Sparrow

by Sarah Moon

  In the cab, quietly, she almost hisses as she says, “The doctor has told me I’m not supposed to ask you about what you talk about in your sessions.” In Momspeak, this means, What did you talk about? There has never been a time in our lives when there was something my mother felt she didn’t know about me. This isn’t true, but I know it’s how she feels, and so this new privacy is totally shocking to her. Maybe I should just say that she doesn’t have to worry, it’s not like I’m telling Dr. Katz anything either. She sounds angry but I don’t have the energy to care.

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping that my monosyllabic answer will be enough. “I guess the same goes for you?”

  “I’m not in therapy, Sparrow, I was just making sure the woman treating my daughter isn’t a total idiot.”

  “Sorry. Is she one?”

  “What do I know?”

  “She’s not what I expected,” I say.

  “Meaning she’s not white.”

  “Yeah. I was expecting someone like Mrs. Goldstein down the street. Are you sure it’s not C-A-T-S?”

  Mom almost manages a laugh. “I’m sure. She’s mixed, honey. Her dad is probably Jewish.”

  I really, really, really want to put my head on her shoulder and fall asleep. I stare out the window instead. And that right there is as far as we go. That’s our entire conversation. The less I talk, the more it seems like what I say is important. I’m tired of things being important, so I don’t say anything.

  This week is February vacation, which at the very least means that I don’t have to be in school. Not that anybody would notice, but my name doesn’t have to be called in every period. I don’t have to have that weird feeling where you sit at home while everybody else is doing the same thing like health or algebra or whatever and you’re watching the BBC series The Life of Birds for the sixth time. Or whatever you watch.

  The only thing that’s better when I’m sick is that Mom stays home, she brings me soup, she watches The Life of Birds with me until she gets bored, and then we switch to something we both like. When I’m really sick, she’ll even read to me. I know it’s for little kids, but I still like it. She’ll give me her big white bathrobe, and I’ll curl up on her bed, and she’ll read me some classic until I fall asleep. I always fall asleep.

  This is not that. I am not sick. Or not that kind of sick. It’s like I’m so messed up she’s afraid to be in the same room with me. There’s no soup, no Pride and Prejudice. It’s just me sitting in my room, staring out the window, ungluing my tongue from the roof of my mouth, where it gets stuck when I’m worried. Falling asleep and waking up with a start when my mother tries to creak the door open to make sure I’m, you know, not dead. “Sorry,” she always says quickly as she leaves. All we’ve said to each other all week is different versions of sorry.

  The next Monday is the same. Apparently, every Monday for the rest of my life, I’m going to sit and stare at Dr. Katz and not say anything, and then I’ll just get magically cured of not trying to kill myself. Sounds like a great plan. Mom and I sit in the waiting room and find separate parts of the ceiling to stare at in silence.

  “Sparrow?”

  “Hi.”

  “Come in.” Dr. Katz opens the door for me to walk past her. “See you in an hour, Ms. Cooke.”

  I go in, sit in my non-window-facing chair, and look at the soles of Dr. Katz’s sneakers as she settles them across from me. They are purple Nikes this time, white soles with purple trim, little zigzags like dragon teeth across the bottom, even and constant, interrupted by a very old piece of gum that makes me sick to my stomach. I look at the ceiling.

  “So, Sparrow, how have you been?”

  “Okay. You?”

  “Fine, thanks. Have you ever been in therapy before?”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “No, I haven’t been in therapy before.”

  “Okay, well, here’s how it works. We talk to each other. You tell me whatever you want. I never tell anybody any of the things you say.”

  “Right.”

  “Right. Unless I think you’re a danger to yourself or others, in which case I’m legally obligated to say something, but I think we’re out of those particular woods.”

  She’s looking at me like I’m supposed to say something. Ceiling.

  “So, Sparrow, what grade are you in?”

  Ugh. What is with this question all the time, adults? Huh? Does it reveal something about who I am? No. What it does is give you the chance to say, Oh, when I was your age … Trust me. You weren’t like me when you were my age.

