by Sarah Moon
I miss them. Miss isn’t the right word. I miss them the way you miss water in a desert. I miss them the way children miss their parents, the way I miss Mrs. Wexler, the way I miss things being easy and clouds being below me. The way you miss things you don’t know how to be without, but you know they’re never coming back.
Mrs. Wexler’s funeral was the Friday after her accident. Mom helped me buy a black dress. I let her do my hair, I didn’t just put it up in a poof like I usually do. I sat with my back against the couch as she sat above me, comb in hand, towel on my shoulders. She made two plaits on either side, milkmaid braids is what she calls them. It felt like being a little kid again, I’m just as tender-headed as I was then, but it felt kind of good too, even if it was the saddest day of my life. I guess it was that feeling of being a little girl on the rug getting my hair combed by my mom that made me tell her where I’d been eating lunch for the last three years. I took a deep breath.
“Don’t be mad,” I said, picking at the rug, “but I’ve been eating lunch in the library.”
“Mmm. For how long?” Mom didn’t know that she didn’t know everything about me.
“Since fifth grade.”
Her strong, steady hands in my hair paused. I felt her shoulders sag as she sighed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I knew what you’d say.”
“What’s that?”
“That I should spend more time with people and less time with books. But you don’t understand—”
“I do understand, Sparrow.” I felt the soft tug of her hands finishing a plait. “I just want you to challenge yourself.”
“I made a friend in the library.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, that’s where I met Leticia.”
“That’s great, baby.”
“But I don’t think we’re friends anymore.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to go to the funeral with her, but I don’t think she’s going.” Mom started the braid on the other side and I had to hold my ear to my shoulder for what felt like forever. “Mom?”
“Mmm?”
“Will you go with me?”
“Of course.” Her voice cracked. I knew I’d ruin my hair if I turned around to look at her, and I knew she didn’t want me to. I stared straight ahead and wondered why Mrs. Wexler’s death seemed to have Mom as upset as it had me.
That’s what I’m thinking about as I watch Mom rustling around the kitchen trying to get ready for work. She’s wearing the same dress she wore to the funeral. I’ll never wear my black dress again. Mom looks good in hers, but just seeing it makes me sad. I sip my tea and wish she would sit down and eat with me, but I know she has to get out the door. She sees me staring at her.
“What is it, Sparrow?” Mom in a rush is not the epitome of patience.
“Nothing, sorry.” I look at my tea. She sighs, and it sounds like ugh. I tell my face not to react, but I can feel my mouth pulling down at the corners anyway and my face getting hot. She turns her back as she finishes pouring a thermos full of tea and throws a granola bar into her briefcase.
“I’ll see you late,” she says. She approaches me, and I can tell she’s trying to decide if she’s going for a hug or a kiss on the cheek or what. She ends up patting my shoulder and it’s all the definition of awkward. I leave right after her for school. We could’ve left together but I don’t think either of us wanted that.
Hi, Sparrow, come on in.”
I like this part, the little rush at the beginning. I take in what she’s wearing (olive cargo pants, Converse, a loose-fitting black shirt), silently judge it, like her anyway, sit down, wait for her to sit down; this part is the easy part. We start talking about music. Easy. I tell her about Curtis and the gift cards and listening to Alabama Shakes and the Pixies and Patti Smith all the time.
I can’t tell her the rest, that I’m hungry for more—that these people seem to be keeping me company now that the birds are gone.
“So, tell me about the birds.”
“What does that have to do with music?” She looks at me like, You know. I do know. “Because that’s what’s keeping me company now.” She smiles. “Fine. What about them?”
“When did you turn into a bird?”
“I mean, a lot. I don’t know.”
“Like when?”
“Like all the time!”
“Give me three.”
“Ugh. Fine. How about every day I went into the cafeteria before fifth grade and all this year?”
“What happened in fifth grade?”
“I started to eat lunch in the library with Mrs. Wexler.”
“And then she died?”
“Yeah, this October.”
