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“Little sparrow, little sparrow,
precious, fragile little thing.
Little sparrow, little sparrow,
flies so high and feels no pain.
All ye maidens, heed my warning:
Never trust the hearts of men.
They will crush you like a sparrow,
swear no heart but yours will do,
then they’ll leave you for another.
Break your little heart in two.” —From “Little Sparrow” by Dolly Parton
Little Sparrow (Break Your Heart in Two)
“Liza.” At dinner, it was as if Papa had a radar to detect when her mouth was full so he could ask her questions at precisely those moments. “What would you think of having a brother or sister?”
“Papa.” Liza nearly spat out her sip of mors, almost spraying the fine mahogany with the blend of sweetened fruit juices diluted by water to avoid overpowering the palate with sugar. “It’s rude to ask question that put people on the spot at the table. Aren’t you old enough to know your manners?”
“Humor me.” Papa bit into a slice of horseradish, which served as a strong side-dish for the main meal Maria had cooked for the three of them. “Answer your papa’s annoying question.”
“Why do you want to know?” Liza scowled down at her overflowing plate of veal kholodets, which was not something she typically did, since the jellied veal spiced with pepper, parsley, garlic, and bay leaf as well as flavored by chopped carrots and onions was one of her favorite foods.
In fact, two days ago when Maria, planning her grocery list for the week, had made a point of inquiring what she would like to eat tonight, she had told her veal kholodets, but now the meat seemed suddenly unappetizing as she wondered if it was intended to make a bitter conversation easier to swallow. Adults, after all, always believed children could be manipulated through their stomachs, which wasn’t entirely true and would have been totally unfair if it was, since children were dependent on their parents for food, so it shouldn’t have been wielded as a weapon against them, at least as far as Liza was concerned.
“Just curious.” Papa smile at her, and that should have calmed Liza, but it only made her temples throb more as she considered whether he was attempting to trick her into lowering her guard. Parents could be devious in that way.
“To answer your question, then, I think having a brother or sister would be absolutely terrible.” Determined to prove that she was tough and too clever to be outsmarted, Liza stabbed her veal. “A brother or sister would be no use. When they were little, all they’d do is poop, drool, and cry. Then when they got older, all they’d want to do is get into fights with me and pull on my ponytail, and I’d get blamed for the arguments, because Nika says that when you’re the oldest, parents act like everything is your fault even when it isn’t. Having a brother or sister sounds like one long nightmare to me. I’m happy being an only child.”
“You might change your mind once you’ve experienced having a sibling.” Papa reached across the table to wrap his warm fingers around Liza’s, which had gone cold as ice cubes and limp as overcooked pasta around her fork. “In nine months, you’ll have a new brother or sister, Liza.”
“Oh?” Arching an eyebrow as numbness faded from her hand due to a pulse that was spiking with fury hot as an inferno, Liza yanked her hand out of Papa’s gentle grasp, which she couldn’t bear to feel when she was so cross and hurt by him. “Did you and Mama get back together again? That’s funny, because it feels like only a month ago when I was parading down the nave in a frilly pink dress, throwing flowers at your wedding to Maria, but I guess marriages and divorces happen so quickly these days that it’s difficult not to get confused.”
“Liza.” Papa’s tone made it clear as glass that he didn’t appreciate her playing the fool. “You know your mama and I aren’t getting back together, because we discussed that many times. What I meant is that Masha and I will have a baby.”
“Then the baby wouldn’t be my brother or sister.” Liza fought to prevent her chin from trembling as she lifted it obstinately. “We’d have a different mother.”
“But the same father,” remarked Maria delicately, inserting herself into the conversation for the first time and glancing up from the tea she had seemed to be preoccupied with mixing cream and sugar into with a tiny silver spoon.
“He’s no father to me!” Liza exploded, rocketing out of her chair so swiftly that it crashed against the dining room floor. Relishing the sound of destruction, she didn’t pause in her rant to pick up the furniture she had abused and seethed on like a kettle boiling over onto a stovetop, directing her tirade toward her aghast papa, “Ever since the divorce, you wanted to build a new life away from Mama and me, didn’t you, Papa? You hoped to just forget about us and replace us with a better family. That’s why you married Maria and are so happy that she’s going to have your new, perfect baby!”
