When Sparrows Fall (29 page)

With their attitudes much the worse for wear, Michael and Gabriel raced upstairs before Jack could close the front door behind him. For all his panic when he thought he’d lost them, he was glad to see the last of them for a while. The ride home, nearly two hours long, had transformed them.

“Monsters,” Jack said, scowling up the stairs after them. “Devils.”

Two steps into the living room, he noticed a sprinkling of small, white grains of … rice?

Rice. Everywhere. Spilled across the couch cushions. Sprinkled on the coffee table. Lying in drifts on the floor. It was a wonder the boys hadn’t slipped on it when they ran in.

Bits of some bright material mixed with the rice. He leaned over to examine them.

Wilted flower petals, pink and yellow. Jack looked up. The bouquet from Yvonne was gone.

Martha sat peacefully at the table, cutting her endless hearts. A piece of white, lacy fabric was draped over her head. She was so sweet, in her quirky way. After the hours he’d spent in the company of the archdevils, she was the picture of innocence.

“Hey, Miss Martha.”

She smiled at him, her eyes dreamy, but didn’t speak.

“Rebekah,” he called. “Where are you? Where’s your mother?”

“She’s in her room.” Rebekah’s glum reply came from the kitchen.

He walked toward her. She stood at the sink. With a wickedly long knife, she sliced one of a large quantity of yellow squash. Jonah sat in a corner, playing with blocks amid a smattering of rice.

Jack scratched his head. “Who dumped rice everywhere?”

“Martha,” Rebekah said. “She was playing bride. Throwing her own rice. And then she played flower girl and threw petals.”

“Well, now. That’s what I call an original sin.”

“Every time I ask her to clean it up, she wanders off somewhere.”

“I do not,” Martha said indignantly. “I’m just busy.”

“You certainly are,” Jack said.

Construction-paper hearts were strewn everywhere. On the table, on the floor. Taped to cupboards, held to appliances with magnets. All the colors of the rainbow, plus black, brown, and white. A skinny orange heart escaped its moorings on the fridge and floated to the floor.

Jack walked back to the bride with rice crunching under his feet. “Miss Martha, life isn’t all skittles and beer. I’m glad you’ve had fun today, but it’s time to clean up.”

“I made one for you.” She handed him a lopsided blue heart.

I love my Unkul Jack
, she’d printed laboriously on it in red marker, running the second
k
right off the edge. On the table lay a green heart with
I love Mama
in bigger letters.

He tucked the blue heart into his shirt pocket. “Thank you, but if you love your mama, you’d better tidy up your messes. Start with this one, and then I’ll help you take care of the rice.”

“Later.”

His ears must have gone bad. “Excuse me?”

“Later. ’Scuse
me.”
Martha climbed off her chair. As she squeezed past him, she burst into song.
“Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous,”
she sang, one hand clamped to her head to keep her veil in place.

“Righteous, nothin’. Get back here, you little sinner.”

“For praise is comely for the upright.…”
Her happy voice trailed behind her as she sashayed through the living room, the veil swaying.

“Martha!” he roared, to no avail. She was gone, tromping up the stairs. Still singing.

He took a long, slow breath and let it out. In theory, he believed in a child’s right to test her limits, to explore independence to the very borders of rebellion. In practice, though, he leaned toward paddling the brat. Except she wasn’t his.

“She’s horrible,” Rebekah said, still slicing squash with no great regard for the safe handling of knives.

“She’s four. Careful, there. I’d rather not make a trip to the emergency room.”

The blade kept flashing. “I haven’t cut off any fingers. See?” She laid down the knife and held up her hands.

He counted automatically. Four fingers and a thumb on each hand. “Not yet.”

She picked up the knife and started in again, with even greater vigor.

“Watch it, Rebekah. You’ll slice your finger off.”

The knife clattered into the sink. “You’re worse than Miss Minchin!” She stormed past him in a swirl of denim skirts and ran for the stairs.

“Miss … who?”

No answer.

“Oh,” Jack said, with a vague memory of Ava’s young niece breathlessly reciting the plot of one of her favorite stories. Something about a noble orphan and a tyrannical headmistress or some such thing.