“So, why did you hate lunch before that?”
“Have you ever been in a cafeteria? It’s horrible.”
“As I recall, they can be pretty stressful places. Why did yours make you call on the birds?”
“Well, you can’t fly in a cafeteria, obviously, but the only thing that made lunch okay was knowing that we’d go to recess for fifteen minutes, and I’d get to fly at least for a little bit.”
“Why was it so bad?”
“Why are you so nosy?”
“Sparrow.”
“What?” My arms are crossed. My legs are crossed. I can feel myself squirming in my chair. I want to leave.
“Why did you hate lunch?”
“Why do you think?” Silence. Expectant eyebrows. Is she for real? “Monique.”
“Who’s Monique?”
“She’s Leticia’s friend.”
“Who’s Leticia?”
“She was my friend, or at least I think she was my friend. We were in Mrs. Wexler’s reading group together. We liked a lot of the same books. We spent lunch together in the library every day until Mrs. Wexler died.”’
“Then what happened?”
“I had to go back to the cafeteria. I haven’t eaten in the cafeteria since the first week of fifth grade. So everyone has their spots to sit in, the geek boys, the not-so-popular girls, the jock boys, and the popular girls, and Monique was their queen. I stood there trying to figure out where I could sit and not bother anyone and not be bothered by anyone. That’s when I saw Leticia. There was a seat right next to her. I walked up to her table, and she said hi and moved over so I could sit and I ended up sitting between her and Monique. We talked a little about some books we liked, and the whole time Monique was moving her elbows out so I had less and less room and saying, ‘What are you guys talking about?’ Leticia said, ‘Nothing.’ I don’t know why she didn’t just tell her we were talking about books. I ate my lunch as fast as I could, but it didn’t matter because we weren’t allowed to leave. Leticia didn’t talk to me much after that; she mostly talked to the other kids at the table. But she was the only person I knew, so I kept sitting there for the rest of the week.”
“And what were they talking about?”
“It depended on the day. Sometimes they talked about boys. Sometimes it was about how weird it was that I was sitting with them. Sometimes it was about how I thought I was better than they were because I knew the right answer in class and did my freaking homework. And then there was the terrible day.”
“What was that?”
“The day my mother packed Oreos in my lunch. She’s a health nut. It was supposed to be a nice surprise.”
Dr. Katz sighs, and closes her eyes; she knows what’s about to come. “Oh, no.”
“Yeah. I opened them up and Monique just starts shrieking, ‘Look, look, the Oreo brought Oreos! The Oreo brought Oreos!’ ”
“That sucks. Monique sucks.”
“Whatever. Girls like her don’t like me. I read books and don’t listen to Nicki Minaj. I’m ‘stuck up.’ ”
“What did Leticia say?”
I look down. I shake my head. I can’t get myself to say the truth—that she said nothing. I hate thinking about it. Hate thinking about her there, lau
ghing with those girls like she never sat on a rug with me in the corner of the library crying about our favorite sad part in a book.
“Did you tell a teacher about what they were doing?”
“No. I told my mom.”
“And what did she say?”
“That they’re just jealous. I have no idea what they’d be jealous of. They think I’m stuck up because I don’t talk to them, but I don’t talk to anyone. And they think I’m a snob because I read all the time. They’d read too if they never talked. Black girls just don’t like me.”
“This one does.” Shelikesmeshelikesme.
“You don’t go to my school, though.”
“You think all the black girls at your school are like that? Even the not-so-populars?”
“They aren’t mean to me, but they probably think the same thing. That I’m a weirdo who doesn’t have any friends. I mean, they’d be right.”
“So, what happened next?”
“I looked up to the windows. There were only a few, right at the top. And I waited for a bird to fly by, and as soon as one did, it started. My skin went cold like goose bumps, but I felt so warm inside, and I felt feathers come, very, very slowly. My bones went light; my face shifted shape. Then I could hang on until we’d be dismissed for recess.”
“And what would happen at recess?”