When Papa, whose mouth had fallen open like one of the fish’s that he loved to catch in the streams of the Ural mountains, failed to immediately dissuade her of this horrible notion, she feared all the more that it might be true: that he didn’t want her as a daughter when she still wanted and needed him as a Papa.
Before she could disgrace herself by crying in front of two people who were probably perfectly happy without her in their lives, Liza spun on her heel and marched toward the door, spine as rigid as a soldier’s, snarling, “I’m done, and I’m going upstairs.”
“You didn’t finish your meal,” Maria called after her as she stomped into the hallway.
“I didn’t like it,” Liza bellowed back, continuing her loud progress down the corridor toward the staircase and wondering how Maria could think she wished to eat when all she felt like doing was barfing. “It had way too much garlic in it. How many cloves did you put in, anyway? Twelve or thirteen?”
“Come here, Liza.” Papa didn’t sound angry, but he did sound serious. “Dinner isn’t over, and neither is this conversation.”
Instinctively responding to the tone in her papa’s voice, Liza froze. She was about to obey and return to the dining room even though it was at the bottom of the list of things she would enjoy doing, but before she could begin her walk back to the table, she heard Maria suggest in a tone that was probably supposed to be soft enough that Liza wouldn’t hear it, “Let her go up to her room, Pasha. She needs time alone to absorb the shock. Once she’s had a good cry, we can go up and comfort her.”
A tempest swirling inside her, Liza thought resentfully that she wasn’t some weak girl who sobbed her eyes out on her bed and waited to be comforted. Stomping up the steps to her bedroom, storming down the hallway upstairs until she reached it, and slamming the door in her wake in a fashion that usually would have caused Papa to yell up to her not to do that, Liza rebelliously decided that she wouldn’t be there when they came up to wipe away her tears. Like a sparrow, she would fly away from those who sought to hurt her.
With fingers that quaked with either rage or fear—because although she was only planning on riding the Metro to Mama’s house, Yekaterinberg was a big city, and she didn’t want to be kidnapped or robbed—Liza checked that her leather purse contained enough rubles to pay her subway fare and then slung it over her shoulder.
Trying not to remember how Papa had spanked her for running away when she hadn’t even set a toe outside the building they were in because that recollection might make her lose her courage, Liza pushed open her window. Taking a deep breath to steel herself, she clambered onto the sill, and not glancing down at the ground so far below her because she didn’t want to give herself vertigo when her stomach was already churning as if it were on the cusp of puking, she grabbed onto a branch of the tree beside her window.
With her purse slapping against her hips as if to spur her on, Liza moved from limb to limb like a chimpanzee until her shoes hit the grass. Savoring the feel of the earth beneath her feet, she dashed across the lawn and down the driveway until she arrived at the sidewalk, where she slowed her pace to blend into the crowd that seemed more ominous at this hour than it ever did in daylight.
It’s just the streetlights casting odd shadows on people’s faces, she told herself, but nevertheless she was relieved when she reached the subway station. As she descended the elevator that transported her underground, Liza felt her heart thudding against her ribs again, because it felt even more dark and dangerous beneath the teeming city than inside it.
Reminding herself that the only thing worse than going forward like an idiot would be going back like a coward, she bullied her legs into carrying her over to the ticket vending machine, where her shaking fingers purchased a one-way pass to the station where Mama lived.
Ticket clenched between her fist like a gun, Liza strode over to her platform, trying to appear confident, because her parents had taught her that individuals who looked assured were less likely to be attacked in the city. Once at her platform, Liza studied an advertisement for lipstick while she waited for the subway to clack into the station.
Within minutes, with a rattle of rails and a squeak of brakes, the subway flew up to the platform, sending a gust of displaced air whacking across Liza’s cheeks. After the exiting passengers had jostled out of the subway, Liza stepped inside and tried not to seem too wide-eyed as she scanned the jammed compartment for a vacant seat next to someone who didn’t emit a vibe of extreme creepiness.