  “Eighth.”

  “Where?”

  I’m waiting for the trip down memory lane, preparing myself to be regaled with tales of Dr. Katz’s high school years. The best years of her life, I bet. God help me.

  “School for Vision and Voice,” I say. It’s the hippie public school in my neighborhood. The one that got turned into an arts school when the neighborhood got taken over by yuppies (and buppies—hi, Mom) and the parents demanded better schools for their Brilliant Darlings. We value the arts and high scores on state tests, and good luck to those of you on our wait list.

  “Do you like it there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have a favorite class?”

  “I like art.” As a kid you’re trained to answer these questions. I answer automatically. Right now I can’t even picture the art teacher’s face. Dr. Katz is looking at me. Waiting for more. I have nothing more to say. I look back at her. She looks back at me. It seems to me we could stay like this for quite some time. We do. I break first, go up to the ceiling.

  “Do you have a favorite teacher?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Who was your favorite teacher?”

  “Mrs. Wexler. She’s the librarian.”

  “And why isn’t she your favorite anymore?

  “She died.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Sparrow.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Were you close?”

  “She was nice.”

  I have a strange feeling at the back of my throat; it’s closing up. My eyes are watering. I seem very aware of my proximity to the Kleenex. I close my eyes. I want to fall asleep. I want to burst into tears. I open my eyes and go back to the ceiling. I stay there.

  “Would you like to draw?” she asks.

  I stay on the ceiling. Art is just what I said because you’re supposed to say something, like you say “It’s okay” when someone dies, even though it’s obviously not, because someone is dead and they shouldn’t be. I don’t even have art this year.

  I met Mrs. Wexler when I was in fifth grade. It was my first year at Vision and Voice. It was a few weeks into school, and it was raining. I’ve never really grasped the concept of recess. It’s loud, and there’s never enough equipment (not that I wanted it, but the missing balls and bases always seemed to contribute to the noise), and it was just like the playgrounds I avoided as a kid but worse because you couldn’t leave and there weren’t benches. I am not a double-dutch person. I am not a H-O-R-S-E person. I don’t even like kickball. I like to watch, I guess, but there wasn’t even a good place to do that. It was just a lot of noisy kids trapped in a cage for twenty minutes to play a game they didn’t have time to play or enough of whatever they needed to play it. If you stood at the fence and put your fingers through like an escapee, you looked crazy. I knew better than to do that. But then it rained. It rained! They were going to send us all to the gym, but we wouldn’t fit, and so some of us had to go to the library. I volunteered. The kids all rushed in, mostly girls and a smattering of Magic: The Gathering boys. The girls threw themselves around the library like they owned it, finding tables and claiming them, making sure they saved a seat for Tiffany or Kelli or whoever. They squealed and played with their iPhones, and I snuck off into the stacks. I could still hear them, it would have been impossible not to.

  “Marc is the cutest. I think he really lik
es me.”

  “There is no way that is true. Justin told me that Marc likes Melissa and Melissa likes him back, so … ”

  “You are so mean sometimes.”

  “I’m sorry you think the truth is mean.”

  “I’m sorry about your face.”

  And on. And on. And on.

  Mrs. Wexler was terrifying to everyone. She was tall and pale, with short blond hair and earrings up and down both of her ears. She was a little old for that look, which is probably what made her seem kind of scary. Like she’d had a wild youth, but also like maybe she was still a little wild. She tamed it all with the cardigan she always wore, the only hint that she was (a) an adult and (b) a librarian. A lot of teachers take the warning approach; they’ll give you a chance before they really let loose. Not Mrs. Wexler. After two minutes, she roared at the giggling girls, “You want to talk, go talk in the rain. This is the library. We read in here.” They blushed so hard I could hear it. They took to writing notes. I took to looking for books, trying not to grin so as not to get yelled at for smiling too loudly.

  I was wandering around, looking for something new to read, and feeling that rush of watching someone who isn’t you get in trouble. She tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Something I can help you with?”

  “No.” I’m pretty sure I sounded terrified.