“I’d find a corner where no one was and sit down on a bench. I’d stare up, and I’d wait. Fifteen minutes isn’t long, but it’s enough. I’d feel my body go up, and I’d join whichever family of birds was closest by—a warbler in the spring or purple finch in the fall or once a northern goshawk—and my feathers would turn the color of their feathers, my feet would go under me, and I’d have that swoop swoop feeling in my heart, and I’d be very, very far away from those girls and those boys and the school and everything.”
“Where would you fly?”
“Wherever they were going, as far as I could get in fifteen minutes. Over all of Brooklyn, the park, the river, northeast over traffic on the BQE, sometimes to Staten Island, even, to look at the houses and the lawns.”
“Northeast on the BQE, huh?”
“Yeah. When I still had Mrs. Wexler, I spent a lot of time reading maps and figuring out where we were going. Once I flew over Governors Island, before they remade it into a picnic area and it still looked like the set of a horror movie, and once I sat on top of the crown of the Statue of Liberty.”
“Sounds like a better recess than most people get.”
“I don’t know. Maybe hanging out with your friends is like that for other people.”
“Maybe. When else would you fly?”
“When Mrs. Wexler died.”
“I bet. When else?”
“Sometimes when we had to go to my aunt’s for holidays.”
“When else?”
“My birthday.”
“When else?’
“When these kids on my block called me a stuck-up bitch.”
“When else?”
“Well, there was that time on the roof about two months back, not sure if you heard about that.”
“Ha!” She smiles. I smile back. I like making her laugh.
“And what led to that?” she asks.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Katz, that’s all we have time for this week,” I say, half joking, half praying I’m right.
“Nice try, Sparrow,” she says, sneaking a look at her watch. “Oh! You’re right. Okay. I’ll see you next week.” I get up to go. “By the way,” she asks, “have you ever heard of TV on the Radio?”
“No.”
“You might check them out.”
That night, I’m blaring TV on the Radio at home. Dr. Katz isn’t wrong—I love them. My knees are making my computer screen bounce; my feet can’t sit still. I watch videos of them on YouTube and can’t help but think that if they’d been eating lunch with me that day with Monique, they would have said something. When Mom comes home, she reaches over and turns off my speakers in the middle of “Happy Idiot” and I don’t even get a chance to tell her about them. She says, “We need to talk.” I nod without turning around, my stomach in knots.
“Mr. Phillips called.” I nod again. I guess he didn’t forget. “Sparrow, turn around when I’m talking to you.” I spin my chair toward her. “He says I need to come in. Do you know what it’s about?” I know, obviously, but I’m surprised anyway.
I look down. “What did he say it was about?”
“Stop playing games with me. What’s going on?”
“I’m not playing. What did he say?”
“That I need to come in for a conference with all your teachers.”
“All of them?”
“That’s what he said. Now, what is happening?”
“I owe some work, that’s all.”
“What does ‘some work’ mean?”
“I’ve been distracted; I just have some things to get done. It’s not a big deal.”
“Don’t you lie to me, Sparrow. I’ve never been called in to school for you before. Don’t try to tell me it’s not a big deal.”
“It’s not. I’ll get it done.”
“Sparrow.”
“Yeah?” I say, hanging my head.
“I don’t know,” she says, and closes the door.
I don’t sleep that night. I play the scene through in my head over and over. Faces of my teachers, distorted with my exhaustion, saying over and over, “Sparrow is going to repeat eighth grade” and “Sparrow hasn’t done work in months” and “What’s wrong with your daughter, Ms. Cooke?” Around 2:00 a.m. I go to the window and stare at the empty streets. I open it, just so I can listen for the birds, even though they don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I try, but I don’t hear anything but a garbage truck and a car alarm, the faraway screeching of wheels down train tracks, the rattle of a bar storefront finally closing. It’s not just that birds won’t come for me anymore; it’s like they’ve disappeared from the entire city. Like we’re all left flightless and I’m the only one awake to notice.
