A Nest of Sparrows

by Deborah Raney

  He thought of Jake Pedersen’s words at the nursing home earlier. You be good to those kids, you hear?

  He drove on, tapping the steering wheel idly as his thoughts churned. Maybe it was best to let the insurance money lie for now. Just leave things as they were. He didn’t know what it took to try to get himself named as a legal guardian, but there was no sense stirring up trouble and risking losing the kids. They would be okay. They’d get along somehow. It was just going to take some time to adjust, that was all.

  Chapter 8

  Dee Thackery blew a wisp of bangs off her forehead and pulled another file from the stack on her desk. Sometimes it seemed as though she spent half her life behind this desk. As much as she loved her job, she hated all the paperwork. She understood why it was necessary, but she’d much rather be working with clients.

  She heard footsteps in the hallway outside her office and knew without looking up that they belonged to Clay Two Feathers. Like Dee, Clay had come to St. Joseph Children’s Services three years ago, fresh out of college, proudly flaunting his brand-new degree in social work. Except Clay had his Masters now, and Dee was still trying to scrape together the money to go back to school. They’d both had that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed eagerness when they started out. She wasn’t sure about Clay, but she knew her own perception of the world had been tarnished by the reality of what she’d seen in three short years serving as a foster care social worker.

  Yes, she’d made a notable difference in a few lives. And most of the time she felt fulfilled by her work. But sometimes the hopelessness she saw day after day reflected in the eyes of the people she worked with––the children especially––caused her to lose sleep at night. And if things were this grim in little Coyote County, Kansas, right smack on the buckle of the Bible Belt, what must they be like in a city like New York, or even just up the interstate in Kansas City?

  Clay popped his head into her office. Though his bronzed skin owed more to weekends in the sun than to his heritage, he wore his surname proudly, as testified by the dark braid hanging down his back, and the beaded headband bearing Lenape tribal symbols and two small wild turkey feathers. Dee had heard the story of how Clay and his brother had caught and plucked that poor tom more times than she cared to remember.

  “Hey, Dee-Dee, you doing anything for lunch?”

  Dee glared at him. “Clay, please don’t call me that.”

  “Dee-Dee? Oh, sorry. I forgot.” He shrugged. “I don’t mean anything by it.”

  “I know you don’t, but please stop.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  She felt like she was back in junior high school. Maybe she should be able to just let it roll off her by now. But every time someone used that nickname––which was entirely too frequently, considering she was almost thirty years old––it brought all the sickening memories back again. She shook off the pall the remembrance always cast over her. It wasn’t Clay’s fault. He couldn’t know.

  “So what did you have in mind for lunch?”

  “I thought maybe we could hit the deli. Thursday is bierocks day. Plus I’ve had a hankering for their carrot cake.”

  “You know, for a skinny guy, you sure do think about food a lot.”

  Clay shrugged and gave her that crooked grin that sometimes made her wonder if maybe she shouldn’t take him up on his bimonthly invitation to go out with him.

  Dee slid open the bottom drawer of her clunky metal desk and pulled out her purse. “The deli sounds good. But you’ve got to promise you won’t let me order dessert.”

  “Oh, come on. Live a little, Thackery.”

  “Yeah, if I ‘live a little’ much more, it’ll take a winch to get me through that door.”

  Clay rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. What is it with you women, always obsessing about your weight?”

  Dee slammed the drawer shut, put her computer in sleep mode, and slid from behind her desk. “Okay, okay. Subject closed.” She grabbed her jacket off the hook on the back of her office door and ushered Clay out into the hall.

  “Your car or mine?” she asked when they got to the parking lot.

  “Depends. How much gas is in yours?”

  “Under a quarter of a tank.”

  “You win. Yours it is.”

  She shook her head, laughing. “Man! I’ve got to learn to play my hand better than that.”

  The line at the deli wasn’t long, and when it was their turn, Clay ordered two bierocks and a huge hunk of the deli’s signature carrot cake with thick cream cheese frosting. Dee opted for the house salad and a Diet Coke.

