Sparrow Man

by M. R. Pritchard

  “He saw… he didn’t stop them… he pointed at me and said, that’s her.”

  “Meg?”

  My eyes sting and my nose runs. I shake my head, wipe my sleeve across my face. I focus on the feathers. Choosing pink ones, the flamingo feathers, I lay them next to the large vulture feathers. I spread them apart down the center aisle of the church. Largest to smallest.

  “Meg?” Sparrow asks.

  “I’m done talking.” My voice cracks. I clear my throat, swallow hard and focus on the feathers.

  …

  Sparrow sits in front of me, watching as I sort like a pet would, a devoted puppy waiting to play. He doesn’t offer to help; instead he crosses his legs and starts humming. I recognize the tune immediately as I’ll be There for You. He’s hummed it before, at least every third day.

  “Do you want to start at the beginning this time?” Sparrow asks when he is done with his song.

  “This is the only way for you to tell me what you are?”

  He gives a silent nod.

  “Well, there was that time when I was born and killed my mother.”

  “You didn’t kill her.” Sparrow drops his hands from his knees and presses them to the stone floor.

  “That’s right.” I pick up a pale gray feather and search the pile for its match. “You said that was unpossible.” Finding the matching feather I place them in the line. “So there was that and the bad childhood-”

  “Your father, tell me about him.”

  “Nothing to say. He hated me. I was a burden to him. Blamed me for everything and I never tried to be any different.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Never laid a finger on me until I turned twelve.” I look away from him. “This is embarrassing. I don’t want to tell you how much my father disliked me and how he threw a butter knife at me one day because I didn’t clear the dinner table fast enough and it lodged in the back of my leg.” I run my hand over the scar behind my thigh. I can still feel it, even through my jeans. “You know what kind of hate can cause a blunt object to lodge in skin? A steak knife would have been too easy, he wouldn’t have had to throw it as hard.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “I don’t want to. I try not to think about all that crap. I left him as soon as I could and never spoke another word to that asshole.”

  “Then tell me something else,” Sparrow suggests.

  “When I inherited that money, I packed up all the clothes I had and went downstate to college. Just far enough away that I didn’t feel out of place. Things were going good. I had escaped my crappy town for a few years, almost put all that behind me. And then I went to a party one weekend, ran into Jim.” A soft laugh escapes as I speak, now recognizing the absurdity of the whole situation. “I didn’t realize how much I missed that town, even though I hated it and almost everyone there.” I pick up a new feather, this one a sharp black.

  “What happened with Jim?” Sparrow presses.

  I stare at the floor as I talk, focusing on the feathers, the embarrassment of my sour life burning my cheeks. “We had drinks at the party, more than a few, until I couldn’t feel whatever it is that makes me… me. I drank until I couldn’t remember all that pain, until I felt free and all I could focus on was the handsome guy across the room who was staring at me.” I drop the feather and pick up a new one, bright red, from the parrots at the zoo.

  “Focus, Meg,” Sparrow urges.

  “I drank until I couldn’t feel myself anymore. Until I couldn’t feel whatever it is inside me that makes me act this way. You know, bad, and all. That guy I saw sat down next to me; put his arm behind my neck… We had sex and I got pregnant.” I squeeze the quill of the feather between my nails. I can’t bear to look up at Sparrow. It’s too hard with the shame of it all and the way he makes me feel. I keep remembering that damn dream now that he’s gone and changed on me, looking so amazing and asking me all these personal questions.

  “So he brought you home?”

  “Yeah, said he wanted to keep the baby, proposed and all.”

  Strangely, Sparrow asks, “Did you love him?”

  I drop the red feather and rest my hands on my jean clad legs. “I thought I did, but… I’m not really sure what love feels like. It might have been close.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “I don’t know. He said he did. He asked me to marry him. Isn’t that enough?”

  I reach forward and pick up the red feather again. Twirling it between my fingers, I search for others like it.

