A Nest of Sparrows

by Deborah Raney

  She hoped her car would start. It had been acting up lately. She’d have Wade take a look at it. He owed her anyway, for all the babysitting hours she’d put in lately. Now that school was out, it seemed like he was always wanting her to pick up the kids from daycare or watch the kids while he ran by a work site.

  She didn’t blame him for being a little paranoid ever since Darrin Parnell had showed up on his doorstep. Wade had warned her within an inch of her life not to open the door to Darrin when the kids were at her apartment. She hadn’t bothered telling Wade about the visit Darrin had paid her. She was pretty sure the guy was all blow and no go. There wasn’t a life insurance policy in the world worth taking on three little kids. At least that’s how she saw it.

  She fumbled for the door handle and threw her purse across to the passenger seat. She eased into the driver’s seat and fit the keys in the ignition, but when she tried to pull the door shut, she met with resistance. Her pulse quickened.

  She caught a whiff of wintergreen and looked up to see Darrin Parnell grinning down at her. He leaned over her door, elbows out, arms flexed like he was God’s gift to women.

  “Sheesh, Darrin! You scared the spit out of me. What are you doing still hanging around here?” It was an effort to keep her voice steady. It had been over a week since the weasel had practically beaten down the door to her apartment. She’d started to think he’d gone back to Minneapolis.

  “You can’t get it through your head, can you? I’m serious about getting my kids back.”

  “Darrin, I––”

  “No.” He cut her off. “I know you think it’s just about the money, Sophie. You think you know me. I know you’ve never had much use for me, but if there’s one thing you have to believe, it’s that I love my kids. It about killed me when Starr left and took them away from me. For the last four years, I’ve done nothing but dream about them––about getting them back.”

  This was not a side of Darrin Parnell she recognized. She’d never heard him be so passionate about anything. It struck her that maybe this was the side of the man that had drawn her sister in. But she had to wonder how he reconciled the whole issue of wanting Starr to get rid of Danica with the words pouring out of his mouth now. Sophie opened her mouth to say as much, but he cut her off again.

  “Wait,” he said, backing away from the car and holding up both hands, palms out. “Let me speak my piece.”

  “Okay, okay.” Sophie slid from behind the wheel, shut the car door quietly, and leaned up against the side of the car, arms folded over her stomach.

  Darrin paced in front of her, kicking at the gravel that covered the lot. “You don’t understand what it’s like trying to support a family. Starr spent money as fast as I could make it, and what she didn’t spend, the kids gobbled up in formula and diapers and whatever else Starr thought they had to have. She didn’t understand the value of money. She didn’t appreciate how hard I worked so she could live the way she did. Carma’s not like that.”

  Sophie straightened and tilted her head. “Carma?”

  An almost shy grin crossed Darrin’s face. “My fiancée. As soon as I get this custody thing worked out with the kids, we’re getting married.”

  Lucky girl. Sophie barely kept from rolling her eyes. “Does this…Carma know you’re dragging three kids back with you?”

  Darrin glared at her. “Not everybody hates kids as much as you do, Sophie. Carma’s excited about the kids. She’s good with kids.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  He shook his head and gave a scornful laugh. “You’ve still got issues, don’t you, chick?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got issues all right. One of which is that I’ve got to work an extra shift tomorrow, and I can’t do it on zero sleep. Do you mind telling me why you were out here stalking me? I need to get on home and get to bed.”

  “I need your help, Sophie. Sullivan is going to fight me for the kids. I know he is. I don’t think he has a prayer, but I’m getting the impression he’s pretty well liked in this town. I want to be sure I have your support.”

  She gaped at him. “You’ve got to be kidding? After everything you did to my sister, you have the gall to think you’d have my support?”

  Darrin took a step toward her, reached out, and stroked a hand down her shoulder. “Hey, Sophe…come on.” His voice turned velvet again. “That’s all in the past. You’re surely not going to hold a grudge. I know Starr forgave me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “She always forgave me. That’s just the way she was.”

  He was right. Sophie was surprised by how much the realization hurt. “Yeah, well, even if it’s true, I’m not Starr. What you did was unforgivable.”

  “Hey, come on, babe. This isn’t like you.” He put a hand on her cheek, then trailed his fingers through a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail.

  She moved away, scooting along the side of the car. “Get your hands off me. I can’t believe you’d even ask me to help you.”

  He whirled away from her, kicking a hunk of gravel into the vacant street. “What is your problem!” he shouted. Then, looking furtively around the parking lot, as though aware that he might attract unwanted attention, he took a deep breath and turned his back to her, wringing his hands, obviously trying to collect himself.

  When he turned around, the malice she remembered all too well was in his eyes.

  “Do I have to draw you a picture, Sophie?” The velvet was gone from his voice.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I already told you. Did you really think I was going to let this ride? It was bound to catch up with you sooner or later, babe.”

  She swayed and rested her back against the car again, praying it would hold her upright. “What do you want from me?” she spat. “Why don’t you just go back to Minneapolis?”

