Not a Sparrow Falls

by Linda Nichols

  Jonah had given the bag boy a twenty to keep his mouth shut. The boy had said come back this evening. Carmen would be there then, and he’d point her out for another twenty. Then Jonah would follow this Carmen home, and she would lead him straight to Mary. He got into the car, started up, and drove, careful and slow, back to the Bag and Save.

  ****

  Bridie called the number as soon as she got back to the parsonage, her hands shaking as it rang; then the hollow voice said the cellular phone she’d called was not in use at the moment. She clicked off and calmed herself, tried to think of who it might be. She finally remembered the lady who gave Tupperware parties. She’d said something about calling Bridie someday. That must be it, she thought, trying to believe it. She was paranoid, that was all.

  Still. This phone message—another innocent-looking piece of paper—seemed like an omen. Whatever magic had been on her life seemed to be wearing off.

  Alasdair barely touched his dinner and begged off dessert because he didn’t feel well. He said he would be in his study. She dumped his nearly full bowl of stew into the garbage. She’d been living in a fantasy world, she realized. One where the story would have a happy ending without the pain of telling the truth, of seeing the stunned disgust on the faces of the people she’d come to love as she told them about her past. Her self.

  She finished the dishes quickly and went upstairs to read the last journal with Samantha.

  While Samantha made herself comfortable, Bridie flipped open the book, feeling a murmur of apprehension. Anna’s first books had a sense of completion, of her personality shining through the pages, a coherence and integration. In the last journals they’d been hit and miss. The entries Anna had made were full of the familiar person, but there weren’t as many of them. In those books Anna let the letters and photos tell much of the story of her life. As if she had been growing tired of filling in the gaps.

  This one, even from the little Bridie could tell from a quick flip-through, was even less coherent. There was no careful gluing, no paint chips, no essays, and not many entries in her hand. This journal seemed to be a testament to the persistence of habits. Once a record keeper, always a record keeper, even as life came unglued around you.

  There were a few written entries, but not on rag paper neatly affixed to the page. These were spiky slashes covering the page itself, outpourings of the heart in thick black marker. The transient documents of Anna’s life were there as well, but not glued neatly to the pages with comments and captions. No, these parts of paper, these pieces of life, were stuck in randomly. A bill here, a card from a parishioner there, appointment cards from doctors and dentists nestled against grocery lists and Samantha’s graded assignments and drawings. Everything was heaped together without organization. Her life was in pieces, jammed helter-skelter between the heavy pages. In her journal, and Bridie wondered if in Anna’s life as well, events became random and accelerated, coming too quickly to be interpreted and filed away. Just dumped in to be sorted through later.

  Samantha, maybe feeling the same sense of dread, drew a little closer and rested her head against Bridie’s shoulder as they began the final leg of their journey. This was the last piece of highway, the winding mile of road that had taken Anna from being the woman who had scrupulously photographed and documented every year of Samantha’s life to the mother who hadn’t even unwrapped gifts for her newborn children. They would trace the trip, but if Bridie had ever thought it would be a healing journey, she doubted it now. More and more, their destination was becoming clear.

  She opened the book.

  A professionally finished portrait stared back at them, several of them, Bridie noticed, lifting the first one slightly. There they were: Alasdair, Anna, and Samantha, posed on a set. Alasdair stood behind. He rested one hand on Anna’s back, the other on Samantha’s shoulder. He looked tight, strained, as if he were holding his family together with an effort. Samantha must have been about ten years old. She looked gangly, like a girl just ready to step over the threshold into womanhood. Her eyes weren’t dark and tortured as they’d looked when Bridie had first met her. But they were a little too wide—anxious and watchful. But it was Anna upon whom Bridie’s eyes finally rested.

  Oh no. I’m so sorry, she wanted to say. She murmured, but wanted to groan instead.

  “What?” Samantha asked, her voice sounding as tense as her face in the picture.