  “Did you ever get the feeling you were meant for something more? Something better?” Sparrow asks.

  Finding another red feather I pick it up and say, “Nope. I believed what everyone told me, every day of my life: Nothin’ but trash. That’s what I am and that’s how I’ve acted. I know nothing different.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong.”

  Not bothering to face him, knowing my face is flaming red, I say to the floor, “Maybe you’re wrong, Sparrow.”

  …

  “You’re done,” Sparrow whispers from behind me.

  I jump, startled. I didn’t know he was so close. Standing to stretch my numb legs, I get a good look at the long line of feathers stretching down the middle aisle of the church.

  “Are you ready for the next step?” He walks away and lifts my backpack from the pew it was set on.

  “What’s the next step?”

  He dumps the glue out of the bag. “I need you to glue them on.”

  “On what?”

  He turns and points to the bony appendages on his back.

  “Oh,” I mouth.

  “Will you-”

  I don’t give him time to finish, mostly because I’m afraid he’ll drop to his knees and beg me, and I don’t think I can bear to see him in that position again. “Sure.”

  I bend and pick up one of the bottles of glue.

  Sparrow lies across the stone floor on his stomach, his cheek resting on his folded hands. I look between his wing scaffold and the long string of feathers stretched down the church aisle.

  Dropping to my knees at his side, I reach for a feather.

  He tips his head up. “Remember, biggest to smallest.”

  “I got it!” I snap at him.

  Pinching a dark feather between my fingers and moving towards him, I place my free hand on his back as I bend down, steadying myself. Using the glue, I dab a bit of it on the quill of the feather before pressing it into the empty shaft of his skeletal wings. I hold it in place, breathing shallow, waiting for the glue to dry. It’s during those seconds of waiting that I remember my hand on his back. My fingers twitch over his skin, it’s taut and silky. I have a sudden flash of that filthy dream I had about him naked and pressing against me in my cell. I lift my hand from his back and I swear to God I see the corner of his mouth quirk up.

  Sparrow starts humming It’s my Life.

  “Sparrow.”

  “Huh?”

  “Shut up.”

  I reach for another feather, the matching one for the other side of his wings.

  …

  “What happened with those men?” Sparrow presses on as I glue his feathers.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I lean away from him and have to try very hard to control the urge to get closer.

  “You have to, Meg. You have to talk about it.”

  “They broke down the door, chased me across the house, upstairs to the bedroom.” I open a new bottle of glue, watching as the cap falls and bounces across the stone floor. “The bedroom was the only door with a lock on it. I tried to lock the door. But they just kicked it in.”

  Sparrow’s focus on me is intense.

  “I don’t want to tell you this,” my voice drops.

  “I know,” he replies.

  “No, you don’t understand, Sparrow. I really, really don’t want to tell you this.”

  “I won’t judge you.”

  “I don’t care if you judge me. People have been
judging me my whole life. I just don’t want the way you look at me to change,” I tell him in a fleeting moment of truth.

  “Unpossible.”

  “Sparrow…” I feel the burn of tears behind my eyes and with a sniff, I swallow them down. Big girls don’t cry. And trailer trash don’t cry, we get a beer and drown it.

  “It’s okay. You have to get it out.”

  “Maybe later,” I suggest.

  “We don’t have forever, Meg.”

  I shake my head. Reaching for a bright green parrot feather and dabbing glue onto it, I press the quill into place.

  …

  “It seems we’ve changed places,” I tell Sparrow, holding another pink flamingo feather in place as the glue dries.

  “What do you mean, Meg?”

  “Now I’m thinking I’m the one that’s crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “I’m in a church, gluing feathers to your back, and you have wings or… or something. You used to be cracked in the head and now you’re perfectly lucid and here I am doing all this. This is fucked up, Sparrow.”

  “You’re not crazy. But you still shouldn’t swear in church.”