  Clay led the way to a booth in the back, and they put down their trays and went back to fill their glasses at the self-serve fountain.

  When they were seated, Dee bowed her head briefly to bless the food. She looked up to see Clay watching her.

  “Amen,” he said with a sober nod.

  Even though Dee knew Clay didn’t share her faith, there was no disrespect in his voice. Dee actually enjoyed their friendly arguments. She could count on a fair hearing with Clay, and she tried to afford him the same. She always ended a debate with Clay Two Feathers exhausted, yet feeling that iron had sharpened iron and her own faith had deepened.

  Dee lowered her voice, ever conscious of the need for confidentiality when speaking about clients. “So what’s happening with Matty Blakesly?” she asked over a bite of iceberg lettuce. She knew Clay had agonized over the fourteen-year-old who’d become a client at St. Joe’s after his stepmother accused him of abusing his younger half sister. Matty firmly denied the allegations and had been suicidal since entering foster care.

  “Exactly nothing,” Clay said. “Sometimes I get so frustrated with how slow this system works––when it works…” He ripped off a bite of bierock and chewed, as if exacting his revenge on the whole social services system.

  “Well, at least you know the holdup isn’t on your end.”

  “Yes, and that’ll be precious comfort when Matty blows his brains out.”

  “Clay!” She reached across the table and put a hand on his arm. “That’s not going to happen. I’ve worked with the Jacobsens before. They’re a good family. Very conscientious. I know they’re keeping a close eye on him.”

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t believe how closely I was being watched when I wrapped that rope around my throat.”

  Dee winced. Clay’s reasons for choosing this line of work were similar to her own. He was just a lot more open about it. As he liked to say, he’d walked in the moccasins of many of his clients, and he was determined they would get a fairer shake than he had from the system.

  “So what are you going to do? It’s too late for him to go back home now. He’d be worse off there.”

  “I know. I know…”

  “And what if he’s guilty?”

  “He’s not guilty, Dee.” The feathers in Clay’s headband bobbed with the adamant shake of his head.

  She couldn’t tell Clay that she felt little sympathy for Matty Blakesly. She knew the aftermath of his particular sin too well. Instead, she shook her head. “You can’t save them all, Clay.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to die trying.”

  “And I admire you for that. But think about it. How many hours did you put in last week? Fifty? Sixty?”

  He kept his eyes on the table.

  “You need to take a break.”

  He looked up, and a familiar playful glint sparked in his dark brown eyes. “Oh yeah! Look who’s talking. Miss ‘I don’t have time to go to the movies.’ ”

  “Okay, okay…touché.” She rolled her eyes but couldn’t hide a sheepish grin.

  He cocked his head and studied her for a few long seconds. “So…how about it? That new James Bond film is showing in Salina.”

  She groaned. “Not James Bond. Puh-leaze.”

  “Okay. A chick flick, then. You choose.”

  “Sheesh, Two Feathers! How did we get from Matty Blakesly to this in ten seconds flat?”

  Clay twirled an imagi
nary mustache, and his laugh was that of the sinister landlord he’d portrayed in Coyote’s community theatre melodrama last summer. It was contagious. And besides, it provided a welcome detour from the dangerous territory they’d been traversing just moments ago.

  The mailbox held three mail order catalogs, a slew of bills, and not much else. For the hundredth time, Wade wondered how Starr had ever managed to support three kids on her paycheck. Standing at the edge of the drive, he riffled through the stack of envelopes. The red-and-white logo of State Farm caught his eye. Starr’s auto insurance. This would be the second bill he’d paid since her death. And though the car was registered in Starr’s name, he’d paid the insurance the last few months before she died. They’d slowly been merging their finances in the months before the wedding.

  They’d never wanted to have separate accounts after they were married. “What’s mine is yours,” Wade had told her a dozen times. And she’d always echoed the words back to him. The memory helped a little to assuage the twinge of guilt that nagged at him over her car. He probably ought to check into the legality of continuing to drive it. But if he did that, would someone check into the legality of him having the kids? He didn’t want to think about it.