  Bridie shook her head instead of answering. Anna’s face was still beautiful, but she looked so tired. So worn and weary. She was thinner than before. The bones of her face were clear beneath her delicate skin. It was paper white, and it looked as if an artist’s brush had shaded half-moons under her eyes.

  The next photo was of the entire family. Mother MacPherson and the clan. Mother sat regal on the wing chair this time. Alasdair stood central behind her. Winifred and Fiona flanked him. Lorna and the out-laws clumped around the edges. There was Anna, hiding in the back, her white face sandwiched between Fiona’s and Winifred’s husbands and the grown children. Where was Alasdair’s father?

  Samantha looked at the portraits without comment, then set them aside. Beneath them was a folded-up paper like a church bulletin. On the front was a cross banked with lilies.

  “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live.”

  Samantha opened it up. In Memoriam. Douglas Rutherford MacPherson. So Papa MacPherson had died.

  “What did he die from?” Bridie asked.

  Samantha shrugged. “I don’t remember. He was in the hospital for a long time, and Grandma died right after he did.”

  Sure enough, there just behind it, dated just a few months later, was another piece of folded paper. New picture, new verse, same thing. Eileen Marie Rushford MacPherson. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

  A page of thick permanent marker followed.

  We buried them both in the space of a few months. Odd, I always thought they were the trouble with us. I never wished them dead, of course, but somehow I thought if they could be magically transported away, I would be free. Gloriously free, with no one watching over my shoulder to tell me I’m doing it wrong. First Father MacPherson went, and now Mother, and instead of a huge sense of release, I feel sad. So many things come to me now that I wish I had done or said. So much of their lives was worthy of praise, but I painted them with the same dark brush. Instead of being gloriously free, I feel lonely. The house seems empty without Mother sitting on the loveseat, reading and sipping her tea. I don’t like to go in there anymore.

  There were newspaper clippings after this. About Alasdair. One showed him in his robes behind the pulpit. He looked determined, fierce. The caption underneath said he’d been given some kind of award for excellence in broadcasting. The next one was a column by the religion editor, the one Lorna had told her about. Where they said he was the greatest apologist since C. S. Lewis. Bridie skimmed it. Pretty heady stuff. Hard to keep your wits about you when you were being compared to Samuel Rutherford and John Knox.

  “I wonder what Anna did with her days,” Bridie mused. “Do you remember?”

  Samantha shook her head. She frowned a little. “I remember she was always waiting for me when I got home. She wanted me to talk to her.”

  The heaviness of the burden came out even in the words. “That must have been a hassle sometimes,” Bridie said. Samantha looked shocked.

  “No.” Flat, no discussion allowed.

  Bridie shrugged. “I loved my mama, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be her everything. That’s a pretty heavy load to carry.”

  “Turn the page.”

  Bridie did. A few snapshots spilled out. A birthday party. Good. Bridie felt a surge of relief. What could be sad about a birthday party? She peered closer. There was an unfamiliar face among the others grouped around the table. There was the usual crew, Alasdair, Samantha, the sisters, but a man—lean, with salt-and-pepper hair—sat beside Anna, who had the center seat at the head
of the table, a cake full of candles in front of her.

  “That’s my mom’s dad,” Samantha said, pointing to the new face. “He’s dead now, too.”

  “Mmm,” Bridie murmured again. So many gone.

  Papa came for my birthday. All the way from Scotland. And I know why. I am thirty-one, the same age Mother was. I am worn out trying to argue with him, and even if he is right, what’s to be done? What will happen will happen, regardless.

  “How did your mother die?” Samantha asked Bridie, her voice sounding hollow.

  “She died of cancer. She wasn’t quite forty. She was sick for a year, and I missed a lot of school taking care of her. But I was glad to do it.” Bridie stared into the past, felt that same tense fear that used to fall over her as she came up the path from the school bus, then the same flood of relief when she entered the house to see Mama still with them, propped up in the hospital bed they’d moved into the living room, Grandma fussing around her when she was well enough herself. Just thinking about it made her feel as if she were there again. Her heart thumped so hard, she feared it shook her body. It must have been her imagination.

