When Sparrows Fall (24 page)

Armed with Yvonne Walker’s address, Jack drove down Piedmont Road on Friday afternoon. He’d spent most of Wednesday in Chattanooga, catching up on committee work, and he’d spent half of Thursday driving Miranda to checkups in Clayton while Yvonne stayed with the kids. Today’s errand, though, was both pleasant and local.

Yvonne had a kitten.

Most of the houses on Piedmont were small and well-kept, though some of the yards bloomed with junk instead of daffodils. He swung around a curve and spotted balloons and a yard sale sign at the mailbox of a trim white house. A smaller sign read
FREE KITTENS
with the
S
crossed out.

Only one left. “A brat cat,” Yvonne had said. “You’ll love her.”

He parked on the shoulder and climbed out. A faded red canopy, obviously reincarnated from a prior life as the property of a funeral home, sheltered a hodgepodge of household goods on a pair of rickety tables. Yvonne was nowhere in sight.

He picked his way between a galvanized bucket and a dented birdcage. He’d hated birdcages since he was thirteen, would rather make the world his aviary than trap a living creature that way, but he refrained from kicking it.

Boxes of books sat on the ground toward the rear of the canopy. He crouched on the thin grass to investigate. Most of them were cookbooks,
romances, and musty textbooks, including a science text that was permanently opened to the periodic table of the elements. Nothing was worth even a quarter, but Jack stayed in his crouch and took in the view.

The lower hills, just starting to green up, stretched toward blue green mountains and a cerulean sky. In the middle distance, a valley cradled a creek that zigzagged toward lower ground.

Something about the way the water curved out of sight behind the trees reminded him of a narrow lake where he’d hidden in a clump of willows and spied on a baptism, long ago. The white-robed figures and the voices singing without instruments had made him feel shut out, like a time traveler whose modern mind was too sterile, too barren, to grasp an ancient mystery. The lake could have been the Jordan River, and the preacher could have been John the Baptist.

But this was only a yard sale in Georgia. Jack straightened, his head brushing against the overhang of the funeral-home canopy. A faded canvas tabernacle in the wilderness.

A skinny old man in overalls came around the corner of the house, barefoot. The top of his head sprouted a crest of gray hair, like a tufted titmouse. His gap-toothed grin resembled Gabriel’s. The man was freckled too but with age spots.

“Glory be to God,” Jack said quietly, in Hopkins heaven.
Whatever is fickle, freckled.…

Yvonne followed the man at a fast trot. “Hey there, Jack! Now, Daddy, don’t go inside with muddy feet.”

The old man stopped short and stared at his feet as if he’d never seen them before. “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.”

“Sure, you would.”

“Nope, nope,” he said. “We’ll have us an old-fashioned foot-washin’ first.”

Yvonne’s daddy was remarkably spry for a man who must have been closing in on centenarian status. He hurried onto the lawn and sat in a decrepit easy chair with a price tag on its arm.

“He’s got all the sense of a turnip,” Yvonne said under her breath. She squinted at Jack as if he were some rare zoological specimen. “Now, is it true, what Rebekah told me the other day? You’re a college professor? a PhD?”

The idea still startled him sometimes, as if he’d woken in the middle of a luckier man’s life. “Yes, but I’m still clawing my way up the ladder to tenure. Serving on committees. Writing my brains out. Bowing and scraping to my superiors and so on.”

“I thought you were just a plain ol’ schoolteacher. You don’t act like a PhD. You act like a regular guy.”

“That might be because I’m a regular guy.”

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure Rebekah wasn’t pulling my leg.”

“She wasn’t. Now, where’s that kitten?”

“Miranda wants her?”

He cleared his throat. “I … ah … I haven’t actually asked. I want to surprise her.”

“Men!” Yvonne planted her hands on her hips. “What if somebody has allergies? Or maybe Miranda hates cats. Some people do.”

“True.”

“You’re not taking her until you’ve talked it over with Miranda.”

Chastened, Jack hung his head. “I guess you’re right.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look so heartbroken. The kitten’s in the dining room, snoozing on the windowsill.” Yvonne pointed toward the house. “See?”

He nodded. From a distance, the kitten was only a small, vague mishmash of colors stretched out on the other side of the glass.

