Chapter Twenty-Six

The shower was running, which meant Sierra had only a few minutes before Mom came in. She laid the pencil sketches on the dining table, trying to arrange them in order. Okay. She didn’t have any business snooping in her mother’s satchel, but one of the sketches had been sticking out and she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

She straightened the first page. It was of Mr. Prodan, really young, sitting with a pretty girl. Underneath it was another sketch. It was Mr. Prodan, too, but he looked awful—old and skinny and badly dressed. What was that about? It gave Sierra a sick feeling deep inside. She wasn’t sure if the feeling was from how terrible Mom had made him look or from the picture being in her mom’s things.

Why was Mom drawing Mr. Prodan? He was Sierra’s friend, not someone for Mom to spy on or whatever she was doing with these weird pencil sketches.

Tell her that. She heard the words in Carlos’s tough, urging voice. But this wasn’t like a boy getting too close. It wasn’t a danger she could block with raised arms. It was just wrong.

Next, a picture showed a woman holding a little boy. The bones of her face were drawn in sharp angles, and she had shadows beneath her eyes. The woman seemed overcome by something too horrible for words.

In the following drawing, the same woman sat on the floor with her face in her hands and Mr. Prodan knelt by her side. He was young, maybe in his twenties, but he had the same unruly hair and light eyes.

Sierra stepped back. A bitter taste came to her tongue. The pictures told a story, like one of the thriller comic books the boys in school read. Only the text balloons were missing. Sierra began to tap her foot, working out her jitters. What kind of story was her mom drawing? And why?

Sierra left the pictures on the dining table so Mom would see them and would have to say something about them. The shower stopped, and Sierra went to the sofa to wait.

Mom swung into the living room, dressed in a sweatshirt and with her hair wet and messy. “Hey, I have this absolute craving for strawberry shortcake. What do you say?”

Sierra sat on her hands. “Sure.”

Mom saw the pictures and bent over the table, looking at the sketches. She stood straight, taking her time, looking all concerned.

“Do you want to ask me something, Sierra?”

Sierra shook her head.

Mom could never hide her feelings. The brighter the smile, the blacker the worry. She sat on a chair across from Sierra and tucked her legs under her. “I guess you want to know what those pictures are about.”

Sierra didn’t say anything, and she went on.

“I’m helping Luca Prodan write down his story.”

“His story? The one about prison?” She could hear the whine in her voice, the sound of a little girl about to stomp her feet, but she couldn’t help it. Mr. Prodan’s story was hers, not Mom’s.

“Sierra?”

“He’s my friend, Mom.”

Mom’s eyes widened. “I’m not stealing your friend, Sierra. You two have a special bond. No one’s going to crowd in on that.”

Mom’s rational voice tore a hole in her confidence, but she went on. “It was my story! What happened to Mr. Prodan in Romania …” She looked to the window, knowing she sounded crazy. “He couldn’t tell me yet, but he was going to.”

Mom furrowed her brow and got really quiet, giving Sierra a too-patient look. “Did he say he was going tell you his story?”

“No, he didn’t say. But he would have told me when he was ready.”

“Sweetie, he would have told you if he could. But he hasn’t even been able to tell his own son. He needed help for that.”

Sierra closed her eyes. The conversation was going nowhere.

“It’s really hard for him,” Mom said. “He’s only doing it because his son needs to know.”

“He could’ve told me. I’m a good writer. I could have written it for him.”

“One day, I wouldn’t be surprised if he told all of it to you. But there are some things you just don’t tell to …”

“To what? To a kid? I can write better than most adults. Even better than you, Mom. I could have done it.”

“Oh, sweetie, you’re a gifted writer. I have no doubt you could write Luca Prodan’s story. But he cares too much about you to fill your mind with torture.”

Torture. The word splashed through her veins like Siberian seawater. She’d never thought of it like that, but it didn’t change things. Mr. Prodan was her friend, and she would listen to as many terrible things as he wanted to tell her. “I could have done it,” she whispered. “I could have helped him.”

Mom leaned forward and massaged Sierra’s knee. “You’re helping him more than you know. You’re his friend.”

Mom leaned back. “I want you to know, I’m not getting the story out of idle curiosity. Nick Foster needs this story. He doesn’t know what happened to his dad. And without that understanding, it’s hard to make sense of so much else in his life.”

Something gurgled into place in Sierra’s thoughts. “You really know all about what Mr. Foster and his dad need, don’t you? Their story. They need their story.” The biting words left her mouth before she’d known what she intended to say, but Mom didn’t respond. With a pat to her shoulder, Mom got up and strode toward the kitchen. She ran water in the sink and turned on the oven.

In the living room, Sierra doubled over, massaging her temples. “You never want to talk about him,” she finally said.