  Samantha didn’t comment, just said, “Turn the page,” again with that grim tone.

  Father must have talked to Calvin. He visited me last weekend when Alasdair was at his office preparing the sermon. “Let me prescribe an antidepressant. Anniversaries can be very significant,” he said and asked if I would see a counselor. I simply nodded. What is it about counseling that inspires such confidence? They must be our modern-day alchemists, the ones we hope will take the lead of our lives and turn it into gold. What folly. They’re just blind and stumbling people trying to lead others in a journey that must be taken alone. I’ve learned at least one thing. There is no mate for the falling soul, no other half that will fill in the gaps. I didn’t argue, though, just thanked him and took the prescription and the name of the counselor.

  And apparently had made an appointment and taken the pills. The next few entries, dated a few months after this one, had a little of the life of the earlier books. They’d taken a trip together, Anna and Alasdair and Samantha. To New York. Bridie took out the envelope of snapshots, and Samantha spread them out on the bed. There were the three of them in Times Square, at the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island. Just a happy little family enjoying the sights.

  “Was that a fun trip?” Bridie asked Samantha.

  She nodded and pointed to a photo of the three of them sitting around a red-checkered table, a candle burning in the middle. “That was in Little Italy. We had dinner at this Italian restaurant, only there wasn’t anybody Italian in it. The waiter was Chinese or something, and the cook was this Indian guy, and the hostess was African. We were laughing about it. The food was good, though.” Bridie examined the picture. Anna looked better. The dark circles were gone.

  She flipped through the rest of the pictures. Turned the page.

  Alasdair and I have been getting on well lately. Actually talking again. We took a trip to Rehoboth Beach for the weekend, and Lorna came and stayed with Samantha. We had a wonderful time. It was like our first days together. We walked and talked and sat beside the fire in our condominium for hours. It feels like a great relief. Like a load I’ve carried has been lifted off.

  “What shall I do?” he asked, “if the dark times come again? How can I help you when you’re feeling that way?”

  I didn’t know what to tell him. “They won’t come back,” I said, wishing more than promising.

  There were a few pages after that of the old Anna. Journal entries neatly written and pasted on the page. Photographs of Samantha’s school play, Samantha’s birthday party, Alasdair’s sermon notes, an appointment card for Dr. Albert Chenowith, OB=/Gyn.

  As I suspected, I am pregnant. Bridie looked at the date and did the arithmetic. Cam and Bonnie.

  I knew even before I took the test. I stopped taking my antidepressants as soon as I suspected. The counselor says there might be another one I could take, but I don’t want to do anything to hurt the baby.

  I am a little stunned at history repeating itself. I never intended to become pregnant again at all, much less this year. The same age Mother was when she conceived me. Just thinking about that brings up a mix of feelings, none of them good. I begin to wonder if I am in some sort of cosmic time loop. Some sort of predestination. It does seem that the harder I try to not become like my mother, the more magnetic the pull toward her fate becomes.

  I won’t think like that. It’s unhelpful. I went to counseling again today, the first time in many months. Father would be happy. I only wish he were here to tell. If I have a son, I would like to name him after my father and my husband. Cameron Alasdair MacPherson. The two men in my life.

  “She got a bonus,” Bridie quipped.

  Samantha just nodded. It seemed the closer they came to present day, the more tightly strung she became.

  The next section was mostly about Samantha. School stuff. Plays, music recitals. A few more church programs.

  There were lots of blank pages following this clump. Toward the end was another mass of papers stuck between the pages.

  An invitation to a shower the ladies of the church were throwing in Anna’s honor. A photograph. Anna, hugely pregnant, surrounded by presents, her face oddly devoid of expression. Not sad. Not happy. Just there.