He walked over to the coffee table to review Rebekah’s choices from the library. Sure enough, she’d read three books in a row that featured brave young ladies who endured cruel mistreatment at the hands of hardhearted adults.

And he’d thought Martha was the drama princess.

Upstairs, Gabriel screamed, and Michael responded in kind. A thump followed; a head against a wall, perhaps. Jack decided not to interfere. Both archangels deserved a good thumping. Better in their room than in his car.

He swept the kitchen and dumped a mixture of paper scraps, paper hearts, rice, and flower petals into the trash. Furtively, he trashed the vegetables with the rest. He couldn’t abide yellow squash.

Pancakes. A foolproof recipe he knew by heart. With some luck, he’d find that Miranda allowed pancake syrup. If not, he’d settle for her strawberry jam, nuked into syrup—except there was still no microwave to nuke it.

He washed his hands, but orange mud streaked the kitchen towel that hung from the oven door. He opened the drawer for a clean one. The drawer was empty. Rebekah must have forsaken her duties as laundry maid.

He wiped his hands on his jeans. Ransacking the cupboards, he found bowls, a cast-iron griddle, measuring cups, ingredients. Within a few minutes, the batter was ready but he’d forgotten to heat the griddle.

Then Miranda was at his elbow, smiling as she peered into the bowl. “Pancakes?”

“Pancakes.” He scrutinized her, trying to understand how she could smile when her children were clearly going berserk.

“Did you have a good trip?” she asked.

“In most respects, yes. And what did you do all day?”

“I spent hours on the phone, getting recipes from some of my friends from church. Then I fell asleep, I guess. Where’s Rebekah? I thought she’d planned soup for supper.”

“She’s upstairs. I believe she’s on strike.”

“Where’s Martha?”

“Also upstairs. As of a few minutes ago, she was alive and well but in great need of a paddling.”

“Where’s Timothy?”

“Don’t know.”

“The archangels?”

“The devils? Upstairs, thumping each other.”

No negative reaction to that either. Her smile just wouldn’t quit.

Jack cocked his head to the side, trying to reconcile this vibrant, cheerful woman with his dire imaginings of soul-deep wounds and shipwrecked faith.

“Did you notice the rice?” he asked, jutting his thumb toward the living room.

She looked around blankly. “Rice?”

“The white stuff underfoot. According to Rebekah, we have a young bride in our midst.”

“Oh. That would be Martha.”

“You think?”

“I think,” Miranda said with a mischievous smile. “I certainly do.”

Even if he couldn’t explain her mood, he could take advantage of it. “Is anybody in your family allergic to cats?”

“No, but why do you ask?”

“Yvonne’s giving away a calico kitten. About eight weeks old. Is there any chance you would like to adopt her?”

Miranda’s smile fled. “I don’t know. A pet is a big commitment.”

“I can run to town and pick up all the trappings. Food and litter and such. And I can give the kids a ferocious lecture about taking care of her themselves.”

“That would last about a week. I just don’t know. Besides that, she’d have to be spayed. And she’d need her shots.”

Jack sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll pay for the spaying and the shots. The first shots, anyway. I’m not subsidizing this cat’s existence for life.”

“Why do you want me to take her, then?”

“Kids need pets.”

“Kids
want
pets.”

He reached for his phone. “Forget it. I’ll tell Yvonne to give the kitten to somebody who’ll appreciate it.”

Miranda gripped his forearm with surprising strength. “No. That kitten’s all mine.”

“What the—”

“I only gave you a hard time because you expected me to be a kill-joy.”

“Because you have been one.”

“Oh, all right, maybe I have, but I’m loosening up a little.”

“Excellent. I’ll call Yvonne so she’ll save the little beast for us—for you.”

Quick footfalls on the stairs heralded the approach of one of the children. Miranda sent him a warning look; he tried to ask the question with his eyes:
the cat should be a surprise?

She nodded, giving him a fleeting smile—shy, winsome, flirtatious—and removed her hand from his arm.

Martha trotted into the kitchen. She’d shed her veil and was dragging the cuddle-quilt instead. “I’m bored.”

“Let’s play a new game,” Miranda said. “We’ll pretend we’re starving prisoners searching for rice and hiding it in a bowl. Every precious grain of it.”

