Page 44 of Saving Sparrow (Slow Burns & Tragic Beginnings #2)

I’d just finished setting the dining room table when Sparrow’s voice cut through the air.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He stood in the kitchen, inches from the archway that separated the two rooms. He wore his signature armor, his long braid damp. He looked only marginally less tired than he had the last time we’d faced each other.

“I made breakfast. You didn’t eat your dinner last night. I figured you’d wake up hungry.”

Sparrow frowned as if he couldn’t comprehend why I’d do something nice for him. He sniffed the air, looking around for the source of the smell.

“It’s keeping warm in the oven. I wasn’t sure when you’d show up. I didn’t want everything to get cold.”

“Everything?” The question came out hard, giving the impression he wasn’t happy. But his raised brows suggested curiosity. I smiled. The move caused him to shutter his expression. It was too late, though. He was interested, and he couldn’t take it back.

“Sit—please,” I added when his nostrils flared at my order. “I’ll get the food.”

Sparrow glanced behind himself at the stove again, then glared at me before walking over, slowly lowering onto his chair.

“Are you okay?”

He seemed stiffer than usual today, unable to hide his wince of pain.

“I thought you were getting the food,” he snapped.

“Oh, yeah, right.” I hurried into the kitchen, slipping on the mitts to pull our warm plates from the oven.

“Careful.” I set his plate in front of him. “It’s hot.”

Sparrow leaned forward, investigating the food.

His stomach growled, and he tensed before sitting back in his seat.

I could tell from the stubborn look on his face that he didn’t plan on eating any of it now.

That one sound, that one revelation of what he perceived to be a weakness, had screwed up everything.

“Everyone eats, Sparrow. Not doing it in front of me isn’t what makes you strong,” I whispered. “It’s everything else you do that does.”

He’d been about to shove away from the table, his palms already pressed against the edge.

The latter half of my statement stopped him.

No one had ever told him he was strong before.

Of course not, because no one even knew he existed.

No one but me. I was the only witness to the good he’d done in this world.

Joshua may have had the sensation of Sparrow’s arrival, that feeling of “someone coming,” but he didn’t know . Amelia had been told, but she hadn’t believed. Not until it was too late, and maybe not even then.

I knew Sparrow better than anyone else—even if there was still so much to learn.

I knew he existed, that he was real. I knew he had feelings, and I knew deep down, past his walls and guilt, he was kind.

Because anything that came from Elliott could only be good.

Sparrow just needed to feel safe enough to operate from that place.

My stomach rumbled, putting us on an even playing field.

I cut into the salami first, dipping it into the egg yolk before taking a bite.

“Tres Golpes.” I gestured around my plate.

“It’s not as good as my mother’s, but it’s edible.

It’s the Dominican version of comfort food.

I had to improvise a bit,” I said when he eyed the potatoes. “You didn’t have any green plantains.”

I continued eating, pretending I didn’t notice him watching me with doubtful eyes. It wasn’t until I’d finished half my eggs that he took his first tentative bite. I felt victorious.

His second bite wasn’t as hesitant but still careful.

Sparrow ate with precision, his utensils doing all the work while I’d used my fingers to scoop up the last bit of yolk with my meat.

My rolled napkin still waited beside me, while his had been put to use, fastidiously dabbing at the corners of his mouth between every forkful.

Sparrow was the epitome of self-restraint, and watching the way he ate made me fully appreciate how hard it must have been for him to let his control slip with me the few times it had.

“I was surprised to see that you keep queso de freir on hand. The unripe cheese,” I said when he frowned.

“I didn’t know I had.”

“Oh, maybe you thought it was mozzarella.”

Sparrow didn’t respond to that, perhaps not wanting to admit he could make such an easy mistake.

“What do you do for fun around here?” I asked, trying to put an end to the silence, and hoping there was something he did besides gatekeep and brood.

“Fun?” He said the word like it was beneath him.

“Yeah, you know, paint, play an instrument, watch the… news,” I landed on, because I couldn’t see Sparrow enjoying any other form of television.

“I’m not here for fun . And I don’t consume the news.”

“Why not?” My mind went to the last night I saw Elliott. What happened had made the news.

“Other than the weather, what happens outside of these walls doesn’t concern me.”

