Sparrow

by Mary Cecilia Jackson

  “How are you, my dear?” she asks. “How is your foot?”

  “It’s much better, Madame. Thank you for asking. It aches when I’m tired, and if I’m on my feet for a long time, it swells a little.”

  “May I see?”

  We’re all so used to Levkova staring at our bodies, touching us, adjusting the tilt of our hips, stretching our arms and legs, examining all our many injuries, that without question I take off my shoe and sock and prop my foot on the couch. She picks it up tenderly and cradles it in her lap. Moving it from side to side, she looks at my face. “Does this hurt?” she asks softly.

  “No, Madame. It only feels a little stiff.”

  She runs her thumb along the tops of my toes.

  “And your toes? They were not damaged?”

  “No, Madame. Just the bones in my foot.”

  She bends her head and strokes my foot, from my ankle to my toes, again and again.

  “I came to see you in the hospital. Do you remember?”

  Live for me. Please. Live for me.

  “Yes, Madame. I thought I was dreaming, but Sophie told me you were really there.”

  She looks up and smiles. “I am glad. I have been worried that you would not remember, so I came here today to tell you again, in person, what I said that afternoon.” She pauses, like she’s centering herself.

  “My darling little bird, I came to tell you that I love you very, very much, as though you were my own child. And I came to tell you that you will dance again. Because I am going to help you.”

  She rests her hands on my foot, which is still in her lap. There is a huge lump in my throat. I can’t take my eyes off her.

  “You have heard the stories of great dancers who have come back from terrible injuries, yes? Beautiful, brave dancers like Misty Copeland and David Hallberg?”

  I nod, and she takes my hands in hers.

  “We know how they struggled because they had the courage to share their pain, their suffering, their grief,” Levkova continues. “Like them, you will have to work very hard, but you are no stranger to hard work. And when you fear that you can do no more, you will think of these dancers and how they triumphed over their injuries. Their stories will help you strengthen your will and your heart. Together, you and I will bring you back to what you love.”

  She hands me the box. “I have also brought you a gift. A symbol, perhaps, of a new beginning.”

  I untie the white ribbon and tear the paper away, revealing a box from the London company that creates handmade pointe shoes for some of the most famous ballerinas in the world. Each pair is marked with the personal symbol of the maker who crafted them.

  Inside are the most exquisite pointe shoes I have ever seen.

  “Oh, Madame, thank you! They’re beautiful!”

  “I chose the maker myself and spoke to him several times. He knows your story and asked me to tell you it was an honor to make your shoes.”

  My eyes fill, and I close the box so my tears won’t drip onto the beautiful shoes. Leaning forward, I wrap my arms around Madame Levkova and hug her close. “I love you too,” I whisper. “So much.”

  She holds me in her arms and rocks back and forth. “We are going to work hard,” she says. “Very hard, indeed. You will dance again, little bird. This, I know.”

  “I will work hard, Madame, I promise.”

  At the front door, she clasps my hands in hers and kisses me on both cheeks. “Tomorrow morning, at seven thirty, you will come to the studio. And so we will begin.”

  “Yes, Madame. I’ll be there.” I wave as she drives away.

  You are innocent. You are beloved.

  And in this moment, I begin to believe.

  Lucas

  To weep is to make less the depth of grief.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part 3

  32

  A Walk in the Woods

  “Granny! I’m taking Beau for a walk!”

  It’s the week before Christmas, and my mom and Anna will be here in two days. I can’t decide if I’ll be happy to see them or wish they’d stayed home, so I could have this quiet and peace and Granny and Beau to myself for a little longer.

  Granny walks out onto the screened back porch, pulling on her favorite Christmas sweater, the nuclear-green one with the creepy dancing elves.

  “My ankle feels so much better without that wretched bandage. It’s nice to wear a proper pair of shoes again. Now, why were you shouting at me, you brazen article?”