  A list, one of those made at every shower that listed the present and the giver so thank-you notes could be sent. And there were the notes. A few begun, the rest still pristine, their envelopes banded beside them.

  More photos. Of Alasdair smiling, holding two tiny bundles. Of Samantha and the babies, Lorna and the babies. Fiona and Winifred and the babies. Of Anna, wan and pale, propped on pillows, a twin on each arm. Bridie peered closer at her face and again was struck by the blank expression. Checked out. Nobody was home.

  Nothing more until the very last page. She tensed. Samantha felt coiled beside her like a tightly twisted spring. Would there be any ending here, or would they leave with more questions than they’d come with? Suddenly Bridie had a sharp twist of regret. Maybe they shouldn’t have taken this trip at all. Still, they were here at the end. Quickly, before Samantha could bark at her to turn the page, she did so.

  Calvin came to the house today and talked to me about postpartum depression. He suggested I check into the hospital for a while until I can be started on a new medication and it has time to take effect. “Lorna will care for the twins and Samantha,” he said. “You don’t need to worry.” And suddenly I realized he was right. Lorna would care for them.

  She is so kind and gentle-hearted. Consistent. Always there whenever she’s needed. She would be the perfect mother, and suddenly it is clear to me why she has no children of her own.

  I told Calvin that I would consider it and tell him the answer on Monday. I spent the weekend making my decision, and today I am sure. Alasdair said he will go to the radio station today to record his broadcasts, and that he arranged for Lorna to come and take care of the children.

  Samantha was trembling. Bridie put down the book and took her in a strong grip. “Do you want to stop?”

  Samantha shook her head, and this time it was she who picked up the album. The last entry. Just one paragraph.

  I picked up each of the babies before Lorna came to take them. It was as if I was seeing them for the first time. Up until now looking at them made me feel too tired and overwhelmed, but today I didn’t feel that way. They are precious. So tiny and perfect. I kissed them, blessed them. Lorna came. We had a cup of tea and a muffin. “You look better,” she said. “I feel better,” I told her, and it is the truth. I feel a great weight has been lifted away. As if I’ve struggled and struggled, and now I can stop struggling. I kissed the babies again, and she took them, promising to return in time to meet Samantha’s bus. I wrote a little note to Samantha. I am so proud of her. She must know that.

  And then it ended. Just like that. No more. The last words. Samantha was crying silently, the
tears coursing down her cheeks. She rose and went to her dresser, came back with a worn envelope. She handed it to Bridie, and Bridie recognized the writing. The beautiful, careful script was back, not the spiky slashes of the depressed months.

  ****

  Dearest Samantha,

  You must know how you fill my heart with joy. I desire only the best for you. I want you to have happiness and joy and no darkness at all. I know that is impossible, and yet I think that a clean sorrow is better than a lifetime of shadowy dread. In a perfect world you would have neither one. Only happiness and warm sunshine on your face. No storms or deep waters.

  I read the Bible, and there I see God stilling the storm, parting the sea, holding back the mighty waters. He is ruler over even the most powerful and inexorable of forces. I wish I had lived in those days when He could reach out His hand, and the waves would be firm beneath my feet.

  I love you, forever and always. May your life be full of joy and blessing.

  Mother

  Bridie blotted her eyes on her sleeve. Samantha wept quietly in her arms. After a minute or two the shoulders stopped shaking. She took a tissue from the drawer beside her bed and blew her nose. The silence was calm and seemed emptied of all energy, good or evil.

  “She killed herself,” Samantha said, and Bridie saw the dam crack and the first trickle of water begin to flow out. Samantha had known it all along. Now she was finally putting words to what she’d carried all alone.

  “Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I think she did.”

  “Why?” Anguish loaded the word, and the tears returned. Bridie took her hand and stroked it, let her cry again. Possible answers flicked through her mind like a tape played on too fast a speed. Anna had struggled with depression all her life. Hints about Anna’s own mother’s death suddenly took on new meaning. But those weren’t answers. Not really.