Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

a second of the attention away from the girl. He wanted to somehow honor her death, though he didn’t know how…or why.

“Well, we got a call that someone was down here stopped for the past few hours, so I’m here just checking out no one else is thinking about doing the same thing.”

Brooks looked up, shaken out of his train of thought. “No…God no. Certainly not.” Brooks couldn’t dishonor Madison’s death that way. He felt like he could call her by her first name now. He’s grown to know her much better now than when he first parked his car six hours earlier. “If it’s bothering the neighborhood, I can leave.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Hammel said. “I’m not about to tell someone they can’t mourn because it makes others uncomfortable. Go right ahead, sir.” She gave the door a few taps and walked back to her car.

But, Brooks wasn’t mourning. At least, he wasn’t mourning anymore.

It started out as curiosity, sitting out here in the freezing rain with the car turned off. He barely noticed how visible his breath was.

The mourning came yesterday. Today was an unfounded optimism. Optimism he could grasp with his bare hands and let take him through whichever path it dare take.

Now with more questions than answers, Brooks started up his car and pulled away - in the opposite direction of the bridge.

Chapter Four

I pulled up to the Maise residence four minutes before Abraham. The clock on the dash said 1:33 p.m. There were teddy bears and hand-written cards near the front of the driveway leading up to the Astro Van. Stuck into the ground was a tiny cross with: “RIP Madison Maise” with angel wings on both ends. Kay was sitting inside the enclosed porch of the doublewide smoking a cigarette. Her dress looked unwashed and worn for several days in a row, though it wasn’t what she was wearing at the bridge the day before.

Kay's outstretched hand met us as we approached the steps. She offered a cigarette from a pack of menthols. I gestured ‘no,’ and poked at the door.

“My we come in?”

She nodded. Her sunken eyes haven’t seen sleep since yesterday morning, and the days and nights had been rough to her even before that. Her license said she just turned thirty last week, but her face looked much older and wiser.

Life was not kind to Kay Maise.

“It’s cold out here, ma’am. Do you mind if we step inside?” Abraham asked. Her nonchalant demeanor and total disregard for the freezing temperatures only intensified the awkward silence.

She took another puff of the cigarette and flicked it into a metal Folgers coffee can at her side. “Follow me.”

The entrance into the living room was modest at best. The furniture was well worn, and the carpet was thin and ready to be replaced. The cheap cabinets and countertops were likely originally made for the trailer in the 1980s. She had straightened up before we arrived, but didn’t put forth much effort on cleaning grout or windowsills.

She walked with a slight limp across the living room into the kitchen. She opened a cabinet directly above the stove. “Can I get you two a coffee or something?”

“I’ll take a little; black,” Abraham answered from the doorway. I gave him a disapproving scowl from the couch.

Kay returned with a cup and handed it to Abraham with an attempted smile. She was reluctant to make any eye contact. “Please, join your partner and have a seat.”

Abraham sat down next to me and Kay sat in the peach-colored velvet rocking chair facing the small flat screen TV across the room.

“Mrs. Maise,” I started. “First of all, I just wanted to say that you have our condolences regarding your daughter. The circumstances here have shaken this city and if there’s anything you need, you can reach out to us.”

It wasn’t often that a suicide in Lincolnshire was put on full display in a public area. The news spread quickly with the few people crowded around the bridge. The media hadn’t even gotten ahold of the news yet.

“Thank you,” she said. Her attempts at smiling were noteworthy. Talking to us was probably the last thing she wanted to do.

“We’d like to talk a little bit about Madison,” I continued. “We want to get to know her a little bit. We’d love to understand more about what was going on so we can try to help other kids in her situation.”

Kay let out a sigh and took a sip of her coffee. “Madison was…a carefree child. She was so artistic and had the ability to create everything out of nothing.”

I gave her an encouraging smile and raised my brows. “So, she probably has some of that scattered about.”

“She does,” Kay continued. “Her ability to create a world full of characters was unmatched. There was always a problem, though.”

“Oh?” I leaned forward.

“Yeah, her stories always started out bright and colorful, but her characters always ended up dying and her worlds fell apart. She always let me read them. They all had such hope until something terrible happened.”

“Was there any way in particular they died?” Abraham asked.

“I’m not sure,” Kay said, looking down at her coffee. “I asked her once…what it all meant. She told me their deaths were - inevitable. Something they couldn’t avoid. We talked a little bit about what it meant, but she never got that deep into it. I always thought it was a phase. I guess I should’ve fought harder for the truth.”

“This whole thing doesn’t look to me like something you could’ve foreseen,” I said. “She was obviously struggling with something, but in the twelve years I’ve been doing this, it’s never anything that’s on the surface. Kids struggle with stuff that we never see all the time.”

“I suppose,” she