Jack handed her an empty bowl. “I don’t think anybody got the mail today. Before I start the pancakes, I’ll go see.” He waggled his phone at her.

“Good idea. Thank you.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink.

She’d winked? At a man? At
him
?

He winked back. Her cheeks reddened with gratifying speed. Her smile lingered.

Jack smiled back, picturing her with the bruises and scratches gone, hands on her hips as she argued with him. His imagination produced jeans and a T-shirt. A decent haircut. Makeup. If she would get out of prairie-princess mode, she’d be a knockout.

She turned her back on him and took Martha’s hand. “The other prisoners are starving too,” Miranda said. “Let’s hurry.”

Rice crunched under Jack’s feet as he passed mother and daughter on his way to the front door. Halfway across the porch, he remembered Yvonne’s father who believed he spoke for God. The old guy probably believed he could handle poisonous snakes without coming to harm or raise the dead if the snake theory didn’t work out. He wasn’t a real prophet. Not that such a thing existed anyway.

Still, when Jack reached the bottom of the steps, he took a slow, calming breath before he called Yvonne’s number.

A cracked and ancient voice wavered, “Hello?”

Jack wanted to hang up, but the kids needed that kitten.

“Hello,” he said. “May I speak to Yvonne, please?” He braced himself for another pronouncement from on high while mocking himself for expecting it. The preacher wouldn’t know who was calling.

“Silence is brother to lies,” the old man said. “The truth is sister to mercy. 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.”

Shaken, Jack closed his phone. He’d try again later.

twenty-one

W
aiting for Yvonne to call back and set a time for picking up the kitten—preferably when her crazy daddy wouldn’t be around—Jack had grown desperate to beat the paralyzing boredom of Miranda’s quiet-Sunday rules. He’d resorted to snooping through Saturday’s mail where it lay untouched on the kitchen counter.

Right on top was an envelope with the church’s name and a PO box for the return address, and then the electric bill, addressed to Carl as if he were still alive. Only twenty-four electric bills ago, Carl had still lived under this roof. Miranda wasn’t far removed from his daily influence. And what an influence it had been.

He must have had some good qualities though or she wouldn’t have married him. Ava, lost to divorce instead of death, had some fine qualities and sometimes Jack remembered her with a pang of bittersweet regret that was close kin to the taste of new love.

Standing at the kitchen counter with the envelopes in his hand, he tried to remember Miranda as she’d looked on the day Carl came home from work and
found her chatting with a visitor. Carl had waded into an innocent conversation with the verbal equivalent of a swift uppercut to the jaw, but he’d aimed his first swing at Miranda, not at Jack. She’d obeyed Carl immediately, taking the two toddlers inside while he strong-armed Jack off the porch for no good reason.

Except there must have been a reason. Whatever it was, it hadn’t kept her from naming Jack as the kids’ guardian.

Maybe the guardianship had something to do with getting even with Carl.

Jack resumed looking through the mail. Most of it was junk or catalogs hawking seeds, homeschool books, nutritional supplements, modest clothing—

Modest clothing? That earned a double take. The angelic, teenage cover model wore a bulky, bloomer-style swimsuit that could have been recycled from Edwardian days.

Fascinated, Jack propped himself up against the counter and started browsing. In disbelief, he flipped through page after page of little-girl style dresses with ruffles and lace and wide collars, modeled by little girls
and
by women. Then there were those ridiculous swimsuits. Aprons. Head coverings. Modest sleepwear for men and women—

“Why?” he asked.

And modesty vests.

“Modesty vests?” He skimmed the paragraph describing the garment, then read it a second time and doubled over with laughter.

Behind him, the floor creaked. “What’s so funny?”

He marshaled a solemn expression and turned around. Miranda stood beside the table, possessing a trim but womanly figure he couldn’t help but notice, no matter what she wore. The brief explanation of the necessity for a modesty vest had only ignited his imagination. He blushed like a virgin in a bawdyhouse.

One more burst of laughter escaped him.

She frowned. “What’s so funny?” she asked again.

“Ah … it’s …” He cleared his throat. “Okay, you asked for it.” He held up the catalog for her to see. “These people sell modesty vests.” He managed not to snicker, but it was a near thing.