  “I’m Mrs. Wexler. What’s your name?”

  “Sparrow.”

  “You’re in the fifth grade, right, Sparrow? You seem new.”

  “I am.”

  “So, let me show you around. You’ve found fiction, I see. We’ve got classics over here and graphic novels there. The nonfiction is on the other side, split into sections alphabetically from autobiography to zoology. Is there anything you’re particularly interested in?”

  “Um. No.” I don’t lead with the truth right away. Besides, it was still entirely possible that this woman would eat me for a midafternoon snack if my answer displeased her.

  “Have you read Harriet the Spy?”

  “Seven times.”

  “One day you’re going to have to talk a little louder so I can hear you, but for now”—she got down on one knee—“we’ll just do like this.”

  “Seven times.”

  “It’s the greatest. What other books do you like?”

  “Matilda; The Phantom Tollbooth; The Westing Game; Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”

  “Ah, the classics. Okay, let’s try something this century.”

  “Okay.”

  She handed me Out of My Mind and Flora and Ulysses and Liar and Spy. She didn’t even have to look for them. It was like she had them set aside for me. Memory plays tricks. I know that’s not possible, but it’s how I remember it. Whoosh, from out of nowhere, she drops three books into my hands.

  “You know,” she said as she was checking them out for me, “you don’t have to wait to come back until you finish them. There are a few kids who come here every day during lunch to read. You can’t eat in here, but you can be excused to the library as soon as you’re done with your lunch. I’ll just put your name on the list, okay?”

  That’s when I saw them, a handful of kids scattered around the library on rugs, lying in pairs or off in a corner by themselves on a mat, piles of books beside them. It was the first time I ever wanted to join anything.

  “Okay.”

  I came back the next day. I didn’t go to lunch. I went to the bathroom, scarfed down my sandwich, and headed right for the library.

  “Hi again,” she said.

  “Hi.” I think I managed a smile. I hope I did.

  “This is where we keep the lunch-bunch mats,” she explained, pointing to a stack of rugs next to the checkout desk. “Find a spot and happy reading!”

  “Thanks! Um, I finished these.” I handed her the books she’d given me the day before.

  “Wow! Big reader, huh?”

  “I guess.”

  She dropped another one right in my hands. The Year of the Book. It’s about a girl who prefers books to people. I knew what Mrs. Wexler was trying to hint at. The thing is, this girl already had a friend and she just needed to learn how to be better friends. If anything, I needed a book that came with a friend included, or at least a friend manual. Cute of her to try, though. Instead, I read all the books that the main character read: My Side of the Mountain, I reread A Wrinkle in Time, and then Hush. After Hush, I read every single book Jacqueline Woodson had ever written.

  “What are you in the mood for today?” Mrs. Wexler asked over her dark glasses, tilting her head a little, so all her earrings jangled. She had noticed that I was now through with everything from From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun to After Tupac and D Foster. I was stumped.

  “Maybe something about birds?” I figured I could test her out now.

  “Ornithology! Why didn’t you say so?” She practically skipped over to the section. “Here you go, as many books as you could want on the topic of avian wonder.”

  “Thanks!” I’d never seen that many bird books together. I started at Audubon and kept going. It took the rest of the year. These were reference books, she explained, you were only allowed to take one home at a time. I came every day after that. I would always beat all the other “Frequent Flyers,” as Mrs. Wexler called us. The mat kids. The readers. The losers. Frequent Flyers certainly sounded nicer.

  After a few weeks, she called me out.

  “Sparrow.” Her voice wasn’t as harsh as I knew it could be, but it wasn’t her grab-a-mat voice either.

  “Yes?”

  She knelt next to me.

  “You’re not eating lunch.”

  “I am!”

  “Stuffing a sandwich into your face in the bathroom isn’t lunch, Sparrow.”

  I couldn’t say anything. I just stared at my shoes.

  “That’s what you’ve been doing, right?”

  I nodded as little as I possibly could. I was worried that if I moved my head too hard, I might knock some tears loose.

