt was something Summer knew a lot about.

“I don’t want to go,” she told him, and it was at least partly true.

“Then why are you? Why can’t you just stay at the Pardells’?”

“They really haven’t room for us. And besides, they’re planning to take a year off and live in Europe soon.”

Galya came out of the house then with Sparrow, and there wasn’t time to say anymore. As they drove away, Nicky was still standing on the front veranda, but when Summer waved, he didn’t wave back.

On the way home they stopped to let Summer and Sparrow get some things they needed from the trailer. While Galya waited in the car, they ran down the familiar path for the first time since the raid. Although it had only been about a week, there was a deserted look to the clearing, and inside the trailer the air smelled dusty and dead. Summer couldn’t wait to get out. She threw some things into shopping bags, clothing and shoes and a few of Sparrow’s favorite toys. In the bottom of the biggest bag she put Grant’s hairbrush and the letter box.

On Saturday Nan Oliver called. They’d gotten home that morning, and as soon as they found Summer’s note, they’d called the Pardells’. Nan sounded shocked and horrified.

“How perfectly awful for poor little Sparrow,” she said. “For you both—but Sparrow’s at such an impressionable age.” Sparrow was impressionable all right; but although Summer didn’t say so, she felt certain that having an only parent put in jail just might make as much of a dent in a sixteen-year-old. In her experience seven-year-olds bounced back. Like Silly Putty they could be all out of shape one minute and back to normal the next. But she didn’t argue.

“We’d like to see you,” she said, and less than an hour later the dark blue Cadillac pulled up in front of the Pardells’.

She almost didn’t do it. It was something about the precise orderliness of the long, low ranch house, even now in the midst of packing. Along the walls identical boxes of carefully wrapped treasures were perfectly aligned, and there wasn’t a scrap of paper or trace of dust anywhere. Things weren’t where they used to be. The carefully designed patterns had changed. But there were still patterns, and for some reason, they were more noticeable than ever. She’d not minded it before. In fact the predictability and stability of everything at Crown Ridge had seemed pleasant and comfortable. But now, suddenly, she found herself wondering what the Olivers’ patterns would create from the seven-year-old Silly Putty that was Sparrow.

But of course Nan and Richard had wanted to hear all about the raid and Oriole’s involvement; and explaining it—even explaining it in words that told as little as possible—reminded Summer of her plan. So while they were having tea and pastries on the patio, and Sparrow had temporarily disappeared across the lawn after the peacocks, she made her proposal.

She did it straight out front this time, without any pretense or subterfuge. She simply asked them if they’d like to have Sparrow, and when they said they would, she told them how to go about it.

S
HE COULDN’T SLEEP. AND
when she finally did, she kept dreaming things that woke her up with a start. She felt tense and restless, and her mouth was dry, and she finally decided to get up and go to the kitchen for a glass of water. It was after midnight, but the light was still on in the dining room. Before she’d had time to realize why, Pardell had seen her.

“Sleepwalking?” he asked. “Or hungry.”

She rubbed her eyes, blinking in the sudden glare. He was sitting at the dining room table surrounded by a huge stack of books and papers. He’d been there, doing research for a new article, three hours earlier when everyone else had gone to bed, but it hadn’t occurred to her he’d still be there.

“Just thirsty,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You sure you’re not hungry? I was just on my way to the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich. Want to join me? I’ll vouch for peanut butter as a sure-fire sedative. Knocks me out every time.”

She said no again, but while she was drinking her water, he was spreading peanut butter and the smell got to her. “I guess I’m changing my mind,” she said.

“A human’s prerogative,” he said. “You catch that quick rewrite? Human’s for woman’s? I want my Brownie points for raised consciousness.”

He slathered another piece of bread with peanut butter and poured a big glass of milk. “Here. Pull up a chair and dig in. You look famished.” He paused, studying her face. “Hollow-eyed. Maybe not so much famished as—haunted. That’s it, haunted. Restless spirits abroad tonight?”

It was strange because haunted was exactly the way she’d been feeling. Haunted by ghosts of the past as well as some new, dimly seen ones of the future. “I guess so,” she said.

Afterwards she couldn’t remember exactly how she started, but suddenly she was telling him about her plan, and how she’d taken the crucial step that afternoon at the Olivers’, and how their reaction had been exactly what she’d hoped and planned for.