Mom turned off the water and looked into the living room. “Did you say something?”

“I said you never want to talk about him.”

Mom looked straight at her. At least she had the decency not to pretend like she didn’t know who Sierra was talking about.

“Is there something you would like to speak about? Something specific you want to know about Dad?” Mom’s voice didn’t invite questions.

Sierra closed her eyes. No, there wasn’t something specific she wanted to know. Anything and everything would do. The big nothing she knew about her father ate away at her. And so did Mom’s distaste when she talked about him.

Sierra opened her eyes. “Is there something specific you’d like to tell me?”

Mom looked away and began chopping strawberries with a furious knife.

Apparently not.

Sierra got up and stalked to her room. What was the use?

 

After school the next day, Sierra caught up to Carlos. He waited for her at the traffic light.

“Hey, Carlos. Do you ever have trouble remembering your parents?”

“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Sierra laughed. Thank goodness for Carlos. He never let her get away without proper hellos and good-byes.

“And you?” he went on.

“Fine.”

Her internal clock ticked as she waited for him to return to her question. They crossed the street and walked on in silence. When they arrived at her apartments, he stopped. “A little bit. The memories fade more every year. I’ve visited my grandpa in El Salvador a couple of times just to hear him talk about old times. But I try not to think too hard about it, not about losing them anyway. They wouldn’t have wanted that for me.”

She walked beside him, studying the sidewalk.

“What’s on your mind, Brown Eyes?”

She switched her backpack to her left shoulder. “I can hardly remember my dad. That’s not normal, is it? I mean, I was thirteen when he died, but I don’t remember anything. I sort of remember what he looked like. But I can’t piece together more than two or three things we did together. And my mom won’t talk about him.”

“You’re smart enough to scrounge up some memories if you want. There’s photos, right? And friends and relatives. Places he went.” He opened the gate for her. “You sure you really want to remember?”

Sierra stopped inside the security gate, looking back at the busy street. Not want to remember? Why wouldn’t someone want to remember their own father? Maybe if their dad was a drunk or something. But Dad wasn’t like that. Even without her memories, she knew that.

“What places did your dad go?”

“We lived in other places most of my life. Colorado, California, Virginia, New York. My mom and dad met here though. At Rice.”

“So you got your brains legally. I’ve got to get to work, but tomorrow we’ll take ourselves a university tour. We’ll drive to Rice and you can see where your dad used to study.”

 

Sierra didn’t sleep much that night. To walk the same paths her father had, to see the library where he’d researched. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

The next day they drove to Rice. It was just a few minutes beyond the hospital where Mr. Prodan had stayed when he had pneumonia. Carlos took the car down a long drive with trees on either side that were so full they met overhead, and then parked. Sierra got out of the car, taking in the scents of mingling flowers and the smell of French fries drifting across the commons.

Harvard probably looked like this. Carlos led her past the red brick buildings and down the cobbled paths. Ivy climbed brick walls. Packs of students laughed or argued over this or that. There were Greek columns and manicured hedges. She could almost dance for being here.

“Your kind of place, isn’t it, Brown Eyes?”

She stretched out her arms and turned in a circle. It was.

He hefted his backpack next to a bench. “What’s our plan?”

She looked up in surprise. “You don’t have one?”

“This is your adventure. You feel any closer to your dad here?”

She nodded. She did. This was her dad’s world. Without being able to put her finger on any specific memory, she knew he’d breathed easier here too.

“What did your dad study?”

“History.”

Carlos waited on her to make the connection. “It was almost twenty years ago though. No one in the history department will remember him.”

“You sure? I bet there’s people he went to school with who stuck around.”

Sierra gave a slow nod. “But how would I find them?”

“I know you can figure this one out, Sierra.”

She laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess.”

She glanced around. How would she even find out where the history department was? She could ask one of the groups of students, but she didn’t like speaking to strangers. They walked until she found a security guard and asked him for directions.

Carlos let her lead. At the reception desk in the history department, she looked back at him, willing him to speak for her. He nodded encouragement but stayed in the background.

“Excuse me,” she said quietly to the girl.

She held up a finger telling Sierra to wait, and Sierra saw she had earbuds in and was transcribing something. After a moment, the girl said perfunctorily, “May I help you?”

Sierra stood straight, trying not to fidget or look too young. “I was wondering if there was someone who was here about eighteen, nineteen years ago—either as a professor or a student. I’d like to speak with them, please.”

The girl eyed her suspiciously. “May I say what this is regarding?”

“I need to find information about my father. He was a history student then.”

The girl got up with a huff and meandered down a hall. In a few minutes she came back with a gray-bearded man with rolled-up shirtsleeves. He smiled pleasantly. “You’re researching the good old days, eh? Eighteen years ago?”