“This seat is empty, honey.” A smiling woman bouncing a baby in a blue blanket on her lap patted the plastic chair beside her. “Why don’t you come fill it? Little Kostya and I could use the company.”
“Is Kostya your son’s name?” asked Liza, striving to be polite even when she didn’t want a reminder of newborns, as she slid into the seat and the subway sped away from the station fast enough to jolt Liza into the fortunately friendly woman beside her.
As they plunged into the black tunnel that appeared endless, she steered her mind away from dire images of a breakdown that trapped her in the dark alone with complete strangers by focusing on the cheery reply of the woman next to her.
“Yes.” The woman’s beam spread from ear to ear now. “He’s a firstborn named after his father, who is a Kostya, too.”
“His papa must be so proud.” Liza’s fake smile was stretched to the breaking point. “Every papa wants a son to teach how to play hockey.”
“Who can blame them?” The woman laughed as she wiped a rivulet of drool from Kostya’s chin with the blanket. “After all, every mama wants a daughter to teach something practical like the secret family recipes.”
“Well, at least somebody loves the daughters,” Liza observed before she could control her tongue.
“Do your parents know you’re out?” The woman’s brow furrowed as if something in Liza’s tone had roused her suspicions.
“They don’t care about me,” muttered Liza, staring out the window at the black walls of the tunnel that she couldn’t see as the subway clattered onto the next station.
“They know that you’re out, though?” persisted the woman, her face a full frown now.
Marveling at her knack of bringing misery into the lives of others, Liza lied, “Sure, they know where I am. They just don’t care.”
The woman seemed about to ask her parents’ so she could nominate them for Worst Parents of the Year Award, but before she could say anything else the subway surged into the station.
“This is my stop. Good-bye.” With a wave at the woman and Kostya, Liza bolted out of her chair and hustled onto the platform.
Appalled by how she had spilled her heart to a stranger, Liza boarded the escalator that traveled up to the street. As the escalator transported her up to the sidewalk, she figured that, on a balance, confessing your secrets anonymously to a stranger was actually rather brilliant as long as you never met your confidant again, since it was unlikely that a person you never really knew would use your feelings against you the way those you loved could.
Once the escalator hit the pavement, Liza hurried to her mama’s house, praying that the woman on the subway was right about mothers wanting daughters more than fathers. When she arrived at her destination, she pounded at the brass knocker with a fervor that suggested the hounds of hell were howling at her heels.
“Liza!” Mama gasped, as she opened the door and pulled Liza inside, closing it after her. “What happened? Is something wrong?”
“Yes, Mama.” Liza could feel salt stinging her eyes as tears welled. “It’s Papa.”
Liza thought that perhaps Mama did still love Papa because her hands tightened around Liza’s as if to keep herself from fainting while her face blanched the color of a lamb’s fleece. “What happened to him, dear? Is he hurt?”
“He’s going to have a baby!” The tears were flowing down Liza’s cheeks like tributaries in search of an ocean into which to pour themselves.
“What?” spluttered Mama, who obviously had been expecting anything but that.
“I mean, Maria is.” Liza sniffled into the cuff of her blouse. “He’s not going to give birth. That would just make this whole thing even weirder if that’s possible.”
“Calm down, Liza.” Mama gave her shoulders a slight shake. “Nobody’s hurt, thank God.”
“I’m hurt.” Liza twisted out of her mother’s clasp. “I can’t believe he’s going to have a baby with Maria. It’s too much for me to deal with, so I came here.”
“You mean you ran away.” Mama resembled a dragon about to breathe fire. “Your papa has no idea where you are, does he?”
“Who cares?” Liza shrugged, resenting that no one appeared to be worrying about her feelings during this trying time. “I got here all right, didn’t I, Mama?”
“Your papa and I care very much,” screamed Mama with enough volume to awaken the dead or at least the neighbors, and, as if to complete her descent into madness, she slid her slipper off her foot.