  He walked back up the drive to the house, Shadow yipping at his heels the whole way. “You hungry, boy?” He gave the dog’s ears a good scratch, then went into the house and tossed the bills on the desk in the kitchen. He’d take care of them tonight after the kids were in bed. “Beau?” he hollered.

  Beau appeared in the doorway from the dining room. “Yeah?”

  “Did you feed Shadow yet?”

  “Oh. Um…I forgot.”

  “Come on, Beau. You know it’s important to feed him every morning. That needs to be done before you leave for school. He about ate me alive. Go…please.”

  Beau rolled his eyes, but he went to the back porch. Wade heard him scooping dog chow from the big plastic bucket. Things weren’t great with Beau yet, but at least they were better. Still, Wade sometimes feared that those big, luminous eyes hid a sorrow so deep it would gnaw Beau from the inside out, and Wade wouldn’t know until it was too late.

  He sighed and rummaged in the cupboards to find something to make for supper. He’d cooked for himself half his life, but it was totally different trying to keep three kids’ bellies filled up. He needed to go to the library and check out some books on nutrition. He knew growing children needed certain kinds of food. He bought four gallons of milk every week and tried to make sure they at least had a glass of orange juice before they left the house in the mornings, but beyond that, he wasn’t sure what they might be lacking in their diet. He’d started to buy some chewable kids’ vitamins on their last trip to the grocery store but put them back on the shelf when he saw the price.

  The cupboard over the stove yielded some spaghetti. He thought there was half a jar of Ragu in the refrigerator––if it didn’t have mold growing on it yet. He set the package of spaghetti on the counter and put a pot of water on the stove to boil while he browned some hamburger.

  With the sauce simmering and the pasta boiling, he poked his head into the living room. Lacey and Dani were still engrossed in a video. Starr would have a fit if she could see how much television the kids watched. But it seemed like a good escape for them. And he was careful what they watched. When things settled down a little and they were feeling more at home with one another, then he’d crack down. But right now he didn’t have the heart. Let them have their distractions. He wished he could escape so easily.

  “Hey, girls?”

  Two flaxen heads popped up in unison. Two pairs of blue eyes looked expectantly to him. Eyes so like their mother’s. His heart did a somersault.

  “Could you girls come and help me set the table, please?”

  Without a word, Lacey punched the remote control. The TV went silent, and the girls followed him into the kitchen.

  “Lacey, you put ice in the glasses. Dani, you can set the dishes and silverware around the table.”

  He got the glasses down for Lacey and set the bin from the icemaker on the table in front of her. He pulled four heavy pottery plates from the cupboard––Starr’s good dishes. Her wedding dishes, Wade suspected, though he’d never asked, and she’d never offered.

  She had poured out the story of her nightmare of a marriage one night last summer, sitting in Wade’s truck after a softball game. She’d told him how Darrin Parnell had started slapping her around when she was pregnant with Beau. It got worse after the baby was born, and Starr could no longer spend every minute waiting on the man hand and foot. The slapping had turned to bona fide beatings after Lacey was born.

  The last straw had been when Darrin ordered her to have an abortion after she’d discovered she was pregnant with Danica. She’d left him then, and after Dani was born, she loaded up her kids and moved to Coyote because that’s where Sophia was. Sophie was all the family Starr had left.

  Starr didn’t want any child support from her children’s father. She didn’t even want him to know where she was. “I don’t care if I never see him again,” she’d told Wade that night, bitterness thick in her lovely voice.” After that, she had rarely spoken of Darrin Parnell.

  Wade had halfheartedly tried to locate the man after Starr’s funeral. After all, he was the children’s biological father. He had a right to know. But Wade had found no records of a Darrin Parnell in the Minneapolis area. He hadn’t looked too hard beyond that. In fact, that had been the end of his search. And the end of any thoughts of Darrin Parnell––until now.

