Chapter Nine

Mom called for dinner. Sierra stayed by her bedroom window, mesmerized by the outdoors. When she came into the room, Sierra pretended she didn’t notice.

Mom didn’t leave, but Sierra kept her attention on the window. “I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat, Sierra.”

She didn’t answer. Mom put her hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get through this, I promise.”

Sierra breathed a sigh of relief when Mom finally went back to the kitchen. October had come, and the stifling heat had given way to the first cool front of the year. People opened their windows. Kids came outside to play on the playground. Adults hung flower boxes on their balconies.

Mr. Krishnamurthy and his wife paced around the parking lot. It was their afternoon ritual. It didn’t matter what the weather was like. Across the way, a woman had a tub of soapy water on the porch. She stood on her tiptoes, washing her windows, the railing, the door, the porch, everything. Her little girl sat on the porch, cooing at a terrier in her arms. How was it that life went on as if nothing had happened?

On the playground, a boy pushed his brother on the swings. Their mother looked away, so she didn’t see her older son hit the younger one hard in the middle of his back or the way the little one refused to cry.

Sierra stared over the fence.

Later, Mom brought in a plate of sliced apples and mozzarella. Sierra pretended to be busy doing homework, but the blank notebook paper gave her away.

She pulled up her legs and curled up on the chair in front of the window. She remembered a big red sketchbook her father had given her. He told her to record everything while he was away at his conference in Italy. A nature book, he said, to show him what he missed during her summer walks. She had sketched the dogwoods losing their blooms and the creeks receding from their banks, the hot July sky and Argie, their Labrador, sleeping under a tree. But when Dad didn’t come home, she’d put the sketchbook away. And they’d had to leave Argie with neighbors when they’d moved.

She kneeled at her dresser, looking through the book without taking it from the bottom drawer. She flipped through the pages. It was still three-quarters empty. Finally, she carried it to her desk, tore out the sketches, and put her pen to the paper.

A haiku came to her whole and already formed. She mouthed the words. “Standing on tiptoes / brown arms slick with soap-water / she scrubs the door clean.” There were a dozen more tumbling behind it. All she had to do was scroll her pen across the paper. There would be no egrets. She would tell about the Krishnamurthys taking their walk and about the little boy holding back his tears and his mom, though she pretended like she didn’t see what was going on, growing mottled with worry. She would tell about the wind swallowing the sounds of traffic and playing children and the crisp light outlining her neighbors outdoors.

“Standing on tiptoes,” Sierra wrote. But she couldn’t make herself finish the haiku. Who wanted to know about the things she saw around her in the October world anyway? Only one, and she couldn’t take her poems to him.

What she really wanted to tell him was about the day they told her she was no longer allowed to visit him. She wouldn’t be able to write about the horrible things they’d implied about him, of course. But maybe he would understand how the world had turned into a strange faraway place and how she felt she was drifting away from everyone. She would write and write to him until her fingers cramped and the pen bled dry.

She flipped through the empty pages one by one as if she might find one that was so clean and inviting that she would be able to write on it. It was when she got to the last page that the idea occurred to her.

She found her drawing pencils, also shoved into the bottom drawer, and drew a portrait of him, sitting in his armchair, his hair mussed, his eyes penetrating, his head tilted, the way she remembered him. Using a heavy pencil, she shaded his eyelids to show their heaviness, and then she used a softer pencil to hint at the lightness of his eyes. With the edge of her graphite, she showed the sunlight pouring in on his bookshelves. She was no Rembrandt, but anyone could look at it and say, “Yes, this is Mr. Prodan, inside and out.” And he was not the kind of man they thought he was.

She tied the book up with a piece of Christmas ribbon and shoved it in her backpack. Without taking a shower, she turned out the lights and curled up in bed, dry-eyed.

 

The sun finally rose, and somehow Sierra got dressed and to school. She meandered from class to class, not quite remembering how she got to each room. After school, she passed a bunch of guys leaning against the lockers.

“Hey, hot thang,” one of them yelled out.

Emilio made a circle around her, looking her up and down and shaking a hand in front of his face. “Mmmm, mmm.”

Sierra froze and tried not to see him. There was laughter behind her, then it suddenly got quiet. She turned. Carlos had his hand on Emilio’s shoulder. Emilio reached up to remove his hand, but Carlos, with a face hard enough to be carved in rock, didn’t let go.

“You want her, she’s all yours, man,” Emilio said.

Emilio and his friends headed down a side hall, but Carlos was still there. “You need to tell them to back off, Sierra. Let them know they can’t talk to you that way.”

She shifted her backpack to her other shoulder. Hadn’t he been the one teasing her just a few weeks ago? She thought back and wasn’t sure anymore. She wasn’t sure what to say. Thank you. That would be good, but she didn’t say it.

Carlos closed the distance between them. “Hey, I’m going over to your place again.” His bright smile startled her. “Maybe I could walk you home?” He spoke so quietly and bent his head to her, as if he asked a special favor. A strand of his hair fell into his eyes, and he pushed it back.

She closed her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. “I have to talk to a teacher. You go ahead.”

“I’ll wait.”

She shook her head.

“Later then.”

He shrugged like it didn’t matter. She moved into the stairwell but turned to look after him walking down the hall. He walked like he couldn’t get to the door soon enough.

She trudged up to Mr. Foster’s room. At first she thought he’d already left for the weekend—the classroom looked empty—and she went hollow inside. Waiting for this moment was what had gotten her through the day.

She turned to leave, but then she heard a movement. Mr. Foster rose from behind his desk. He had been kneeling beside a box of books.

“Sierra.” He said it in a pleasant voice, as if he’d been waiting for her to stop by.

She closed the door behind her, but he said, “Leave it open, please.”

No, he wouldn’t want anyone to accuse him of being a molester, would he?

She laid the sketchbook on his desk and dropped into a student desk.

Mr. Foster picked up the sketchbook, but he didn’t untie the ribbon. He looked at her, a question in his eyes. He looked American, but she wondered now how she could have missed it. He had Mr. Prodan’s light eyes, his mouth. It would be easier if he looked like a stranger.

She gathered her courage. “I—” Her breath came in a short burst. “It’s for him.”

“You want me to give this to my father?”

“He’s not what they accused him of.”

There was no argument in his eyes, just sadness.

“He’s not dangerous.” Her voice cracked. “How can you not know your own dad?”

Sierra could swear he flinched.

“He’s not dangerous,” she repeated.

He tapped her sketchbook. He didn’t look sorry or mad. He just slid her sketchbook into his satchel. “You have my promise. I’ll give it to him.”

“It’s none of my business. Your dad told me it wasn’t. But I still think it’s strange that you don’t have his name.”

“None of your business? Is that what he said to you?”

Sierra wanted to shake her head and say it hadn’t been like that, but she couldn’t remember what it had been like now. Mr. Prodan hadn’t been unkind though.

“I’ll tell you.” Mr. Foster came around the desk, leaned against it, and lifted up his hands to her. “If you want to know.”

She wanted to hear Mr. Foster explain why his dad got all quiet at the sound of his own son’s name. But instead she shook her head. “I’d rather hear what your dad has to say about it.”

He placed his hand on the satchel. “Fair enough, Sierra. I’ll give your book to him this weekend.”