“He was sick, sicker than I am. I had to help Felicity get away from Jack. We would have been on a beach somewhere. She might even get the money from the life insurance.”
“Felicity went to prison.”
“She thought I was too sick to stay alive in prison. She was sure she could not be convicted. She said it looked bad but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her. There was no other way,” Ruth said, and took a long, quavering breath. “When it was all over, she thought maybe it was better, that this way nobody would find Sparrow. If Jack saw that Felicity was going to prison for murder, no way was he going to come within ten feet of her anyhow. Felicity said don’t write, don’t call. She said she would figure something out. She would find a way, a loophole, or something.”
“Ruth, Felicity is innocent. We have to help her. And you need help...”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“I have to, Ruth.”
“No, Reenie. Please.”
“Felicity can work something out with Jack. People mislead other people all the time. But later, they can be reasonable.”
“I don’t think so,” said Ruth. She might have been right. No one will ever know.
“How old is she?” I asked. Ruth ignored my question. Sparrow was small and slight, but had to be nearly ten. “Where was she?”
“My parents had a nanny to take care of her. My sisters never knew. Sparrow was never there when they visited. I would go and stay with my parents all the time when she was a baby.”
So much for those innocent old people we wanted to protect from finding out that their lost daughter was still alive. Did they know what else that daughter did? Were there no limits to deceit... or to love?
“Then they got older. She was an active little kid. It was time for her to go to school, so I came here. But there are lots of places I can take her. You’ll never find her. Or me.”
I played for time. “Ruth, calm down. There’s no hurry. So Hal and Alice knew all the time? All of it?”
“Not about those men. The rest, yes. I’m sorry, Reenie. None of this should ever have happened.”
I said, “Well,” and I started to get up. At that moment Ruth spun around and punched me solidly on the jaw. I stumbled. This little woman, maybe just over a hundred pounds... she kicked me in the shins and pushed me against the refrigerator so hard that the next morning, I would have a bump on the back of my head the size of a Ping-Pong ball.
She grabbed Sparrow’s arm. “Don’t you dare follow me,” she said. “I’ll wreck the car if you do.”
She ran for the door but stopped when there was a sharp knock.
“You little bitch,” she said to me.
I half walked, half crawled to the door. Claire and Fay had brought the police.
They took my phone because I’d recorded everything Ruth said. I hated myself for it. But as she said, there was no other way. A child protection officer was summoned. Sparrow would have to spend at least the night in emergency foster care. That is, until Sam showed up, calm, competent, reassuring, armed with Felicity’s fax naming him Sparrow’s legal guardian. After she’d been examined by a pediatrician, the little girl was released into Sam’s care. The day after tomorrow, he would travel to Wisconsin to secure Felicity’s release from Manoomin Correctional Facility for Women.
I was not then nor am I now the kind of woman who weeps on her husband’s shoulder. But that night, I did. I couldn’t stop crying. My chin had swelled and purpled. Nelia kept pointing to it and saying, “Oh, poor ouchie!”
Nell went to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to meet with Ruth. Sam offered to go with her, but Nell, although literally shaking, insisted on going on her own. She was Eleanor Bigelow for the defense, although she would not handle this case alone. We debated the question of Sparrow traveling to Wisconsin with Sam. She was so little. But Felicity had waited so long and had given up everything to keep her little girl safe—including that little girl.
“I want to come,” I said.
“It’s not a good idea. The children,” said Sam. “I might be there for several days.”
Later that night, Sam admitted he could not imagine going without me; he couldn’t face the emotional back draft, although he didn’t expect a media blitz. There were factors upon factors, some unknown, and he couldn’t be sure even of the factors he knew about.
What if Miranda came along too, as the utility grandmother-in-law on-site? My father volunteered to look after the kids (“And if this doesn’t prove the existence of God...” my mother said). He’d have the able help of Nell and Harper, my assistant with the parakeet-green hair and the pierced lip and nostrils. She had deferred her medical school entrance for a year; her appearance belied her bullet-train mind and gentle spirit. In the tradition of journalism and nepotism, the managing editor, one Gus Damiano, said, “Harper’s bizarre.”
Miranda introduced herself to Sparrow. “So I am happy to meet you. What is your name?”
“My name is Sparrow,” she said. “I like Nelia. I’m ten, almost a teenager. But I like little kids still, even though I’m a big kid.”
She was not, in fact, big; she was speck sized. That night, as I brushed tangles out of her wispy brown hair and put it into a braid, she began to cry.