  “Granny, that Irish stuff makes no sense whatsoever. I wasn’t shouting at you. I was just letting you know that I’m going to take Beau for a walk. He says it’s going to snow later, and he wants to go sniff around in the woods before it covers up all his favorite places.”

  She smiles, her face creasing into a thousand soft wrinkles, especially around her eyes and her mouth. “He told you all that now, did he?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s a smart dog. He’s also good at predicting the weather.”

  “He’s a right coward, that’s what he is. You’ve seen him shaking in his shoes when there’s a thunderstorm.”

  She opens the door all the way, and Beau leaps from the top step and lands in the hydrangea bushes, which are pretty much only sticks this time of year. He yelps once, so we’ll feel sorry for him, then tears around the yard like his tail is on fire.

  Granny shakes her head. “Look at him. Six years old, and he thinks he’s still a puppy.”

  We stand there watching Beau act like a moron for a while, until Granny shivers and looks up at the sky.

  “It is most certainly going to snow, Lucas. Will you be warm enough?”

  “Yes, Granny. I’m plenty warm.”

  “Are you hungry? Do you want to take along some of the cookies your mother sent?”

  “No, ma’am. But thank you.”

  “You can’t stay mad at her forever.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s my current plan.”

  “Is it so terrible, being here with an old lady?”

  “Oh, Granny, no. It’s not you. It’s that my own mother sent me away. Not cool.”

  “If you ask me, she was wise to do it. Go have your walk. And don’t lose my dog.”

  I call Beau and set off, promising Granny I won’t be more than half an hour. Beau trots happily beside me, looking up every now and then with adoration. I don’t read much into those big chocolate eyes. He’d adore a serial killer if the dude took him for a walk.

  When I’m out of sight of the house, just before we reach the dense boundary of trees that divides my grandmother’s property from the deep woods beyond, I sit down on a lichen-covered log and pull out my phone. Beau whines in frustration.

  “Chill out, dog. I have important human business to conduct.”

  He walks away in a huff, pushing his nose into fallen leaves and pine needles, lifting his head to breathe the wind.

  I send the disco boy and wait for her flamenco dancer. I’d be happy with anything, to be honest. The waving hand. The middle finger. Even the smiling turd.

  Hey, Birdy.

  It’s cold up here. Snow on the way.

  I wait. And wait. And wait.

  Nothing.

  I shove my phone back in my pocket and whistle for Beau.

  My head aches. My heart hurts. Yesterday I tried to dance a little in the backyard, some fast turns, a couple of tours jetés, but it was all wrong. It made me feel too much, want too much. It made me remember that day in the studio, when Swan Lake finally clicked, when I was a prince and she was the Swan Queen. It made me remember that perfect round mole on the underside of her left arm, her hair, her river-green eyes. It made me remember, when all I want to do is forget.

  Beau runs ahead, pausing to pee on trees along the way, then trots back to me with a stick. I pull it out of his mouth and throw it as hard as I can, but he just stands there, wagging his tail, looking at me expectantly. Like I’m the one who’s supposed to go fetch it.

  “Look, Doggy McDogface,”
I say, throwing another stick. “I throw, you fetch. That’s how it’s done, you dumb dog.”

  He runs ahead, past the place where the stick landed. I can’t see him anymore.

  “Beau!” I call. Granny will kill me if her dog runs off. “Beau, get your furry butt back here!”

  Nothing.

  I trudge on, deeper and deeper into the woods, where the path grows fainter, then disappears completely. The trees grow so closely together that they block out the cold winter light, and it suddenly feels spooky, too dark and claustrophobic. Up ahead, I see a flash of yellow, and I start running.

  “Beau, don’t you dare move, you mangy mutt! Stay! Stay right there!”

  I find him at the edge of a clearing. Tall tulip poplars reach their spindly arms up to the sky, which is thick with low gray clouds. A few snowflakes drift past, settling on the wet brown leaves before they melt away.

  Beau is sniffing at something under a tree, whining and looking back at me. If he’s killed another rabbit like he did last week, leaving its eviscerated carcass next to my boots, I will throw up on his head.