  “Can’t do it, babe. You might as well face it. Your past has done caught up with you.” His shoulders shook in a callous, noiseless sneer.

  Sophie felt the heat rise to her face. “Just shut up. You don’t have anything on me. You don’t even know me anymore. Things are different. I’m not into that stuff anymore.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure the judge is going to buy that. I’ve heard they can prosecute these things years and years after the fact. That is if they have a witness to testify. And by George, I do believe there’s a witness.”

  The look he gave her turned her stomach and set her mind crawling with ugly images. Things she’d spent the last four years trying to erase.

  She’d done some terrible things. But it had been a good five years since she’d so much as broken the speed limit. Surely what Darrin said wasn’t true. Could he really turn her in after all this time? He’d been a witness, that was for sure. And knowing him, he probably had half a dozen of the old gang ready and willing to testify against her if she didn’t cooperate with him.

  She crossed her arms and tried to rub away the goose bumps that had risen there. “What do I have to do?”

  Chapter 19

  “No, Darrin,” Sophie said. “I won’t do it.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.” A muscle twitched in Darrin Parnell’s cheek. The faint rays of the distant streetlamp caught the flash of anger in his eyes.

  “I don’t have to listen to this. I’m not the naïve girl you used to…push around.” Sophie turned and started to open her car door, her hands trembling.

  The next thing she knew, she was staggering backward into the stuccoed wall of the café, a blade of pain slicing through her jaw.

  She watched helplessly as he drew back his arm again. “Darrin, no! Stop it!” Cowering against the side of the building, she raised an arm to protect herself.

  The gleam in his eyes went dim. “Don’t you tell me what to do.”

  As if in slow motion, he raised a clenched fist and came at her again, landing his punch full in her face this time. Pain screamed through her head. She huddled in the shadows against the wal
l and waited for the next blow. It came with amazing precision. Practiced precision, she realized with a shudder.

  Blood gushed from her nose and ran down her throat, gagging her. Her tongue worried a sharp bit of something––a chip off a tooth, or a pip of gravel he’d kicked in her face––and she put a hand to her jaw. She spat onto the asphalt, alarmed at the amount of blood. Looking down, she saw that her white uniform blouse was spattered with blood too. She spat again, trying to rid her mouth of the brackish taste.

  How had their discussion escalated into such brutality? One minute they were arguing and the next thing she remembered, she was in a heap on the ground with Darrin towering over her.

  She’d never been in such pain. But strangely, for the moment, her thoughts weren’t for herself. A mixture of regret and sorrow flooded her. How had Starr endured batterings like this month after month, year after year, often in front of little Lacey and Beau?

  Beau. No wonder the kid was having problems. No wonder he struck out at the other kids in school the way he did. He’d seen it modeled by the man who was supposed to be his hero.

  Even as Darrin’s next blow connected with her right temple, Sophie’s heart went out to her nieces and nephew with new understanding. They had been through so much in their short lives.

  And she had done nothing to stop it. She’d been too wrapped up in her own little world, her own prison of pain; too busy trying to deaden the hurt––first with alcohol, then with a succession of increasingly destructive drugs. And, she realized with anguish, too busy consorting with the very one who was the cause of all Starr’s suffering.

  She slid down from the wall and curled up into a ball on the asphalt skirting the outside of the café. Darrin kicked her in the small of her back, and she cried out. But this time it wasn’t for the physical pain he inflicted on her, but for the agony of realizing the part she’d played in her sister’s life of tragedy.

  She lay in a heap, silent, waiting for Darrin to strike again. But in a half-conscious haze, she heard his footsteps retreat on the gravel lot, heard his car door slam, and an engine rev. Tires squealed and he pealed out of the drive.

  Was she going to die in this lonely parking lot? She deserved to.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Her own thoughts startled her. Not because the words were unfamiliar. She’d used them as a curse since she was a little girl, imitating her parents. But this time the words were a prayer. Where had that come from? She didn’t even believe in God.

  Had Starr really believed all the stuff she’d said about God and forgiveness? If only she could know that her sister had been right. Starr had been so sure of God’s existence, so certain heaven awaited her when she died, so sure even of God’s personal interest in every detail of her life.

  But if God was so interested in Starr––so loving and caring––why did he let her die in the first place? Why didn’t he take her instead? Sophia Braden had no one in this world to mourn her when she was gone. Why did God choose to take her sweet sister who had three little children that needed her desperately right now?

  God? God, if you’re out there, you don’t make any sense to me at all. If you’re really a God of love like Starr always said, you sure have a funny way of showing it.

  She heard a car pull into the lot, and the heartbeat that had slowed to a snail’s pace in her chest quickened. Had Darrin come back to finish the job? Her head told her she should get up and run. Get in her car and flee. But her body wouldn’t obey. She felt paralyzed.

  The car stopped and there were voices, shouting, coming closer. Now speaking in her ear. She couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were friendly voices. That much she knew. Her muscles went slack with relief. She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t make her thickened tongue form a single intelligible word.