Sierra nodded.

He pushed up his shirtsleeves even farther. “Sure, I was fresh out of grad school back then. Who was your father?”

“Garrison Wright.”

“You’re Gary Wright’s daughter?” The light banter was gone. The air felt chillier somehow, and Sierra dug her hands into her pockets to warm them. Gary, he said. He knew something about her dad. She could tell he didn’t want to talk by the way he took off his glasses and looked absently down the hall, but she forced herself to keep talking.

“Were you one of his professors?”

“Not exactly.” He scratched his head. “What kind of information are you looking for?”

“My dad passed away a few years ago. I’d like to understand him better. General stuff. Memories. What he was like. Things he did.”

The man screwed up his mouth, then took a pencil and notepad off the desk. “Why don’t you give me your email address? I keep in contact with some guys who were friends with your dad. I’ll send you their contact information.”

She wrote down her name, email address, and phone number. It would have been nice if this professor told her more, but at least she was getting somewhere.

Back in the car, Carlos said, “So you’re getting some contacts. You sure you want to know what they have to say?”

It was the second time he’d hinted that she might not want to know something. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You seem pretty torn up sometimes. I wonder if your memory’s not trying to do you a favor by forgetting.” He shrugged. “That prof looked like he might have a memory or two of your dad he’d rather forget.”

Sierra held on to the door handle. “My dad was a good guy.”

“Never said he wasn’t.”

 

When Carlos pulled up to the complex, Sierra’s apartment windows were dark, the lights off. “Your mom working tonight?”

She nodded.

“Come have dinner with us then.”

“Yeah, sure. Okay.”

He drove past Mr. Prodan’s neighborhood, a few streets farther down, and pulled up to a beige box house. It had great landscaping—azalea bushes and a pathway made of white pebbles.

The inside of the house lacked the charm of Mr. Prodan’s house though. The beige carpet wasn’t as pretty as Mr. Prodan’s wood floors, but family pictures and ceramic ornaments filled every nook and cabinet, making it homey.

Two boys lay in front of a TV watching cartoons. As soon as they saw Carlos, they leaped up and barreled into him. He lifted them each with a single arm and growled into their necks, swinging them around before dropping them to the floor. In an instant, they flung themselves back at his legs, and he laughed. “Later, guys. Later.”

“That you, Carlos?” a woman called.

Carlos led Sierra into the kitchen, where he hugged a tall, bony woman.

She threw her buttered hands into the air. “Carlos! I’ve got greasy hands. You go on now.”

He laughed, and she shoved his shoulder with an elbow.

“Hey, Ana. This is my friend, Sierra. I thought I’d bring her over for dinner. This is Ana, my guardian.”

“Guardian nothing. You don’t need guarding, boy.” She smiled at Sierra. “Nice to meet you, Sierra.”

Carlos led Sierra to the back of the house and stopped at a closed door.

“Leave the door open, Carlos,” Ana called.

He smiled and turned to Sierra. “My place. But you can’t go in yet.”

Sierra waited, thinking maybe he wanted to clean it up first.

“First, you have to tell me what it looks like inside.”

“I’ve never been inside. How would I know what it looks like?”

“Yeah, but you ever think about it? ‘This Carlos dude’s always around. I wonder what kind of place he lives in. What’s he do with himself when he’s not bothering me?’”

Sierra’s face warmed. How often did she think of Carlos when he wasn’t with her? A lot, but she wasn’t going to admit that. She closed her eyes, concentrating. His room would be neat and well thought out but inviting and casual. Like him.

“Wrestling posters?” She teased.

“Nope.”

“A daisy bedspread?”

“Nope.”

“A disco light,” she threw out.

“I’m disappointed in you, Brown Eyes. All those books you read, and you can’t guess what’s on the pages inside by looking at the cover.”

“I’m opening the cover now.” She pushed the door and it swung open.

It was nothing special at first glance—a bed covered by a Texas Longhorns comforter, a desk with a computer and a few library books on it, a laundry hamper in the corner.

Nothing really caught her attention until she found the huge sketch pinned to the wall. It was a superdetailed drawing of an old house—a Victorian with a wraparound porch and gingerbread latticework. A forest and a pond edged the corner. She went in to look closer. It had personality. She almost touched it, but quickly put her hand back by her side, as if it were a piece in a museum that had one of those gold plaques asking visitors kindly to refrain from touching.

She looked up at him. “Did you draw this?”

Carlos handed her a binder. “Here. This is the rest.”

She flipped through the pages, one at a time. Drawings of the house from different angles and various rooms, landscaped gardens, and footbridges filled the book. Lines were penciled to the sides and underneath the drawings with arrows and dimensions noted. The notes looked like work from geometry class. Some of the drawings were done on blue paper like builders used. He’d even included a few magazine clippings of rooms with sticky notes listing dimensions and formulas for the columns and windows.