  “Listen, you and I both know that the cafeteria is a terrible place, but, Sparrow, so is the bathroom. I have a little office behind the checkout desk. You can eat in there before you come read, okay?”

  The world’s tiniest nod again.

  “Good. Grab a mat.”

  We never talked about it again. I just started eating in her office after that. Sometimes she’d eat with me; most of the time I’d sit there and read. Sometimes she would ask me about what I was reading and didn’t I get tired of all those carrots and celery sticks and didn’t I want some cookies. I did. My mom’s the health nut, not me. Sometimes we’d both just sit and read and eat in silence. On my birthday, she brought me a cupcake with a little bird candle on top.

  In the middle of sixth grade, Mrs. Wexler pulled all the Frequent Flyers together in her little office. There were six of us. We stood wide-eyed, nervous to be around each other. We’d seen each other every day for the last year or so, of course, but part of the joy of going to the library instead of the cafeteria was not having to talk to anyone except for Mrs. Wexler, and most of the time she didn’t want to talk to us anyway. It was the first time we’d ever really seen each other. Emilio with the hearing aids; Francis, who always sat with Eric to read Magic books when they took a break from playing the actual game; Buzz, whose real name was Molly and who spent all of her time in the astronomy section; and Leticia, who seemed like the most normal person on earth. I never understood what Leticia was doing being a Frequent Flyer. She had friends—a quality that the rest of us noticeably did not possess, except for Francis and Eric, who were more like the same person than they were like actual friends. Apparently, Leticia just liked to read.

  “We’re going to have a book club,” Mrs. Wexler announced.

  I wake up in a sweat. I close my eyes, out of breath. I just need to get back. Just let me get back. I lie down, try to convince myself that I’m still sleeping, try to get the dream to come back. I try to see the light behind my eyelids, feel the win
d in my face. I try to remember what my body feels like when it’s that light, what my arms feel like when their span is twice as long, when they’re covered in smooth brown and white feathers, when I swoosh and dive and soar and rise and glide. When I am just one among many, keeping my spot in our V. What it feels like to be up above, beyond Park Slope, beyond Brooklyn, beyond New York, beyond, beyond, beyond. When Central Park looks like nothing but a landing pad and there’s so much blue between my body and the ground. It’s not working.

  I get up and head over to my window. If I can’t dream about flying, maybe I’ll see if I can get some actual birds to stop by. See if I can’t get the real deal. Even a pigeon. It’s not true what they say—they’re not winged rats. Their name comes from the word for peeping chick in Latin, and they’re just the same as doves. But even they’re not coming by tonight. I hear an owl. I open the window and wait for it. Owls rarely come for me. They’re just not that interested in a fourteen-year-old girl with insomnia. But I can hope. At the very least, I can wait.

  My mother finds me slumped in a heap by the open window in the morning, my head resting on the sill. She screams when she see me, running to me and shaking me.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” I say unconvincingly. “I was just looking out the window.” This is not going to help me with that whole see-Mom-I’m-totally-fine thing.

  The lights and the noise are the first things I notice. In that way, it’s not so different from being in the hospital. I walk in and feel blinded by the fluorescent lights, deafened by the slamming of lockers in unison, the shouts and high fives and Slow down! and Oh shit! and Watch your mouth! and the opening and closing of doors and the I said get in a line! Everything here moves like Times Square on a Saturday night. If I don’t pay attention, I’ll be trampled. I pull over into the doorway of an empty classroom just to catch my breath. First period. I just have to get to first period. Where is first period?

  It’s funny how when you’ve been out of school for a little while—just two and a half weeks—what was second nature a few weeks ago feels like a different country with strange customs and rituals. Did I really go to math on the third floor every day for this whole year? It feels like I’ve never been there before. But I have to go. I have to be on time. I cannot, cannot be the person who walks in late and everyone takes a minute to look at you and then maybe they stop to think, “Huh, where’s she been?” and then the teacher is like, all solemn, “Glad to have you back, Sparrow,” and then you have to go and think about really killing yourself this time. My legs start walking me there without my realizing it. I guess this is what they mean by muscle memory.