  But it’s not a rabbit. It’s a bird.

  “Move, Beau. It’s okay, buddy. Come on, move over.”

  I nudge him gently out of the way, and he whines, telling me that he got there first and I am not being fair. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Go pee on something.”

  I kneel down on the carpet of leaves, careful not to get too close, in case it’s something that wants to peck out my eyeballs.

  It’s small and bright yellow, with black-and-white wings. Its beak is smashed, and one of its wings is bent at a weird angle, folded in half right down the middle. There’s a little blood on the top of its head. I can see it breathing, fast and hard. One glittering black eye looks at me, like it recognizes me, like it’s asking me for something. Its chest heaves up and down, and it opens its beak and lets out a little sound.

  She sounds like she’s crying.

  I slide my hands underneath her body and pick her up, holding her close to my chest. She’s trembling so hard that I can feel the vibrations in my wrists and elbows. She tries to flap her wings, and her head moves frantically back and forth. She’s terrified, unable to fly away, to do the only thing that keeps her safe.

  “Come on, bird,” I say. “Not on my watch. I’ll stay with you until you feel better. Until you can fly again.” I run my finger along her downy breast, and she makes that little cry again. Her beak opens and closes, like she’s telling me something. It hurts. I’m afraid.

  I blow warm air over her so she won’t be cold, and she shudders. I stroke her chest some more, the black spot on the top of her head. I cup my palms around her a little more tightly and blow another warm breath onto her bright feathers. Gradually, her breathing slows. Her beak opens once, then closes, and opens again.

  I watch the light leak out of her eyes. I breathe on her, over and over again. I tell her what a beautiful bird she is, how soon her wing won’t hurt anymore and she’ll be flying somewhere peaceful and warm, where there’s music in the clouds and plenty of food and it’s always summer and there are no cats.

  She shudders and lets out a tiny cry. She tries again to flap her wings. Then her eyes close, and she goes still. She dies in my hands.

  She dies.

  “Oh, no, no, no. Don’t go, bird. Birdy Bird, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me alone.”

  The sobs come up from the soles of my feet. I put my forehead on the wet carpet of leaves and I cry and cry and cry, with no one to hear me but Beau. He whimpers and lies beside me, resting his head on my thigh. I rock back and forth, holding the bird, my tears falling onto her feathers as her body grows cold in my hands. The light starts to fade, and it begins to snow in earnest. I cry until my throat is raw, until my eyes burn, until I choke and can’t breathe. Big white flakes drift down and land in Beau’s fur, in my hair, on the back of my neck.

  I close my hands so she’ll stay warm.

  “Let her go, Lucas.”

  I feel my grandmother’s hand between my shoulders. She kneels down beside me on the cold ground.

  “Let me see,” she says.

  I open my hands and show her the bird. I can’t stop crying. My shoulders heave, and I close my eyes so I won’t have to see anything, the dog, my grandmother, the snow.

  The little bird.

  Granny doesn’t say anything, just waits until I stop, her gloved hand still on my back, her thin shoulder pressed up against my arm. The snow is falling fast and thick, covering my grandmother’s silver-white hair like a lace veil.

  “You couldn’t have saved her, Lucas.”

  “I could have brought her home. I could have set her wing. I could have helped her. I could have fixed her.”

  Granny doesn’t answer right away. When she does, she isn’t talking about the bird. Her eyes are faraway, seeing things that aren’t there.

  “Oh, child. There are some things that can’t be fixed, not by you, not by me, not by anyone. There was nothing you could have done for that poor creature. It was her time. You couldn’t have changed that, and if you’d tried, you would have hurt her and frightened her and only put off what was going to happen anyway. You were kind. You stayed with her. She wasn’t alone. Sometimes all we can do is watch and grieve. And that has to be enough.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “No,” she agrees. “It isn’t.”

  “We should bury her.”

  “Give her to me.”