  “What are you?” I ask, my hands shaking as I reach for the other pink flamingo feather.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “How much later? We’ve been here for days, maybe even a week I think.” I sit up and try to remember how long we’ve been inside this musty church. When I look towards the stained glass windows I can tell it is dark outside. Only, I don’t remember ever sleeping. I can smell dust, musky bricks; feel the weight of years of confessions cluttering the air in this space. Sparrow lit candles around me, what must have been hours ago. A perfect circle of votives and tall wax candles give his skin a soft glowing appearance.

  “I told you, when you tell me what happened to you, I will tell you what happened to me.”

  I take a deep breath, and when I exhale, the feathers that I’ve already glued to his wing bones flutter. Sparrow makes a strange noise in the back of his throat and closes his eyes.

  “Does that hurt?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How can you not be sure?” And just to test him I purse my lips and blow a stream of air across his feathers. I watch as they flutter and notice the bottom ones brushing up against the smooth skin of his ribcage.

  “Dear God, Meg, stop it,” he says with a half-groan as he shifts his hips against the stone floor.

  I do it for just a second longer, knowing that I’m teasing him, just like I have before. I stop when I realize he may never look at me the same again if I tell him everything that happened.

  Talk about a mood-buster.

  …

  A strange sensation causes me to press my hand to my stomach. It feels perfectly flat, taut from weeks of walking and running. The sensation gets stronger and when I raise my head and look around.

  “What’s wrong?” Sparrow asks from the floor next to me.

  “When was the last time I ate?”

  His eyes seem to darken a bit. I can see that he’s biting his cheeks, trying not to tell me something.

  “Sparrow?” I run my hands over my face. “Am… am I dead? Did I wake up like this?” I stand, frantically running my hands over my body, under my shirt, over my pants.

  “You’re fine.”

  “No, no. I can’t be. To be alive I have to eat. I have to sleep. I haven’t eaten, how long has it been?” I stand, turning myself in a tight circle, my hair whipping across my face.

  Sparrow stands and grips my wrists, his thumbs circling over the sensitive skin laced with blue veins. It has a calming effect. “You’re fine,” he tells me in a soothing voice. “You ate already. Look.” He points at the floor next to me where I see an empty plate and my bottle of water.

  I certainly don’t feel like I ate anything. Of course, lately I never feel absolutely full, no matter how many crackers or candy bars or roast deer I eat. I’m never full, the hunger is never gone.

  “I… I don’t remember,” I say.

  “Because you’re focusing too hard. Look, you’re almost done.” He points at the small pile of feathers next to us.

  I close my eyes, feeling his thumbs and index fingers continue to circle around my wrists. Even though he’s just trying to help me, his touch, it feels… different.

  “You’re fine,” he tells me.

  I kneel in front of the small pile of feathers and run my hand through it before picking one up.

  “What else happened, Meg?”

  I can feel his gaze on me, waiting for an answer, waiting for me to tell him everything.

  “Jim was there,” I whisper, staring at the tiny yellow feather in my hand. It’s not a bright yellow but a soft pale yellow, just like the nursery.

  “Jim was there,” Sparrow repeats. “And then?”

  I shake my head. “Let me finish this first.”

  Sparrow lies on his stomach, still as a stone as I secure the last few downy feathers onto his wings. When I am done, I sit up on my knees.

  “There’s just this one tiny shaft left that’s empty.” I touch the spot in the middle of his back with my fingertip. “I’m out of feathers.”

  “Oh,” Sparrow moves his arm from under his head and reaches into his pocket. “I almost forgot about this one.”

  He holds his hand out to me and in his palm I see the small white feather from the snowy owl that I gave him that night I apologized for trying to sneak a peek under his coat.

  “You still have this?”

  “Of course. No one has ever given me a feather before.” He rests his head on his hands and waits.

  I dab the glue onto the quill and place the feather into the last empty space. The muscles in his back twitch, he flexes his shoulders.

  “Okay,” I scan his back. “I think I’m done now.” I stand and move away from him.