I get out of the house before Mom is out of the shower. I can’t face her. She sends me a text telling me that she’ll meet me at school at three. I walk in the door and up the stairs to first period. Kids rush around me, running up the stairs, chatting as they maneuver down them. It all seems effortless, like a beautiful machine. My legs feel like they’re made out of iron or lead or whatever’s heavier that I’m sure I was supposed to learn at some point this year. I barely get there in time for first period. All morning is like that. My heart pounding in my ears, like I can hear every single blood cell as it swirls around my body. How did this happen? I think back to my colored-in lines, my name on the top of the page, how I used to be shocked when kids wouldn’t have their homework. I used to be so good.
I’ve gone from being my mom’s perfect dream child with 100s on her quizzes and the vocabulary of a geek who reads all the time, to a stranger. A bird child with a breakdown. I wish I cared that I’m letting my teachers down. I wish I felt like I was letting myself down. But I don’t. I don’t care about eighth grade or Mr. Phillips and his thoughts about my “potential.” But I care about Mom, and how hard I’m making things for her. I would give anything to go back to the way that it was, being her perfect baby (maybe a little shy, maybe a little strange) with perfect grades, and taking flight when I needed to. She was happier then. So was I.
I didn’t do the reading last night. I haven’t done homework in two months, it’s true, but I always do my reading for Ms. Smith. On my way in, she puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “I’d like to speak with you after class.” I spend all period trying to figure out how she knew just from my face that I wasn’t prepared. I can’t believe I’ve let her down too. I try to figure out how to get out of this after-class chat. I’ve seen Jayce do it; he just saunters out with everyone else and ignores the teacher calling his name.
“Can I go to the nurse?” I ask, ten minutes before the end of the period. I go sit in my stall
in the bathroom until the bell rings. I go to YouTube on my phone, I put on my headphones and watch the video for “Wolf Like Me” until I hear the rush of people in the hallway. I head out of the stall and literally run into Mr. Garfield.
“Hey, there, Sparrow,” he says awkwardly, righting his tie.
“Sorry, Mr. Garfield.”
“It’s okay. I’m looking forward to meeting your mom later,” he says. At that very second, Monique passes by.
“Why are you meeting her mom, Mr. Garfield?” she asks sweetly, and loudly. I notice the gaggle of girls across the hall at their lockers giggling, whispering, admiring her.
“That’s none of your business, Monique.”
“Sparrow’s in trouble? What did you do, little Sparrow? Little Miss Perfect? A parent-teacher conference? Don’t worry, Sparrow,” she says, throwing her arm around my shoulder, “I’m sure they’ll serve Oreos. Unless, wait … are they bringing an ambulance? I hear you need those sometimes.” I feel everyone’s eyes on me now, they’re laughing, hooting, Snapchatting. I throw her arm off me, and storm away from Mr. Garfield’s calls of “Sparrow? Are you okay?”
My feet carry me up to the fifth floor. I know at once where my body’s headed. I watch my hands unlatch the window that opens farther than it’s supposed to; I watch my body bend and ease onto the fire escape. The cold metal feels good on my hands. The roof isn’t as cold as it was last time; there’s no more snow, just puddles from the last few days of rain, and lots of wind.
The wind blows my hoodie straight back; my eyes water against the heavy gusts. I walk right up to the edge. “Come on!” I say, but they don’t come. “Come on!” I shout up to the sky, top of my lungs. “Comeoncomeoncomeon,” I’m shouting and sobbing and my lungs hurt and my throat hurts. They’re going to leave me here; they left me weeks ago. No one’s coming. A strong wind blows behind me, nudging my wet sneakers closer to the ledge. “Get me out of here,” I say between sobs, to no one. I feel my toes curl over the edge. I uncurl them. I stop holding on. One more gust, and I’m gone. I can see my body falling through the air. One last flight. I look down and see where my body would fall. I can feel the final swoop of my stomach, the feathers over my arms, my feet tidy underneath me. And I can see the spot on the sidewalk where I would crash into concrete, into dark.