Birdsong

BIRDSONG

“If I were an animal, I’d be a bird,” Lolly had declared when she was nine. “Then, I would have my very own song.” Abby sat on her daughter’s bed, repeatedly smoothing the quilt with cold palms. Thomas was behind the house filling his bird feeders. He’d always loved birds, loved tending to them. Earlier that morning he had bought special feed: thistle for the gold finches and buntings, oiled sunflower seeds for the grackles and magpies. He kept a bird log in a handy table drawer on the porch, writing each sighting down in his small, ordered letters. Abby admired that, watched through the window as he cooed, though envious of the special language they shared. He'd grown up barefoot and feral, a tree climbing, rope swinging Tarzan. She was a city mouse, an absentminded poet who stored books in her oven. They had birds in common though. Abby loved birds, but Thomas knew birds. When they walked the forest, he identified each song— cackle, caw or chirp—as if he’d been cracked from an egg. Lolly had favored him. Each day she flew like a falcon into the forest and mimicked the sounds, she and Thomas together. Abby remained earthbound, her nose in a book. Cranes typically lay two eggs at a time, she read. They were prepared for loss from the start. The week before, she’d noticed the fluttering just under Lolly’s skin, the flight patterns dancing above her head at night like holy visions.

In the hospital, Thomas covered her ravaged body with pink paper wings. Lolly had been sure they would help her become a bird in the next life. One that didn’t include Abby or Thomas. They folded paper cranes, their fingers needing a job. That night, Abby dreamt she gave birth to a crane. It sailed through the air with her trailing behind, the umbilical cord still attached. Her body flapped like a paper flag in the wind. Winter arrived. Thomas roamed for nourishing crumbs like a wren on a snowdrift; Abby grew despondent and walked the dense, needled forest as words danced in her head with the same fragile power as a pair of wings. Thomas abandoned words altogether and relied on birdsong. He sang, hoping to hear in return a familiar warble or whit-woo to brand and nest him again.

—Linda Laino