“She’s not the prettiest thing,” Yvonne added, “or the sweetest, but she’s more fun than a barrel of drunk monkeys, especially when she’s riled up. I’ve been calling her Hellion.”

“That’ll go over big. I could call her ‘Hell’ for short and see if Miranda throws anything.”

“Be nice, Jack.”

“Yes ma’am. Sorry.”

“It’s hard enough being a homeschool mom, but being a single mom with six kids? I’d be on my way to the loony bin. Or a long vacation in Tahiti, if I could afford it.”

Jack’s imagination swerved toward Miranda in a bikini on a tropical beach. For being the mother of six, she was remarkably trim and fit—or at least he guessed she was. Her sacklike wardrobe didn’t reveal much.

“How’s she doing today?” Yvonne asked.

He shrugged. Ever since he’d asked Miranda what was bothering her, she’d been hiding behind those invisible walls. Living in an invisible box that kept him at a distance.

“Physically, she’s better every day,” he said. “Her docs are happy with her progress.”

“Help me fold shirts,” Yvonne ordered, pressing a purple sweatshirt into his chest. “Is she antsy to go back to Chandler’s church?”

“Not right now. Thank God.” Jack tucked the shirt under his chin and began folding it. “If she asks me to chauffeur the family to his Sunday services, I’ll respectfully decline.” Having wrestled the shirt into some semblance of neatness, he placed it on the table behind him.

“I wish she’d try my church. We’re, you know, normal.” Yvonne laughed. “I guess everybody thinks they’re normal though. Even the weird ones.”

“True.”

“Long time ago, before my husband passed away, we knew a gal who got mixed up with a strange church. We were afraid she’d wind up in a place like Waco or Jonestown.” Yvonne snapped the wrinkles out of a T-shirt. “Then she went and died of cancer instead.”

“Everybody has to die somehow.”

“Yea, verily,” her father rasped from his ratty throne. He pointed a long, bony finger at Jack. “Yea, verily, hear the word of the Lord.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Yvonne said. “We’d better cut back on your TV time. You’re
watching too many preachers.” She lowered her voice. “Once a preacher, always a preacher,” she told Jack. “He’s been retired for twenty years, but he thinks he’s still at it.”

“I’m sure he’s as well qualified as some.”

“He used to be. Used to know the Bible backward and forward, but something can go wrong in the mind like something can go wrong in the liver.”

Her phone rang in her pocket. She answered it and wandered into the garage, abandoning Jack with her father.

There was nothing wrong with the elderly gentleman’s ambulatory powers; he sprang from the chair and hustled across the lawn, stopping a foot from Jack. Never comfortable with any invasion of his personal space, Jack backed up. He bumped into the table, shaking it.

Yvonne’s dad came closer. Smelling of peppermint, he placed a dry, warm hand on Jack’s forehead and examined him with wide blue eyes.

Jack lifted a hand then lowered it again, unwilling to deliver even the gentlest of shoves. “Back off, sport.”

“Hear the word of the Lord for you,” the preacher croaked.

Jack’s nerves made his laugh sound froglike. “Sorry, sir, but I’m not in the camp that believes God channels personal messages through humans.”

“That don’t matter to Him, son.”

“I’m not your son,” he blurted.

“No. No, you’re not. You’re His. A good son. Now, hear the word of the Lord.”

Goose bumps dotted Jack’s arms. He wanted to scream that he’d come for a kitten, not for some prophecy birthed in senility.

The man’s eyes were like crystalline windows that reflected their light into the dark corners of Jack’s soul, where the Friday-night demons lived. It was impossible to run. Impossible to hide.

“Silence is brother to lies,” the old man said. “The truth is sister to mercy.” He lifted his other hand, cradling Jack’s head between dry palms. “This time,
say the words you’ve been given to say. Do the deeds you’ve been given to do. This time, hear Me and obey. Thus saith the Lord.” The preacher ruffled Jack’s hair and trotted back to the decrepit easy chair.

Finished with her call and having witnessed the tail end of the homegrown prophecy, Yvonne hurried out of the garage. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Ignore him, hon.”

Jack forced a laugh. “Don’t worry about it.”

Snatches of her father’s message buzzed in Jack’s mind like static as he headed for his car.

seventeen

F
rom her rocker on the porch, Miranda had tracked the bedtime routine by the sounds: water running in the tub, an occasional quarrel, and Jack’s voice rising over it all. Calm had descended, and she assumed the children were in bed.