Grabbing Liza’s wrist and bending her against the wall, Mama lifted up her skirt and tugged down her panties, shrieking, “How could you run away, Liza? You could’ve been killed or kidnapped, and how well do you think your papa or I would sleep at night knowing we’d lost our daughter forever?”
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Liza bit her lip so hard it bled, because she had only been spanked once and Papa had been stern but not angry when he did it, and he hadn’t used anything more than his hand, which had delivered smacks that were more like pats than painful punishment. “Please don’t—“
Her plea rose into a pitiful yowl when Mama’s slipper slapped against her backside, and in a reflexive aversion to anything that hurt, she tried to push herself upright and away from the slipper, which was striking at her exposed rump.
“Stay still.” Mama pressed Liza against the wall with the hand that wasn’t guiding the slipper’s assault on Liza’s vulnerable bottom. “Your spanking is nowhere near over.”
As another series of blows whacked a trail down to her thighs, Liza’s palms sailed back to protectively cup her upturned rear.
“Remove your hands,” Mama ordered in the tone that declared Liza would obey her instantaneously if she had any sense of what was in her best interests.
“No.” Desperate to ward off the spanking, Liza shook her head against the wall, wondering how long it would take her tears to soak into the plaster. “Please stop, Mama.”
“I told you to move your hands, Liza.” The slipper slashed into Liza’s knuckles.
A full-fledged wail bursting from her lips like a geyser, Liza let her hands escape the danger zone and retreat to the wall. As Mama’s slipper continued to slap her skin, she dissolved into sobs like salt melting into water. “It hurts, Mama.”
“It’s meant to.” Mama emphasized this pronouncement with a final scorching swat. “That’s why it’s a punishment.”
Then to Liza’s relief, the spanking ended abruptly as her mother restored her underwear to its proper position and then arranged her skirt over it.
Liza started to lift her sleeve to her eyes to mop them, but was halted mid-gesture when Mama seized her arm and dragged her over to the staircase.
“Sit down, and don’t move a single muscle.” Mama pushed Liza down onto the second step, and the hard wood making contact with her tender behind made Liza long to squirm, but she was afraid that Mama would regard this as defiance, so she settled for whimpering like a kitten abandoned during a thunderstorm.
Ignoring her distress, Mama went on brusquely, “I’ll be in the living room letting your papa know where you are.”
“He probably hasn’t even noticed I’ve gone,” muttered Liza, but, luckily, Mama had already disappeared into the living room with her cell phone cradled to her ear.
Stuffing the cuff of her blouse into her mouth to smother her snuffles, Liza strained her hearing to discern Mama’s half of the conversation with Papa.
“Pasha.” Mama greeting Papa with his nickname, which she hadn’t used since before the divorce, caused Liza to start, an action she instantly regretted because the sudden movement bashed her burning backside against the merciless wood stair on which she was seated. “Liza is here…She arrived by herself a couple of moments ago…Yes, I know you must have been out of your mind with worry…No, she’s not hurt…”
Snorting, Liza mentally begged to differ on that last answer, because her butt hurt like it had been stung by a hive of hornets, but she perked up her ears again to hear Mama say, “I’ll see you in a few minutes when you drop by to pick her up. Take care.”
As Mama, hanging up her cell phone, left the living room and returned to the hallway, Liza did her best to assume an expression that indicated that she was too woebegone for eavesdropping.
“Blow your nose.” Mama extended a tissue from her pocket to Liza. When Liza had done so, tossing the dirty tissue into the wastepaper basket next to the umbrella stand, she offered Liza another tissue, adding, “Dry your eyes, dear.”
Liza wiped the tears away from her eyes and her cheeks before throwing the damp tissue into the trash can.
“Your papa will be picking you up soon,” Mama murmured, but if this was meant to be soothing, it had the opposite impact on Liza.
“I don’t want to go home with him when he doesn’t love me—that’s why I ran away!” Liza flared up like parched grass when a match was laid against it. “I don’t want to stay with you, either, because you just gave me the worst spanking ever.”
