Sparrow's Story - A Girl Defiant

Chapter 29

The sun’s barely over the horizon when Sparrow gets up on Sunday morning. She can’t sleep, because the waiting game’s got her on edge. 

Dad fights her about driving to St. Mark’s, but Sparrow won’t back down. “It’s my last chance to say goodbye to my church friends and those girls I’m teaching to cross stitch,” she tells him.

He hesitates until she throws in that one of the girls is Hailey King, the daughter of an up and coming partner at the firm. 

“Bryan King’s girl?”

It’s a lie, but it works. Dad drops her off in front and decides to hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. He’ll pick her up after the church coffee hour.

Today, Sparrow helps the girls finish their cross stitch. She can’t teach them any more, but some of the older women know the stitch code and will probably pick up where Sparrow stopped. 

Sparrow watches Avie from across the room. She’s elbow to elbow with Father Gabriel, and Sparrow catches onto the nearly invisible signs that Avie’s going to make a run for it. 

Yates has always told Sparrow that Avie has guts, but Sparrow wrote her off as Dayla Singer’s sidekick. Now Sparrow sees that Avie’s got to have real courage to try to get free of Jessop Hawkins when he can spend a half million easy on a retrieval team to get her back.

When Father Gabriel walks away, Avie comes over to the embroidery circle. She waits while Sparrow hugs the girls goodbye, then asks if she’s heard from Yates. 

 “Sorry, I wish,” Sparrow says. Unless Yates is released, Avie will have to rely on Aamir to extract her. Sparrow weighs whether to warn her that’s iffy and decides it probably wouldn’t help.

As they talk, Sparrow realizes Avie’s not prepared. Maybe Yates had things all figured out, but he never told Avie she’d need cash and lots of it.

 Sparrow would give Avie some of hers, but it’s all at home, and she has no way to it to her. 

It’s a crappy consolation prize, but Sparrow peels the sparkly case off her phone. Sparrow doesn’t need the case, since she’s leaving her phone behind. At least now Avie can disguise the contraband phone Sparrow knows Yates gave her. 

Sparrow isn’t sure why she feels close to Avie at this moment, but she pulls her into a hug. Avie’s stiff against her, but maybe Avie wouldn’t be if she knew they were both taking their lives in their own hands.

Dad’s waiting for Sparrow out front after coffee hour. She climbs in the car, and he pulls away from the curb. They’re only twenty minutes from home, but it’s the last time they’ll be alone and she has to ask. 

“You lied about selling me,” she says. “I know about Larissa.” 

Dad swallows. He’s never at a loss in the courtroom, but he is now. “Sparrow,--”

“My auction wasn’t about setting up college funds for my brothers or putting money away for their futures. You think you’ll make senior partner if you’ve got a pretty girl hanging off your arm!”

Dad swerves to avoid a bicyclist, but he doesn’t answer, and that makes her even madder.

“What about Larissa? Did she have any choice or was your offer so tantalizing her dad couldn’t pass it up?”

“Stop it.” 

She can barely hear him and she wants answers. “You sold me to buy a girl my own age! Do you have any idea how that feels?”

Dad pulls over to the curb. He turns off the ignition. HIs shoulders sink and he wipes his hand across his mouth before he says, “I’m a still young man, Sparrow. I’m lonely. You don’t know what it’s like, coming home from a day with those sharks at the office. Your mother, she was there for me!”

He shrinks a few inches in the few seconds he’s sitting there, and Sparrow almost feels sorry for him. 

Dad wasn’t always a jerk. He cut way back on his hours when Mom died so he could be there to take her siblings to soccer or do homework. But that changed when the managing partner told Dad to up his hours or find a new job.

But then Dad rallies like a courtroom tiger. “I work hard to provide for my family. I deserve to be happy!” he says, and slams the steering wheel with his palm.

“And I don’t?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right. I don’t.” She turns her back to him and faces the window.

“Larissa likes me.”

“I bet you think that makes what you’re doing all right.”

Dad starts the car and pulls into traffic, and Sparrow simmers. This is the last conversation they’ll probably ever have and she’s never going to forget it. He’s a selfish, manipulative bastard like the rest of them-- that photographer--Mr. Hope--the Paternalists.

She’s thankful she has Imran who will never use her. In a few hours, she will start her new life and she will never, ever let anyone crap on her again.

When Sparrow gets home, she pries apart her phone and solders the components into one big metal mess. Then she tackles the hard drive on her laptop. No one’s going to track her or trace her into her new life, not if she can help it.