  Sparrow rolls and sits up so he’s facing me, his face expectant. “Jim was there,” Sparrow repeats. “And then?” he asks, folding his hands in his lap, waiting.

  “Jim was there,” I whisper, flashing back to that day, to that moment when I asked the men to come back when Jim was there. “They didn’t wait outside. They laughed, kicked in the door, chased me all the way upstairs where I tried to lock myself in the bedroom. They kicked down that door too, did things that no men should do to a pregnant woman.”

  “That’s why you don’t like to be touched?” Sparrow leans toward me.

  “I’ve always been like that.” I shrug. “Jim was there.” I look up at the stone statues secured to the vaulted ceiling; seven giant gargoyles watch us with stony eyes. “He watched, said terrible things to me.”

  Sparrow sits still as a stone in front of me. His face calm as he listens.

  “They pushed me down the stairs after.” My hands flutter to my stomach. It is flat now. My stomach has been back to being flat for a long time. “Hauled me up by my arms and dropped me over the stairwell. That killed the baby. I felt it when I landed. The baby stopped moving inside me.” Pausing, shaking my head, trying to hold that in, I continue after a beat. “In the stairwell there was a step with a hidden compartment.”

  “What was in there?” Sparrow asks. “What was in the compartment?”

  “A gun. It was loaded. Jim always kept that one loaded.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I shot them. I… shot those men.”

  “And Jim, what happened to him?”

  I look up at Sparrow, feeling the burn in my eyes, the tightness in my throat. “Oh my God, I shot him. I… I killed him. I killed Jim!”

  “He tried to kill you.”

  “Oh my God.” My arms drop to my sides. “He… he killed the baby. He tried to kill me. He did this to us!” A sob that I can’t even think of containing racks my body.

  “It’s okay,” I hear Sparrow’s soft voice in my ear. He’s so close to me. “Can I touch you?” he asks.

  I nod my head, sobbing
too hard to form words.

  “Shhh.” He wraps his arms around me. “It is okay, Meg.” I feel his lips on my cheek, my temple, where the hot tears leak from my eyes. “It’s okay. I can help you.”

  “You knew didn’t you? You’ve known this entire time!” I pound my fists on his chest. “Sparrow, you’ve lied to me this entire time!”

  “Shhh. No, I didn’t. I promise. I swear to you. I’ll help the pain go away. I can help you feel better.” His hand moves so his palm is resting in the center of my chest, over the spot where my heart beats at such a rapid pace. “I can’t make it go away forever, what you’re feeling right now, but for a little while I can make it stop. Do you want that?”

  I nod my head, feel his lips on mine, lips that I’ve stared at and dreamt of. It’s so strange, this feeling inside of my chest. It’s something strong, stronger than grief and pain. But as his lips move over mine it starts to dissipate, it starts to leave, and I can almost think clearly again.

  “You helped me,” Sparrow whispers on my lips. “Now I will help you, but only if you say yes.”

  I nod my head. “Okay.”

  He grips my chin between his fingers. “Only if you say yes, Meg. You have to say yes. You have to give me permission.”

  “Yes,” I tell him in a desperate whisper.

  …

  My world shifts as I feel him sweep my legs off the ground and carry me away. There is no cot here as there was in my dream, just a thick Persian rug in an empty space to the right of the altar.

  He murmurs sweet words into my ear just like he did to that snowy owl, like no one has ever spoken to me, the tip of his nose rubbing against the sensitive skin of my ear sending a deep tremble down the back of my neck. I turn, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, pushing my fingers into that unruly hair of his. Once his lips are back on mine his murmurings stop. He sets me on my feet, one strong arm wrapped around my back, holding me to him. He pulls his lips away with a regretful groan. His free hand moves to the buttons on my shirt as he speaks in a hurried mumble, “So, so beautiful.”

  His feather light touch moves my arm from his neck as he pushes the shirt off of my shoulders and kisses me thoroughly until I forget what else I planned to ask. I feel his fingers trail across my abdomen, sending my blood aflame.