There was life in the drawings. It reminded her of her mom’s wordless sketches. “I almost feel like you’re telling a story. It’s just missing the words.”

“I guess. A story of my future, I hope.”

“What is it?”

“There’s this abandoned house out close to the pond I took you to. I used to think about what I could do to fix it up. Then I really thought about it. Not one house, lots of houses. I’m going to be an architect.”

“You’ll be good, Carlos. You’re good at everything you do.”

He beamed. “I thought when I made enough money to buy it, I’d turn it into something for kids who don’t have anywhere to go. At least, that’s what I thought of at first.”

“Not anymore?”

“Later. But I think I’ll make a house for my family first.”

“What family?” Sierra asked, confused.

He looked out the window. “I’m not always going to be a yard guy, you know.”

She laughed. “I never thought of you as a yard guy, Carlos. You’re the only high school guy I know who’s supporting himself. I knew you had a plan.”

“Yeah, I got a plan.” He coughed and took the binder, shelving it with a row of binders.

She put her finger on the binders. “Are these all architecture?”

He nodded and rested his hand against the wall. “Ever think, what if we ran into each other later on? You standing in front of a room of megabrains all day, wowing them with everything you know. And me a big-time architect. Maybe I’d take you out to see my house by the pond.”

She looked up at him, trying to hear through the words to what he was trying to tell her. She didn’t realize how close they were until she heard a man clear his throat at the door. Ricky boomed out, “None of that now. None of that.”

“Just showing her my room, Ricky.”

“Make sure that’s all you show her, mi’jo.” Ricky winked and put a hand on Carlos’s shoulder. “Not used to having girls back here.”

Ana called them to the kitchen and put them to work setting the table. Dinner was a loud, raucous meal with Ricky and Ana and their two little boys laughing and passing food around. Carlos joined in the fun. Sierra ate her lasagna slowly, watching, taking it all in. The laughter, the fun, the love—it made her go soft inside.

She thought of sitting at a table with Mom and Dad. What would they have joked about? Would they have joked?

After dinner, Ricky gave her a pat on the back. “Ana liked having a girl over here among all of us boys. You come on over anytime.”

As Carlos drove her home, she said, “It must be really nice living in a place like that.”

“Like what?”

“Everyone so happy and acting like you can do no wrong.”

“Yeah. I’m lucky they took a chance on me.” He looked straight at her. “That’s the kind of family I want. Loud or quiet, it doesn’t matter; just lots of love.”

“Me too.”

He pulled into a parking space and walked her to the apartment. At her door he tilted his head and paused. “The house on my wall. If you want it, it’s for you and me, later on.”

Sierra went all warm. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s years away. I know that.”

She lowered her eyes. “Why me, Carlos?” What a terrible answer, but the words popped out of her mouth before she could pull them back.

He looked up at the night sky, like he had to think hard. “Why you, Brown Eyes? I don’t know. You might be more trouble than you’re worth.” He laughed and smoothed away a strand of hair from his eyes. The laughter left his eyes then. “You know where I’ve been, Sierra. And another thing. You don’t see what other people see when they look at you. You got a whole world in your eyes. One day, you’ll be able to share it with some guy, maybe me.”

“Oh, Carlos,” she breathed. What else could she say?

He unlocked the door for her and flipped on the light. Like an old uncle, he kissed her on top of her head before jogging down the stairs. She stood at the window, watching him get into his car and drive away.

Her insides thrummed. She was sure everything in her glowed. Carlos Castellano. Who would have thought he would even look twice at her?

She imagined herself in the house in the picture. She imagined herself sitting on the porch, loving Carlos, being his wife, the mother of his children. Maybe she would be a professor, too, like he’d said earlier. Like Dad. She could almost see herself in that life. Almost.

Mom came home, and they shared a bowl of sherbet. Neither of them mentioned their earlier conversation, and Sierra didn’t care. Before bed, she checked her email. There was a message from a Rice address already.

She stared at the unopened email, all the warmth of the evening gone. She stood up with a shiver and looked at her computer. Somehow, it had become an alien thing invading her space.

Leaving the inbox open, she got dressed in her pajamas and brushed her hair. The computer seemed to stare at her as she got ready for bed. Maybe Carlos was right. Did she want to know what Dad’s friends remembered about him? Mom didn’t want to talk about him. The professor hadn’t wanted to talk about him. There had to be a reason.

She stood by the computer, her finger poised above the Enter key.

Why would you forget your own father? You wouldn’t. Unless there was something too terrible to remember.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. One way or another, she had to know. She hit the Enter key, and the message popped open.