  The message light was blinking on the cordless phone hanging over the desk in the dining room. Wade punched the caller ID, and Frank Locke’s name flashed on the display.

  He looked out to the kitchen where the kids were doing the supper dishes and turned the volume down low enough so they couldn’t hear. He hit play.

  “Wade, this is Frank Locke. I need to talk to you. Please call my cell phone at your earliest convenience.”

  He jotted down the number Locke recited, dialed, then carried the phone into the spare room.

  Locke answered on the third ring. “This is Wade Sullivan. You have news for me?”

  “Yes, Wade. As we expected, Darrin Parnell is challenging your petition for guardianship and has filed for full custody of his children.”

  Wade bit his lip until he tasted blood. “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait for the judge to make a determination. He’ll probably issue a temporary order for custody.”

  “You mean it’s possible he could…award the kids to Parnell?”

  “It’s possible, but not likely. If everything checks out with you, and especially if court services turns up Parnell’s run-ins with the police, Judge Paxton will likely find it in the children’s best interest to remain with you––at least until the hearings can be set for the case. But that’s weeks, probably months, down the road.”

  “What if things don’t check out? What if the judge talks to SRS?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what if he finds out SRS came out to my house?”

  “I thought you said the social worker was satisfied with what she found on the home visit?”

  “She said that. I mean, she made some recommendations…things I’m supposed to take care of. But I’ve done all that.”

  Locke cleared his throat. “Were you given a written recommendation?”

  “I’m not sure what that means. They gave me some papers––more like a pamphlet. It told what SRS does and explained what they were looking for when they came to the house. That’s all.”

  “But nothing with specific instructions pertaining to you and the children? Dates to complete those by?”

  “No. She just talked to me about it.”

  “And what did she suggest you do?”

  “She thought Lacey ought to see a doctor. She’s had a bad cough,” he explained. “The school nurse checked her the next day and said she seemed fine. Her cough’s almost gone now.” Wade ran a hand over his stubbly jaw, trying to remember what else Betty Graffe had said. “She wanted me to check into health insurance for the kids. I already called about getting them added to my policy.”

  “Good…good…” Locke said, sounding relieved.

  “And she mentioned something about not leaving the kids home alone anymore.”

  “They were home alone?” Locke seemed as alarmed as he’d been relieved seconds earlier.

  “She came while I was at the pharmacy getting medicine for Lacey’s cough. They were only alone for a few minutes.”

  “But you don’t leave them by themselves ordinarily?”

  “No…not very often. Not if I can help it. But still, it can’t look good to have this SRS visit on my record, can it? Can we find out what they put in their report? What if the judge finds out I haven’t had insurance on the kids all this time? The social worker is supposed to come back and check up on things in a couple days. What if she’s not satisfied with what she finds?” He paced the floor, phone to his ear, raking a hand through his hair over and over again.

  “Relax, Wade.” Frank Locke’s voice changed gears again and took on a soothing tone. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about at this point. I’ll keep you posted as things progress. We’ve done all we can do for now. Just…be extra careful from this point on. Make sure you pick the kids up on time from daycare, keep the house in good shape, make sure they’re getting well-rounded meals, that kind of thing.”

  Wade nodded.

  “Do you attend church? Take the kids to Sunday School?”

  Wade looked at the floor. “We used to…before their mother died. It’s…been a while.”

  “It might be a good idea to get plugged in aga
in somewhere. This judge seems to be impressed by that sort of thing.”

  Wade nodded again, taking mental notes.

  “And whatever you do,” the attorney went on, “no spankings or harsh discipline. Don’t do anything that could be misinterpreted as abuse. It’s important that in the eyes of the court you are the epitome of fatherhood.”

  Wade nodded. “Okay…sure…”

  “I’ll call when I have any news.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, one more thing…” The hesitancy in Locke’s voice was unmistakable. “I found out Starr Parnell did have a life insurance policy through her employer. It’s a pretty hefty one, considering her income.”

  “Oh?”

  “Seventy-five thousand dollars. The children are the beneficiaries, but the money could be paid to their court-appointed custodian.”

  “I see.” Wade let the implications of the attorney’s news soak in. “That explains a lot.”

  “It might.”

  Wade didn’t respond. He clicked off the phone, walked back to the dining room, and replaced the handset in its cradle. He had dared to hope Parnell might drop the whole thing and go back to Minneapolis. Now there was no denying that this wasn’t all just going to go away. And in the midst of it, he was supposed to suddenly become the epitome of fatherhood?

  He went and stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching the kids––his kids––finish up the dishes. The kitchen was clean and tidy, the product of a full Saturday of housecleaning and laundry. They’d all worked their tails off to keep it clean since then. He would impress Betty Graffe’s socks off if it killed him. And it just might.

  He looked past the kids to the coat rack by the back door. Beau’s baseball glove was lopped over the peg bearing his name in his mama’s calligraphy.

  A wave of nausea rolled over him, but he clapped his hands and injected artificial cheer into his voice. “You know what, guys? Those dishes can wait. Let’s go play some catch before it gets too dark.”