Bird After Bird (11 page)

And that was the closest she’d come since Sylvia’s funeral to acknowledging I’d lost my girl and my dog in one fell swoop. I was a little stunned, but I still pretty angry about the way she was brushing off the death of my Army buddy.

"And what about his son? Was he meant to handle his father's death? He was only three! Did ‘life’ not give him more than he could handle?” I was letting myself get pissed now, and I could hear my volume rising. I should never have taken her bait.

"Well, it's tragic, but he's not the first or the last little boy to lose a parent in the military, Laurie," Mom said. She had another drink of her margarita then, and opened a bottle from the cabinet to add more liquor.

There was nothing I could say to that.

What would she have said if it had been me?

I’d slipped out to hang with Dad. Louisa brought Hap down to the basement where he collapsed into a heap of exhausted puppiness. “You ever need a dog sitter, I think you found your girl,” Dad said.

Jo laughed. The four of us chillaxed until Mom’s shrill voice announced dinner was on the table.

It had been painful, but I’d done my duty and stayed for dinner. As I drove to Goose Pond I told myself to forget it. Just let it go. Some things are best left in the rearview mirror.

Today I looked forward to running into Wren again. “Try not to get your hopes up, man. She might not be there.”

Hap whimpered out the window at some quickly passing scent.

On the outskirts of Linton I stopped for a sandwich, and let Hap romp a bit.

I grabbed my sketchbook from the truck and found myself writing another letter to Sylvia. This time I drew a sketch of Hap, as well.

Dear Sylvia,

One of these days I know I'll find someone I can really talk to again. All those years of feeling like I had to keep silent whenever Mom was around...oh, the relief when I met you! I miss the way you listened to me, the way you heard my heart, even when the right words didn’t always come.

I used to miss the way your body fit with mine, the way you’d curl into my arms. I still sometimes catch the smell of your hair. I missed you so much, Sylvia. Everything about you. I’ll never forget you, but I can’t live forever in love with a ghost.

You remember how we talked that one time, about how migratory birds fly thousands of mile each year to return home? Sometimes I feel like that. I haven’t been going anywhere, but I feel mile after mile pass below me, and it's all just a blur. I only stop when I have to, and every time, I know you’re not going to be there, so why bother? Why even fly on? Well, maybe I’m starting to figure out why.

I think your mom was right when she said you wouldn’t want that for me. Maybe I needed to hear it from somebody else. The thought of moving on has been so…I don’t know, Syl. Guilt-inducing, I guess.

I want to believe that someday I'll feel the joy of flight again, not just the blur. That’s what I’d want for you.

Do you believe life only deals us as much as we can handle? When I lost you, I was totally waylaid, but I think deep down I still believed that it wasn’t more than I could take. It might have hurt so much I couldn’t breathe sometimes, but I still had Rod to talk to. I wasn’t alone, and I knew that life was going to go on, even when it didn’t feel like it.

So why did life—or God, whatever you want to call it— arrange for me to screw up and get Rodriguez killed? I couldn’t handle
that
, Syl.
That
wasn’t fair.

Which reminds me, I need to write to José. Poor kid.

I could be wrong, but I think God lets stuff happen to us that we're
never
going to be able to handle—probably even worse stuff than losing a fiancé or a best friend or a parent. What about those babies born with heart defects, or people with PTSD worse than mine?

I erased the “worse than mine” and drew a bird over the mark.

 
Some vets get home and go nuts and shoot people—that's not "handling" things, is it? But God lets it happen. Maybe God doesn't "make" those situations, but He lets it happen.

Maybe I’m a fool for thinking someday, someone out there is going to be able to talk about this stuff with me without getting uncomfortable and flying away. And maybe—just maybe—she’ll have her own stuff to deal with, too. I’m not asking for a basket case, but it’d be crazy to try and stand up to perfection.

I’m so alone. It was okay for awhile, but not anymore. And if there’s a God, I can’t believe that’s how it’s meant to be. And I can’t believe you’d want me to stay this way. So wherever you are, however you are, if you pray, send one up for me, okay?

Thanks for listening.

Always,

Your Birdy

I tore out the page and folded it into a crane.

Chapter Seventeen

Wren

“Welcome to Crane Days! While you’re with us today please remember: birds don’t really mind if you are loud, but they can spook at sudden movements, so please keep that in mind if we are fortunate enough to come across any Whooping Cranes or even a Snowy Owl. If you
do
see a flock of birds flying scared, look up! You’ll probably see a few bald eagles today!”

I took a deep breath and continued. “I hope everyone brought binoculars, sunscreen, and a hat, because the basic tour is going to run a couple of hours out in the field, and there are no restrooms at Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area. Go on and hop off the bus for a comfort station if you’d like, before we go. We’ll hold the bus ‘til you get back!”

The minibus was packed with tourists. Most of them were serious birders like me, although few were as experienced—otherwise they’d have been roped into leading tour buses, too. A family of six sprawled across the back seat, a sleeping baby draped limply across mom’s shoulder. A haggard but happy-looking father joked with three boys.

“Nice to have you here, Wren,” said the bus driver. It was Rhoda, one of the festival organizers. She knew more about wild birds than anyone I had ever met, and I looked forward to her chiming in as we made the rounds of Goose Pond.

“Ladies and gents,” I said, as no one made a move for the door, “are you sure there won’t be any last potty breaks? I promise the stalls here at the fairgrounds are a lot nicer than the reeds of Goose Pond!”

One of the little boys in the back raised his hand, and scooted down the aisle of the bus, the father going after him. Rhoda started to close the bus doors against the cold, but the two brothers decided to follow their brother and dad. The tourists chuckled as the kids disappeared into the rustic restroom, little more than a port-o-john.