Another quiet Sunday had come and gone. She’d half expected Mason to show up after church and scold her for playing hooky for so long, but she couldn’t bear the thought of sitting under his teachings. Ever again.

Joining a different congregation would feel like a betrayal though. Like abandoning family for strangers.

Through the wall, she heard the rush of water in the pipes again—and Jack, singing. It was too muffled to make out the words, and she didn’t know the tune.

After a while, the water and the singing stopped. He would come outside soon.

All day, he’d been sweet to her. He’d softened, somehow, or maybe she was learning to enjoy his teasing even when it leaned toward sarcasm.

Except for a chorus of frogs, the chilly night was quiet. Too quiet. She set the rocker going, and it filled the air with the familiar rhythm of wood rolling against wood. She’d always loved snuggling here with her babies after supper, with the wind cooling her face and the sunset bathing her in peace.

But it was long past sunset now. A half moon rose above the trees.

She pulled the cuddle-quilt up to her chin. In the thin strip of pewter gray sky between the bottom timber of the porch roof and the top of the trees, the stars were coming out. When she tried to focus on one, it faded. If she looked to the side of it, she saw it in her peripheral vision.

The door creaked. Jack came out, wearing a bulky jacket and carrying something in each hand. Light from the window glimmered on shiny surfaces in the half dark. He set everything down with a faint clinking. A glass, a bottle, and a saucer. It was too dark to see details.

“What’s that?”

“Glenlivet. The good stuff. Would you like to try it?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you sure?” He poured a small amount, sat back, and sampled it. “I think you’d do well to avail yourself of its sedative properties.”

“I don’t need sedation.”

“But I do.” He laughed. “Come on. Try to regain your usual sunny disposition.”

“Now you’re being sarcastic.”

“I wish I wasn’t, darlin’, but we all have our vices. Speaking of which, I would like to indulge in a cigar. Or would that unleash your inner harpie?”

She smiled at the banter that would have offended her not long ago. “Cigars cause cancer, you know.”

“As rarely as I smoke one, I’m more at risk of being run over by a bus. Please, may I?”

“Oh, go ahead. Smoke, I mean. Don’t get run over by a bus.”

“Thank you.” He set the glass down, dug in his pocket, and pulled out a small cigar, a box of matches, and a tool that resembled miniature garden
clippers. With the air of engaging in a mystical ritual, he snipped off the end of the cigar, then pulled out a wooden match and struck it against the side of the box. He bent over the flame, cigar in his mouth, and slowly rotated it, puffing. After a few seconds, the rim of the cigar glowed bright orange in the semi-darkness and the smell of tobacco filled the air.

He dropped the match on the saucer. “Perfect. There’s nothing like the simultaneous enjoyment of a fine cigar and a fine Scotch.”

The air already reeked. She waved her hand in front of her nose and coughed.

“Stop faking the cough, Mrs. H. You’re upwind.”

“It’s so strong that I don’t have to be downwind. I didn’t expect it to be so smelly.”

“Smelly? You insult my excellent taste in cigars. Would you like to try one?”

She burst out laughing. “No! Just hurry up and finish that thing.”

He chuckled and continued to smoke in placid silence, using the saucer as an ashtray and occasionally lifting his glass to his lips. His puffs were few and far between, and she sensed again that it was a ritual. The measured sips, the measured puffs; he was drawing out the process as long as he could.

He set his glass on the table. “I noticed some St. John’s wort in the cupboard,” he said. “Are you the one who takes it?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“No.” He paused. “St. John’s wort, the earth mother’s Prozac. Herbs are the health-food version of the pharmaceuticals you refuse to take.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

“No? You have your St. John’s wort to lift your spirits and your chamomile tea to help you sleep. I have my coffee to wake me up and my occasional nip of Scotch to soothe my nerves. They’re all mood-altering substances. Sometimes our moods need to be altered.”

“You’re very good at altering my moods, Jack. You make them worse.”

He laughed out loud. “You think I’m a Philistine, don’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not ’zackly?”

She couldn’t see much of him in the half dark. Either he was trying to be funny, or she’d underestimated the effect of a small amount of alcohol.

“You’d probably label me as an antinomian,” he added, taking up his drink again, “but I’m not.”