“I spanked you because you ran away.” Mama’s mouth thinned into a razor that cut into Liza. “And it clearly wasn’t as harsh a spanking as your histrionics would suggest if you’re treating me with this disrespectful attitude, young lady. If I spoke to my mama like that when I was your age, she would’ve belted me black and blue, I promise you. You should be more grateful that this is the only spanking you’ve ever had from me.”
“I am thankful, Mama.” Liza chewed her lower lip, because she definitely was blessed that she wasn’t belted every time she was bad as her best friend Nika was. “It’s just that since you and Papa have almost never spanked me, it really stings when you do.”
“That’s how we want it to be, Liza.” Mama sank onto the step next to her and tucked her under an arm so that Liza felt as if she were a baby bird hidden under its mother’s wing. “We don’t enjoy spanking you, so we don’t want to do it often, but when we do, we want it to have meaning, and, in order for it to have meaning, we can’t do it too often.”
Liza didn’t have a clue how to respond to this insight, so she just snuggled more deeply into her mother’s embrace, treasuring the sensation of being loved as Mama finger-combed her hair and kissed her forehead.
All too soon in Liza’s opinion, a knock on the door intruded upon their hug. With a pat on Liza’s head, Mama rose to let Papa in, and, for the first time in years, Papa greeted Mama with a kiss on the cheek, saying in the husky voice typically reserved for those afflicted with colds, “Masha and I were out of our minds with worry, searching everywhere we could think of for Liza. Thank you for finding her, Sveta.”
“It was easy, Pasha.” Mama actually gave him a half-moon smile. “She came here.”
“Good.” Papa opened his arms as far as they would spread. “Come here, Liza.”
“No.” Liza shook her head, because running away had been all about proving to him that she wouldn’t just come when she was beckoned, since she didn’t want him to be the one to choose when she should be around him.
“That’s how she’s been since she got here.” Mama drew in a sharp breath. “Stubborn as mildew would be an understatement.”
Liza expected Papa to get impatient like Mama, but instead he settled onto the stair beside her and pulled her against his chest. Rubbing gentle figure-eights over her back, he whispered, his breath tickling the shell of her ear, “It feels good to touch you and feel that you’re in one piece. Now let’s go home, all right?”
He held out his hand for her to take, and perhaps all she had needed was for him to be the one who chased after her, because she slipped her fingers between his larger ones and followed him out of the door after exchanging kisses on the cheeks with Mama.
As they walked down the stone pathway to the car Papa had parked in Mama’s driveway, Liza couldn't help but asking, “If you have a son, you won’t love him better than me, and if you have a daughter, you won’t let her replace me, will you, Papa?”
“Of course not.” Papa’s hand drifted downward to massage the nape of her neck. “No son could be better than you, and nobody could ever replace you.”
“I want to believe you.” Liza’s chin wobbled. “It’s just hard to believe.”
“Love is hard to believe, because it can’t be seen, only felt.” Papa raised her palm up so that it was pressing against his chest, where she could feel his heart beating out a tattoo. “Do you know what that is, Liza?”
Feeling too dumb to unravel Papa’s riddle, Liza answered simply, “Your heart.”
“An obvious but not wrong answer.” Papa tapped her nose. “What else is it?”
“A vital organ,” guessed Liza, cocking her head.
“You’re getting colder when I want you to get warmer.” Papa smiled down at her, the stars shining in his dark eyes. “It’s a father’s love for his daughter. As long as it beats, a father loves his daughter, and if it stops beating, a father dies. To survive, a father needs to love his daughter, Liza, so when she runs away from him, it’s like she ripped the heating heart out of his body.”
“Sorry, Papa.” Liza meant this to be sincere but feared it sounded lame, so she rummaged through her brain for a way to show Papa how much she loved him, and a second later, she was placing his palm against her pounding heart. “Do you know what this is, Papa?”
“Surprise me.” Liza could hear the love in Papa’s voice, and she prayed that he could do the same when she answered.
“It’s a love without end.” Grateful for her ballet lessons, Liza stood on tip-toe to kiss Papa’s clean-shaven cheek in case her love wasn’t clear enough in her tone. “And that was a kiss for you to hold onto forever.”