When Sparrows Fall by Meg Moseley

Jack was gone, just like that, and he’d never had a bite.
    He was an adult though. He had wheels. He could escape, any time he wanted, into a world that held Frosted Flakes and anything else his heart desired.
    “Listen up,” he said when the children were about to scatter. “I need to run to Chattanooga, but I don’t want y’all to be home alone that long, so I’ve found a woman to stay for the day. Her name is Mrs. Walker, and I hear she’s a nice lady but she runs a tight ship. That means no misbehavin’, understand?”
    Nobody argued. Rebekah wiped Jonah’s sticky face and hands and liberated him from the highchair. Without prompting, the other kids rinsed their bowls and started their chores.
    Timothy fetched logs from the stash on the porch, stoked the wood stove, and tidied the hearth. The archangels swept and vacuumed. Rebekah washed dishes—there was no automatic dishwasher—and planned supper. Jack had never known a ten-year-old whose day started with planning a meal for a family.
    At nine, a white car bucked around the last curve of the bumpy driveway. Jack stepped outside, pointing, to direct the driver to park behind the van and leave the Audi unblocked. She complied and climbed out. Silver-haired Yvonne Walker was seventy if she was a day, but she wore jeans and a bright red top. Her lipstick was as vivid as her shirt.
    “Hey, there. Are you Jack? I’m Yvonne. Land sakes, but that’s a long driveway. I never even knew there was a house hid away back here.” Hauling an immense canvas tote bag, she sashayed toward him, chewing gum at a rapid rate.
    He ushered her inside and introduced her to the kids. She had their rapt attention as she gathered them around the table and started to unpack her tote. First out was a romance novel with a garish cover.
    “That’s for me. So’s this.” She pulled out a six-pack of Diet Coke.
    Then, winning Jack’s heart forever, she produced what she called “entertainments.” Jigsaw puzzles, a Rubik’s Cube, Play-Doh … and books. Board books. Classic picture books. Seuss. Even a few easy chapter books. Jack could have kissed her wrinkled cheek.
    With Yvonne firmly in charge, he could leave with a clear conscience. He settled behind the wheel of his car, an eBay bargain with low mileage and a defunct stereo. Within ten minutes, he’d blown through downtown Slades Creek, such as it was, and was headed northwest.
    The mountains of Bartram County were very much like the ones he’d known as a boy in the next county. Each switchback curve held an interesting ravine or a waterfall or a glimpse of distant cliffs. The views were spectacular, but the pockets of poverty were heartbreaking.
    The run-down houses and trailers of the mountains hadn’t seemed trashy when he was a child. Children were that way, though, oblivious to the concerns of the adult world. So the adults had to do the worrying for them.
    His new worries accompanied him all the way to Chattanooga.

    It was nearly eleven when Jack unlocked the back door of his cluttered bungalow. As always when he’d been away for a while, he half expected Ava to greet him with a kiss. Or with another round of tears and recriminations.
    His briefcase still lay on the table, exactly as he’d left it. Already, it seemed as if his work belonged to some different world.
    He hurried down the hall, past the room they’d envisioned as a nursery. Since Ava had left, it had become a catchall, a repository for junk and old dreams of a baby or two.
    Weaving back and forth between office and bedroom, he grabbed clothes, toiletries, and the books and papers necessary to keep up on his committee work and his writing. He made several trips to the car, finishing with a battered paperback copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and the cigar box from his desk.
    Inside again, he fired up his laptop to check e-mail and the news. Doing the bare minimum, he finished quickly, then typed a few words into a search engine. Within minutes, he’d