Silver Sparrow

by Tayari Jones

Life, you see, is all about knowing things. That is why my mother and I shouldn’t be pitied.

I was still enjoying the memory of the way she pronounced beautifully. To this day, when I hear anyone say that word, I feel loved.

What she had with my father was a sort of creeping love, the kind that sinks in before you know it and makes a family of you. She says that love like what she has with my father occurs on the God level, not of the world and not bound by the laws of the state of Georgia.

She would spend the evening saying to him, “Please excuse the way I look.” And he would assure her that she looked fine. She liked that he said that she looked only fine and didn’t pretend that she was beautiful on this day. She liked the truth of that, and the truth came without insult. She was fine; she would do; it was enough.

Love can be incremental. Predicaments, too. Coffee can start a life just as it can start a day. This was the meeting of two people who were destined to love from before they were born, from before they made choices that would complicate their lives. This love just rolled toward my mother as though she were standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Mother had no hand in this, only heart.

“The key to life,” he told me once, “is to avoid the highs and the lows. It’s the peaks and valleys that mess you up.”

Most children probably remember their parents’ arguments with a stone-in-the-stomach ache.

My father, before he refused to accommodate her demands always, first, insisted that he loved me. There was a time in my life when that was almost enough.

But I lived in a world where you could never want what you wanted out in the open.

It’s funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.

Abandonment doesn’t have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It’s like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.

Wise with knowledge of the future, she wanted me to believe that she was apprehensive even then, but I knew she was lying. I envied her that moment. Who doesn’t dream of being rescued? Who doesn’t desire grand gestures?

I slipped easily into my role as unacknowledged girlfriend. When you already had one secret life, what bother was it to have another secret within that secret?

“I’m illegitimate.” “Join the club,” said Ronalda. “No,” I said. “It’s worse. I’m a secret.” “Oh,” Ronalda said. “You’re an outside child?” “Yeah,” I whispered. “That’s okay,” she said. “A lot of people are.” I let go of a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. This was what it was to have a friend, someone who knew exactly who you were and didn’t blame you for it. I twisted to look at her, but if she knew something important had passed between us, her face didn’t show it.

I saw that it wasn’t that she didn’t like kids, she just didn’t like me.” “She likes you,” I said. “She’s your mother. Everybody’s mother likes them.” “I think maybe she loves me,” Ronalda said. “I mean, she kept food in the fridge and a roof over my head. But she never liked me.

“If you have a brother, it’s the worst thing. If your mama has a boy to care for, she will show you the kind of love she is capable of. And once you see that, you will never get over it. You will be lonely for the rest of your life.”

I tried to tell myself that she was right, that I was lucky. But second best is second best, no matter the reason why.

I knew that Marcus wanted to show me off. I loved being displayed on his arm, held up for everyone to see.

This flinching had become worse than a reflex; it was a stammer of the body.