S.G. Childress Birds With Wings Like Flies
I walked the dark empty house with a beer in one hand and Kathleen's note in the other. 'David. I'm not. Kathleen' That’s all she wrote but I knew. I was surprised she'd stayed as long as she did. But it was strange she'd left without feeding her hummingbirds. I grabbed another Pearl from the fridge and went out on the patio like we'd done so many times over fourteen years of marriage. Like we had the night before.
Kathleen had sipped tea and watched her hummingbirds at the red and yellow plastic feeder. She turned and looked at me. "Aren't they precious?" I sipped beer as the sun warmed my bare arms in spots where it made it down through the pines. "Sure are, honey. They really are." Then came one of her lingering looks. She set her glass down on the cement. "David. Do you ever wish..." She twisted her wedding ring on her finger. "I mean...are you ever sorry?" She wanted me to look at her. I wouldn't.
"David, are you sorry we didn't have kids?" "What?" I acted like I hadn't spun this out before. "No." I turned to her. "Honey, I'm perfectly happy with how things turned out. Always have been." She watched my mouth as I spoke, then picked up her sweating glass. Dark circle stain soaked down into concrete. She looked into her glass and swirled the tea and ice. "Why?" I said, already knowing. "Aren’t you?" She'd lain back in her chair, looking a little older with sun on her face. Then she'd left and gone to bed without