We were silent again, and as if he felt bad about that, Sparrow eventually asked, “How often did your mother make this for you?”

“Whenever she had a good week in tips,” I replied, “so not often. It just made it more special whenever she did. Most days, I had cereal or depended on the free school meals. That was until she met Dylan.”

Sparrow tilted his head, a look I hadn’t seen before crossing his face. Sympathy, maybe.

Since we were on the topic of my mother, I thought it was a good time to bring up the jewelry box. “The jewelry box in Joshua’s room… It belonged to my mother. How did he get it?”

Sparrow set his utensils on his empty plate, wiping his mouth once more before answering. “I took it on my way out. I thought Joshua might like it.”

On his way out? I tried to remember when I’d last seen it, but couldn’t.

“Did you fix it, too?”

“No.”

Then how… I thought about the engraving on the bottom of it and choked back tears.

“What can you tell me about Amelia?” I asked, shifting the conversation. “Why did she hate Elliott? And how did you two meet?”

Our quid pro quo bargain didn’t include an exchange of information. The agreement was that I would talk if he promised to stop sedating me. Regardless of what he did or didn’t share with me, I would hold up my end of the deal.

Sparrow sighed. “I’m not sure how, but Amelia found out we’d moved here. She showed up in a rage, could probably be heard for miles, demanding answers from my mother. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and she’d never even met Elliott or my father.”

“I don’t understand.” I leaned in, resting my forearms on the table.

“From what I pieced together during their boisterous argument that morning, my mother had been my grandfather’s favorite.

My grandmother died giving birth to Amelia, which made my grandfather resent her.

My grandparents had planned on filling this generational home with children.

” He opened his arms to encompass the monstrosity of a house we were in.

“Go on,” I encouraged when he paused, considering his words.

Sparrow scowled at my impatience. “It didn’t help that Amelia was rebellious, outspoken, and thrived on confrontation. All the things my grandfather hated in a woman. My mother was impressionable, putty in my grandfather’s manipulative hands.”

I thought back to the day Amelia stood in our foyer trying to get Elliott to his therapy session. Sparrow’s description of her tracked, except he’d forgotten to add cold and cynical to her list of attributes.

“According to Amelia,” Sparrow continued, “my mother was a restless child, always seeking approval, always searching for purpose, looking for love. My grandfather took advantage of that. He wanted her to become a nurse—like her mother—so she did. He was a surgeon and chief medical officer, and he wanted her to work under him at the hospital once she graduated, so she did. Wanted her to move back home so he could keep control of her life, so she did. And when cancer ravaged his body, he wanted her to drop everything to take care of him, so—”

“She did,” I whispered, fully engrossed in the story. “Where was Amelia when all this was happening?”

“She’d left home the first chance she got.

From the accusations she and my mother were hurling around, my grandfather paid her to stay away.

” Sparrow no longer seemed inclined to hold back, and I wondered if it was because the conversation revolved around Amelia, a topic that maybe didn’t hurt him as much to discuss.

I hadn’t once stopped to consider his trauma, hadn’t once thought about how reliving what happened to Elliott affected him.

Hadn’t considered how hurtful and triggering reliving what happened to him must be.

I’d been seeing him as an obstacle in the way of getting my husband back, instead of seeing him as a separate entity, dealing with his own set of issues.

Sparrow continued his story before I could apologize for it.

“My grandfather had found God before he died.” Sparrow spat the word with enough disdain to leave a scar. “What he’d really stumbled across was a delusional man with a dangerous agenda, and he introduced that man to his gullible daughter, Sara. My mother.”

“Elijah Holland.” The name burned as it rolled off my tongue. If he weren’t already dead, I’d have killed him myself.

“God’s messenger himself.” Sarcasm dripped from his tone. “My grandfather died, leaving everything to my mother, and then my mother and Elijah disappeared.”

“And let me guess, the payments he’d been making to keep Amelia away stopped.”

“And she had no way of finding my mother,” Sparrow replied.

“Until she moved back here,” I finished.

Sparrow nodded. “The house had never been sold, so I assume Amelia kept tabs on it.”

I sank my hands into my hair, hissing when my fingers scraped along the healing cut there. Sparrow’s gaze sharpened on me.

“Where was your father during this confrontation?” I asked to distract him. “Where were you?”