“Three pee-ers in a pod,” Rhoda said, and the bus erupted into laughter. The tired mom in the back seat nodded her agreement.

“Ladies and gents, you got the best of the bunch here with Ms. Rhoda,” I said. It was true. Linton was never far from my mind in between all the work stuff in Chicago, but somehow it seemed that Crane Days was the only time I found to slip away.

As the three little boys and their father reboarded the bus, I called out “Last chance!”

“Let’s hit the road!” a fellow in the front seat said. At least, I think it was a fellow. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, dark glasses, and so much zinc oxide on his nose that all facial features were obscured. If we hadn’t already been in the middle of nowhere, I’d have thought maybe he was some kind of terrorist. Bird-Qaeda.

“Away we go!” Rhoda answered, and then we were off.

Goose Pond is an enormous inland marsh. The first time I saw it was during my Big Year with Dad, when I was 12. I remember thinking “Birds? Why would birds come here?” I guess when I was a kid I only thought of the species that lived in the woods when it came to bird watching.

Growing up in Birdseye, we had our share of warblers and sparrows, but nothing like the diversity of birds that visited Goose Pond. On a good day, you could see species that didn’t stop anywhere else in the state. Pelicans soaring in stark white flocks, galloping cranes thicker than Canadian geese, and a virtual sea of coots—little black ducks that made excellent eating for the plethora of eagles and hawks in the vicinity. Even the common birds were made wondrous from the enormity of their numbers.

To a layman’s eye, it might just look like acre after acre of empty fields, with a few shallow ponds scattered here and there. To a bird, though, Goose Pond was paradise.

I saw it now with the eyes of an adult birder. A city girl who had come to appreciate all that nature had to offer. I loved my life, but being able to escape to a place where wild birds soared and dived was a treat that money couldn’t buy.

It did take a lot of money to support it, though. The Department of Natural Resources was one of the first government agencies cut when political allocations were rejiggered, and it took a lot of fundraising to keep Goose Pond running.

Our first stop was a fallow cornfield just outside Goose Pond, where a flock of about two thousand Sandhill Cranes moved. “Wow!” the boys in the back of the bus cried. The more experienced birders began clicking off shots with their digital SLRs as I shared a few facts about the birds. I’d learned from previous years that when it came to factoids, it was best to stick to trivia and personal observations. Anything that sounded like “education” usually hit tourists like the stuff yawns are made of. If they had questions, they’d ask.

“The Sandhill Crane is usually three to three and a half-feet tall at maturity, which means each one of these birds is probably almost as tall as you boys in the back of the bus!” The giggling in the back told me I’d shared the right factoid.

“Are they rare?” the father asked.

Looking out the bus window at the hundreds upon hundreds of birds, I had to laugh. “Only about as rare as a longhorn in Texas, sir.” The bus collectively chuckled, and the dad stared out the windows as his wife patted him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. I hoped I hadn’t hurt his feelings.

As soon as the shutters finished clicking, Rhoda moved the bus onward. Her walkie-talkie gurgled and snapped to life, and she talked to someone at another location for a moment.

“You want to see a rare bird, sir?” she called to the man in the back.

The bus collectively gave a “Yes!” in response.

“Well, let’s give the man what he wants, huh?” I said.

Picking up her PA mic, Rhoda announced, “I just got word that we’ve spotted two Whooping Cranes. These are two of only about 100 of these birds left in the wild. If you see them today you may
never
see one of these birds again in your lifetime, so get those cameras ready!”

The Whoopers chose to fish that day near a larger bog teaming with bird activity. Once we’d finished paying homage to the rare, endangered birds on our left, we exited the bus as a group and meandered toward the heavily-peopled banks of the lake, opposite.

Aimed toward an island in the midst of the shallow lake, several gentlemen with expensive cameras and stacks of field guides were arguing about whether they were observing a juvenile bald eagle or a juvenile golden eagle. Many yards away on an island of plant material, the eagle feasted, completely unconcerned for its pedigree.

“C’mon, baby…spread those wings and show us your tits!” one of the men said, hunched over a telescope, his legs spread nearly as wide as the tripod for which he’d doubtlessly overpaid. “Show Daddy if you’ve got white patches on those scrawny wings!”

One of his friends reddened, grinning at me. “We’ve got a bet going—$50 and the loser buys a round for the guys tonight.”

“
Juvenile
, indeed.”

“You’re welcome to join us,” the red-faced guy said.

I glanced at the family of six from the bus. Mom held her hands over the ears of her youngest.

“And this, ladies and gents, is a pair of typical Indiana coots—not juvenile in the least, although their behavior smacks of immaturity. No, I don’t think these two will be breeding any time soon! Okay, grab your binocs and let’s have a look at this eagle, shall we?”

While the tourists stood in awe, I got fidgety. Part of the point of the fundraising event was to elicit new birding enthusiasts to understand the importance of the wild habitat maintained here at Goose Pond. I enjoyed doing my part by leading tours and spearheading the firm’s annual capital donation, but while they watched the birds swoop and soar, I busied myself with gathering litter from the roadside.

A few yards down the shoreline, the glare of a white piece of garbage caught my eye. I treaded carefully in the muddy marsh to retrieve it.

I gasped as I realized it was another paper bird. This one was folded into the shape of a swan, and I couldn’t help but open it, immediately.

Much of the ink was washed away, but the pencil sketch of a bluebird was unmistakable in the corner of the page. I could make out a few words from a paragraph on the right edge.