Page 90 of Saving Sparrow
“Whenever she had a good week in tips,” I replied, “so not often. It just made it more special whenever she did. Most days, I had cereal or depended on the free school meals. That was until she met Dylan.”
Sparrow tilted his head, a look I hadn’t seen before crossing his face. Sympathy, maybe.
Since we were on the topic of my mother, I thought it was a good time to bring up the jewelry box. “The jewelry box in Joshua’s room… It belonged to my mother. How did he get it?”
Sparrow set his utensils on his empty plate, wiping his mouth once more before answering. “I took it on my way out. I thought Joshua might like it.”
On his way out?I tried to remember when I’d last seen it, but couldn’t.
“Did you fix it, too?”
“No.”
Then how… I thought about the engraving on the bottom of it and choked back tears.
“What can you tell me about Amelia?” I asked, shifting the conversation. “Why did she hate Elliott? And how did you two meet?”
Our quid pro quo bargain didn’t include an exchange of information. The agreement was that I would talk if he promised to stop sedating me. Regardless of what he did or didn’t share with me, I would hold up my end of the deal.
Sparrow sighed. “I’m not sure how, but Amelia found out we’d moved here. She showed up in a rage, could probably be heard for miles,demanding answers from my mother. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and she’d never even met Elliott or my father.”
“I don’t understand.” I leaned in, resting my forearms on the table.
“From what I pieced together during their boisterous argument that morning, my mother had been my grandfather’s favorite. My grandmother died giving birth to Amelia, which made my grandfather resent her. My grandparents had planned on filling this generational home with children.” He opened his arms to encompass the monstrosity of a house we were in.
“Go on,” I encouraged when he paused, considering his words.
Sparrow scowled at my impatience. “It didn’t help that Amelia was rebellious, outspoken, and thrived on confrontation. All the things my grandfather hated in a woman. My mother was impressionable, putty in my grandfather’s manipulative hands.”
I thought back to the day Amelia stood in our foyer trying to get Elliott to his therapy session. Sparrow’s description of her tracked, except he’d forgotten to add cold and cynical to her list of attributes.
“According to Amelia,” Sparrow continued, “my mother was a restless child, always seeking approval, always searching for purpose, looking for love. My grandfather took advantage of that. He wanted her to become a nurse—like her mother—so she did. He was a surgeon and chief medical officer, and he wanted her to work under him at the hospital once she graduated, so she did. Wanted her to move back home so he could keep control of her life, so she did. And when cancer ravaged his body, he wanted her to drop everything to take care of him, so—”
“She did,” I whispered, fully engrossed in the story. “Where was Amelia when all this was happening?”
“She’d left home the first chance she got. From the accusations she and my mother were hurling around, my grandfather paid her to stay away.” Sparrow no longer seemed inclined to hold back, and I wondered if it was because the conversation revolved around Amelia, a topic that maybe didn’t hurt him as much to discuss.
I hadn’t once stopped to consider his trauma, hadn’t once thought about how reliving what happened to Elliott affected him. Hadn’t considered how hurtful and triggering reliving what happened tohimmust be. I’d been seeing him as an obstacle in the way of getting my husbandback, instead of seeing him as a separate entity, dealing with his own set of issues. Sparrow continued his story before I could apologize for it.
“My grandfather had foundGodbefore he died.” Sparrow spat the word with enough disdain to leave a scar. “What he’d really stumbled across was a delusional man with a dangerous agenda, and he introduced that man to his gullible daughter, Sara. My mother.”
“Elijah Holland.” The name burned as it rolled off my tongue. If he weren’t already dead, I’d have killed him myself.
“God’s messenger himself.” Sarcasm dripped from his tone. “My grandfather died, leaving everything to my mother, and then my mother and Elijah disappeared.”
“And let me guess, the payments he’d been making to keep Amelia away stopped.”
“And she had no way of finding my mother,” Sparrow replied.
“Until she moved back here,” I finished.
Sparrow nodded. “The house had never been sold, so I assume Amelia kept tabs on it.”
I sank my hands into my hair, hissing when my fingers scraped along the healing cut there. Sparrow’s gaze sharpened on me.
“Where was your father during this confrontation?” I asked to distract him. “Where were you?”
“Who knows where he went?” he answered flippantly. “He’d done God’s work for the day. It was my mother’s job to clean up the mess.”