“In a way, it’s like it was meant to be,” she said. “I guess Sparrow is really a lot like their little girl who died, and they’re both crazy about her. It was only Nan at first, but I think Richard is just as batty about her now. Or maybe even more so. Nan says he’s that way. All or nothing at all; and once he makes up his mind about something, you’d better not get in his way.”

Pardell was rubbing the bald spot on top of his head the way he always did when he was thinking hard. “And Oriole?” he asked. “Has she agreed to all this?”

“Not yet. But she will. On Monday, Richard and Nan are going to drive me to Ukiah to see her. I’ll talk to her first, and then they’ll come in. I’ll tell her we’ll just be going for a visit—nothing permanent or legal or anything—just a visit until she’s out of jail and all. And then, if she gets out before the school year is up, we’ll just write and say we want to stay until we’ve finished school. Then we’ll come back for a while next summer. The Olivers promised me that we could. But when we tell her we want to go back to Connecticut in the fall, she’ll let us go, I know. Oriole hasn’t said no to me since I was about five years old. Besides, she’ll be used to it by then. She’ll see that it’s the best for everyone. And eventually she’ll probably let them adopt Sparrow. That’s what they want to do.”

“Is that what they said?”

“Sure. They’d do it in a minute if they could. Richard even wanted to offer to pay all of Oriole’s lawyer’s fees and a lot of other stuff, if she’d agree to an adoption right away. But I talked him out of that.”

“Yeah,” Pardell said. “That sounds like old Richard B., doesn’t it.”

Summer was puzzled. “Do you know him? Richard Oliver?”

“No. Not personally. But—” He paused. “—having read so much about him by a very acute and gifted journalist, I almost feel that I do.”

“What do you mean?” Summer asked, but she really knew. She’d wondered, the night before when she discovered that she’d left the letter box on his desk, not only unlocked, but wide open. She couldn’t imagine how she’d done such a thing. She’d never before, in all those years, left it unlocked even for a minute. But after the initial shock, she’d decided that he wouldn’t have read the letters. He probably wouldn’t even have wanted to. But she’d been wrong. Apparently he had.

“You did intend for me to read the letters, didn’t you?” He looked concerned—worried.

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly, and while she was saying it, she suddenly realized that it was true—one of those mistakes that at some deeper level wasn’t a mistake at all.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about them,” he said, “but I was waiting for you to bring it up. I thought maybe you needed a little more time to think about it.”

She nodded. It would take some time. The fact that someone—that Pardell—had read all the letters to Grant was going to take a lot of thinking about. But at the moment her mind shied away, skittering fearfully around the edges of full realization. With everything else that was going on at the moment, it was just too much to deal with.

Pardell finally broke the silence. “So you don’t think it would be a good idea for the Olivers to offer Oriole money?”

Almost with relief she brought her mind back to the immediate crisis. “No,” she said firmly. “It would be the worst thing he could do. Oriole would freak out if she thought it was anything like—like selling us.”

“But she could certainly use the money?”

“Well, yes. I guess so. But I don’t think that would occur to her. Oriole is really strange about money. She never seems to worry about it.” She smiled ruefully. “Hers, or anybody else’s. It’s something she just can’t seem to keep her mind on.”

“Hmm.” Pardell was rubbing his head again. “As foibles go, I must say, that’s a rather refreshing one.”

“I suppose so.” She’d never thought of it that way before.

“So you think she’ll let you go if she’s convinced it will be best for you. But don’t you think it will be very hard for her later, when she comes back here—alone?”

Summer forced herself to continue to meet Pardell’s eyes. “For a while, maybe. But Oriole never stays alone for very long. And she’s never depressed for very long either.” She smiled mockingly. “You know—bummed out? Oriole gets bummed out a lot, but she never stays that way. Even when things are really terrible, she’s suddenly tripping out over some dumb little thing, like an animal or a nice day. I really don’t think she’ll miss us for very long. And besides—” Summer was talking fast, urgently, sounding, she knew, as if she were trying to convince herself as well as Pardell. “Besides, it will probably be easier for her to find some guy who will really stick around if she doesn’t have two kids hanging around her neck.” She stopped to stare at Pardell angrily. “What are you laughing about?”