Tayari Jones - Silver Sparrow

“I see,” my mother said.

But I knew that she had known al along. If Chaurisse was going, then I wasn’t going to get to go. This was one of the basic rules of being an outside child. I thought about the flyer posted on my bedroom mirror. The kids in the pictures held beakers over Bunsen burners.

“Wel , I am sure Chaurisse wil enjoy herself this summer.”

Carol Burnett was on the TV, and if anyone could see us, I bet we looked like a regular family.

“I don’t need your permission to enrol her, James,” my mother said. “This is not a threat. It’s just a fact.”

“St-t . . .” My father struggled. I felt sorry for him sometimes, even at a moment like this.

“Dana needs to know science, too.”

“Gw-w-wen,” he said, “why do you k-k-keep doing this? I try to be a good man. You know I am doing everything I can.”

Mother said, “There are several programs for gifted children who excel in science. I’ve done some research.”

I looked over at my mother. “Do they have Bunsen burners?” She shushed me with a subtle movement of her hands. I knelt at my father’s feet, letting my weight settle back on my heels.

“I can’t afford any more payments,” James said. “You know I am stretched real thin.” This was said to my mother. Then he turned to me, “I love you, baby girl.”

I was ready to tel him that it was okay, that I didn’t have to go to science lessons. He seemed so sad and sincere. My mother touched her lips again, and I didn’t say a word.

“It seems, James, that you have money for what you want to have money for.” She didn’t raise or lower her voice. “If you don’t have money to pay for her to go to another program, then I wil just have to send her to the Saturday Academy, where she can go for free. It’s just that simple.”

“Ch-ch-chaurisse is already going to that program. You know that, Gwen. Why d-d-do you have to go through this with everything? You know I am doing the best I can.”

“Are you doing the best you can for Dana? That’s what I want to know. I am not asking you to buy me a fox fur, although I saw your wife, and she looks quite lovely in hers.”

“Y-y-you s-s-saw Laverne?”

“I’m not blind,” my mother said. “I can’t help who I run into in the grocery store, Like you always say, ‘Atlanta ain’t nothing but a country town.’”

“St-t-tay away —”

“Nobody is interested in your quote-unquote family. I only brought up the matter of the fox fur to let you know that this is not about competition. This is about opportunity for Dana Lynn.”

“D-d-don’t you —”

“Can she at least go to the Fernbank Planetarium? I have a brochure, and I have enough money for half.”

James continued to fight with his throat to release the words jammed there. With a sudden kick of his right leg, barely missing my shoulder, he said, “Stay the hel away from my family.”

But by then he was slumped and exhausted. Although his words were sharp and direct, his rounded shoulders showed that he was beaten.

“Calm down,” my mother said, rubbing his neck. “Don’t curse like that in front of Dana. Do you want her to grow up attracted to violent men?”

I couldn’t turn around and look at him. The planetarium didn’t have anything to do with Bunsen burners.

“Tel your father thank you, Dana,” my mother said.

“Thank you,” I said with my back stil facing him.

“Dana,” she said, “what kind of appreciation is that?”

I turned to him and said, “Thank you. I real y want to take the science lessons.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I said, and then I couldn’t help adding, “It’s not fair.” Looking up at him, I wanted a hug. That was the ful extent of my ambition. I knew he wouldn’t say that I could go ahead and go to the Saturday Academy, even if I promised not to bother Chaurisse. But I hoped he would hug me and tel me that he was sorry that I had to get second pick for everything and that he was sorry that my mother couldn’t wear a fox-fur coat and that I couldn’t tel anybody my daddy’s real name. But he didn’t say anything and his neck wasn’t twitching so I knew that he wasn’t stuck. He just didn’t have any sorry s to say.

Since Mother was reared by her father with no mother in sight, she believes herself to be an expert in the ways of gentlemen. She says she knows how to hear al the things they leave unsaid. Some nights, after she kissed me good night, she would add, “Your father wishes you sweet dreams.” I asked her once why he couldn’t cal and tel me himself. “He’s your father, but first he is a man. A man is just a man, and that’s al we have to work with.”

After the Saturday Science Academy incident, just after James left our apartment for his house on Lynhurst, my mother sipped from his abandoned glass of sherry and said, “He’l be back. And I bet there is a fox fur involved.” And she was almost right.

Less than a month later, I was up late, watching Saturday Night Live, and my mother was asleep on the couch. I turned the volume down low so she wouldn’t wake up and make me go to bed. My face was pressed to the felt-covered television speaker, leaving me to feel the jokes when I couldn’t real y hear them. On the coffee table near my passed-out mother, the ice in her glass popped as it settled.

James didn’t knock; he used his key to open the burglar door and the wooden door. My mother sat up with a start. “James?”

“Who else could it be? You got another man you didn’t tel me about?” He laughed, fol owing her voice into the den. “Dana!” he cal ed, angling his

voice toward my closed bedroom door.

“I’m in the den, too,” I said.

“Glad I didn’t wake anybody up.”

James wasn’t wearing his uniform. This evening he was wearing jeans and a crisp blue shirt. In his arms was a large white box. He grabbed my mother around the waist and kissed her. “I love me a woman that can appreciate a cocktail. What you been drinking?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” my mother said.

“Cuba Libre.”

“I can’t believe you are running the streets this time of night.” Mother was smiling while they talked. We both acted like we didn’t notice the big white box.

“Can’t I come over any time I like because I miss my woman? Can’t I deliver a special gift for my baby girl?”

I perked up. “That box is for me?”

“You know it is.”

“James, I know you haven’t been shopping at this hour.”

“Who said nothing about shopping? I been playing cards, and I been playing wel .” He pul ed off the top of the box with a flourish, revealing a waist-length fur jacket, junior size 7 — too big, but I’d grow into it.

“James,” my mother said, feeling the soft fur, “tel me you did not win this in a card game.”

“Yes, I did. My buddy Charlie Ray was playing so bad; al his money was gone so he put this coat on the table.”

My mother said, “James, you have to take it back. That coat belongs to someone.”

“You are absolutely right. It belongs to me. And soon as she comes over here and gives me some sugar, it wil belong to Dana. Come on, baby girl, p-p-put this on, and let your daddy see how p-p-pretty you are.”

I paused for a second at the hitch in his voice, but he smiled and I knew that it would be okay.

The coat was piled on the floor beside him, and he held his arms outstretched. Feeling like I was in a movie, I hugged him around the neck and kissed him loudly on the cheek. James smel ed sweet, like liquor and cola. To this day and for the rest of my life, I wil always have a soft spot for a man with rum on his breath.