  I open my hands, and she takes the bird and sets her down on a bed of leaves.

  “We can’t just leave her here! We need to bury her, Granny.”

  “No, darling,” she says gently. “She wouldn’t want to be under the dark earth, when all she’s ever known is the sunlight on the trees and the sweet air all around her. We’ll lay her down and let her be. Come on, now. It’s getting dark. You held her and spoke to her, and that’s all you could have done. Let’s go home.”

  I stand up and help my grandmother to her feet.

  “What kind of bird is she?”

  “A goldfinch. They love the winter woods.”

  She takes my arm and calls softly to Beau, and we walk down the path toward home. We hold on to each other all the way.

  33

  Epiphany

  I pull the stairs to the attic down from the ceiling in the upstairs hallway and carry the box of old photo albums up, stair by steep stair. My grandmother has approximately eleventy thousand pictures, carefully pasted into thick leather albums, all captioned in her perfect Catholic school penmanship. We’ve been looking at them every night after dinner, making our way from her wedding day in Belfast to last year’s Nutcracker. When Dad was still here. The problem is that she keeps them all in one huge box, which weighs as much as a Volkswagen. Inside the attic, the smell of cedar makes me feel like I’m in a giant hamster cage.

  After breakfast this morning, I finally chopped up the nine-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree, which I took down after New Year’s, and dragged all the pieces into the woods so they can do that whole circle-of-life thing. Beau helped me pull some of the branches, holding them in his mouth and tripping over them with his big muddy feet.

  It’s the third week in February, and I’m going home in a couple of days. At Christmas I told my mother I wasn’t ready to go back to school, and Granny faked a cough and said she’d been feeling poorly lately, that she could use my help just a little longer. We worked it out ahead of time. She was lying. I was not. My mom talked to Mr. Freeman, who said that since I’ve been keeping up with the work and turning assignments in on time, he’d see what he could do about extending my Beatdown Leave. Though it’s doubtful those were his exact words.

  “Lucas,” Granny calls up the stairs. “What in the name of all the saints is taking you so long? Come down and have your lunch!”

  I hear Beau’s panting and see his big yellow head peek up over the top of the stairs. He smiles his slobbery smile and climbs the rest of the way, trotting over t
o sit beside me, his wagging tail sending dust motes into the dim light.

  “I’ll be right there, Granny!”

  I shove the box in the corner with the holiday decorations. If I stand in front of the octagonal window at the far end of the attic, I can get a decent signal.

  I send the disco boy emoji first.

  Hey, Birdy. Just wanted to say hi. Granny has me chopping up trees and hauling boxes. Beau is helping me. Not with the boxes or the chopping, obvs, just tons of moral support. Like a furry cheerleader, with the most revolting breath on the planet.

  Nothing. Then three dots.

  I wait. And wait. And wait.

  Beau sounds like a great dog.

  My heart pounds into my throat, and my hands start to shake. I tap her picture, the one I took at the Honeysuckle Pond two summers ago, when she’d just come up out of the water and her hair was wet and tangled and she was squinting and smiling into the sun. Her contact information comes up. My thumb hovers over her phone number.

  I need to hear her voice. I need to tell her everything, all of it, right this minute. I need to know how she’s doing, if she’s okay. If she’s dancing, even a little. If she still hates me. She’s so close right now, and I need to talk to her so badly. I need to tell her about the goldfinch.

  I put my phone down and walk away, so I won’t do something stupid. What I need isn’t important. This is about what she needs. A friend. Somebody who isn’t selfish. Somebody who won’t scare her away.

  I shake out my hands and pick up the phone.

  He’s the best dog ever. He thinks he’s human. How are you?

  I’m okay. Some days better than others. I’m talking to a doctor about stuff. My mother. Everything.

  That’s good, right?

  It’s awful. Crazy-hard. But also good.

  I’m glad, Birdy.

  I need to run. Have fun with Beau.

  I will. Take care.

  You too.