Read The Language of Sparrows for Free Online

son.” His voice was way too quiet.
    Sierra went cold. She didn’t know why. Mr. Prodan was her special friend. There was nothing so terrible about Mr. Prodan having a son, but she didn’t like her two worlds colliding. Maybe that was all.
    She looked at Mr. Prodan, who would not meet her eyes. She rubbed her hands on her jeans.
    No, it was more than her two worlds meeting. His skin going all white, his glance turning away from her—it was just bizarre.
    She waited for an explanation, but he said nothing else. At last Sierra said a quiet good-bye. “I’ll see you soon, Mr. Prodan.”
    He waved her out the door, as if he were shooing her out. What else was there to do but go home?
    Days passed. Mr. Foster didn’t ask Sierra about her poems. Not only that, but when she saw him in the hall, he turned back into his classroom. Sierra trudged down the stairs outside his classroom, feeling the emptiness inside her widen into a gulf.
    Thursday night she had just drifted to sleep when she woke with a start. She should have thought of it long before. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking at the yellow light that seeped through the curtains. The room seemed all wrong in the jaundiced light. Everything seemed wrong. How could Mr. Foster be Luca Prodan’s son? He didn’t have Mr. Prodan’s name. He wasn’t even Romanian.
    She hardly slept that night. She had crazy dreams about Mr. Foster being a KGB agent and Mr. Prodan being marched through a frozen wilderness with a group of prisoners. She would wake up and nod off, only to have a new thought charge through her. Why wouldn’t a son use his father’s name? And what kind of father didn’t want to talk about his own son?

Chapter Seven
    April’s sister cajoled until April agreed to come over on her day off. She did owe Hillary a thank-you, after all. The job at the gallery was entirely her sister’s doing.
    Hill insisted it was a mom’s day out. A day out from what? April wondered. Hillary’s sons went to a private school; she had maid service and only worked two days a week as a counselor. Wes kept her sister in style deep in the wooded suburbs north of Houston.
    They sat on the patio, eating Cobb salad and drinking iced tea. The steady rhythm of her sister’s waterfall cascading into a rock pool made for nice background music, but as the conversation drifted, April couldn’t escape a sinking feeling that her sister had invited her here for a life-fix from Dr. Hillary.
    “About that apartment, April …”
    The old Dupree stubbornness crept up April’s spine.
    “Sierra needs a better environment. Wes and I agree on that,” Hill said.
    Of course Wes agreed. Twenty years of marriage had taught him nothing if not to agree with everything Hill said.
    April took a sip of tea. “It’s not forever. Sierra needs to know that when life doesn’t go as planned, you keep going. You keep going on your own two feet, and life gets better.”
    “Look, I’ve found a little house for rent a few miles from here. We’ll foot the bill until you can manage. And with Sierra’s IQ, she could get a scholarship to any private school in the area. I’ve already got a place reserved at the school my boys attend.”
    The offer was oh-so-tempting. A house, a yard, good schools. But Hillary was an expert at arranging other people’s lives. April was grateful for the job, but she wouldn’t be any more beholden to Hill. Not to mention that moving close meant Hill would pop in anytime she felt like it, trying to tweak every detail in Sierra’s day.
    April shoved her salad aside. “Hill, it’s going to take more than a change in economic status to get Sierra back on track.”
    Her sister gave her the Hillary stare. “Sierra can’t get better in that ghetto. Let us help.”
    April looked at Hillary, silent, then away at the waterfall as comprehension lit her sister’s face.
    “Oh my.” Hillary drew the words to a breathless length and widened her eyes in exaggerated horror. “April