  “Wade! The ba-sketti’s bubbling out!”

  Dani’s screech brought him back to the present. Smiling at her comical pronunciation, he grabbed the pot and set it on a cool burner, trying to separate the gummed up spaghetti with a wooden spoon. The starchy water sizzled on the still-hot burner, and the kitchen filled with its pungent odor.

  The back door slammed and Beau came in from feeding Shadow. “What’s burning?”

  “Wash up, buddy. Supper’s almost ready.” Wade leaned across the counter to open a window.

  Twenty minutes later, they sat at the round oak table, the clanging of forks against pottery underlining the dearth of conversation. “Can I be excused?” Beau asked, not quite meeting Wade’s gaze.

  “I guess so. If you’re full. Clear your place, please.”

  Beau carried his dishes to the sink, then headed for the living room. The girls followed suit, and soon the bluish flicker of the television danced off the kitchen walls from the room beyond.

  Wade was left alone at the table with a heart full of memories, a heart that seemed to ache more deeply with every setting sun. He looked across the table, envisioning Starr smiling back at him, her eyes filled with love. Would this terrible longing he felt for her ever subside?

  He blinked, and the unsettling image faded, leaving her empty chair to mock him.

  Chapter 9

  With an unwieldy bundle of shingles slung over his shoulder, Wade climbed the ladder and flopped the heavy package onto the roof. Already at nine in the morning, it felt like a frying pan up here.

  “Hey, Pete, what do you want for lunch?”

  “Whatever you’re buying.”

  “Ha! That’s a good one.”

  Wade’s partner stopped hammering and glanced at his watch. “Is it lunchtime already?”

  “Nah, I just like to get my taste buds revved up early.”

  “Anything’s fine. We haven’t had Mexican for a while. That sound good to you?”

  “Sure.” Wade sliced open the package of shingles with his utility knife, trying to conjure the aroma of spicy picante and queso. Unfortunately, the pungent asphalt and tar odor overwhelmed his imagination.

  “You want me to go get it?” Pete asked.

  “No, I will. Beau forgot his homework, and I need to run it by the school.”

  “Again?”

  Wade grunted in reply.

  “A real Mr. Mom, huh?”

 
He ignored Pete, but his frustration must have come through loud and clear.

  Pete laid down his hammer, sat back on his heels, and turned to Wade. “Hey, man… How is it going? Really?”

  Wade released a sigh that had been building steam for weeks. “I’m not cut out to be a mom, Pete. Shoot-fire, I’m not sure I’m even cut out to be a dad. Beau forgets his homework half the time. I’ve gotten I don’t know how many calls from the principal. I don’t know what to do with the kid.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and swabbed the sweat from his forehead. “It was so easy when she was here. She… Starr knew how to handle the kids. She always knew what to say, what to do. I’m floundering around like a cat in a swimming pool.”

  Pete shrugged. “Hey, this has been rough for the kids. And worse for you. Give it a little time. They’ll come around.” Pete fit a strip of flashing around an exhaust vent. “Beau’s still giving you trouble, huh?”

  Wade nodded. “At least he’s not lashing out at me anymore. But he’s so quiet it scares me. I’d like to think it’s because he’s doing better, but I’m not so sure. I wish I knew what was brewing in that head of his. I keep trying to think how I would have handled it if I’d lost my mom when I was nine. I’d probably have been mad too. Especially if I didn’t have a dad.”

  Pete turned to look hard at Wade. “The kids have a dad, Wade. You’re their dad in every way that counts.”

  “Yeah, well…I thought so before Starr died. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Pete went back to hammering, but a few minutes later Wade felt his partner’s eyes on him.

  “So they don’t talk about it? About their mama?” Pete said.

  “Not much.”

  “Maybe they need to. I don’t know spit about psychology, but when Margie’s mom died, the counselor at school told us Amber needed to talk about her grandma.”

  Pete’s mother-in-law had died several months ago, and Wade remembered him talking about how difficult it had been for their six-year-old daughter at the time.