Skyward (18 page)

She brought to mind the day—oh, so many years ago—when she’d had to give an injection to a child for the first time. Her hands had trembled then like now and she was equally certain that she’d hurt the child, somehow send him into a death spiral thus failing miserably as a nurse. She hadn’t, of course. The whole procedure had gone smoothly, yet afterward she was shaking more than the child. Remembering that incident, and how she’d survived it, helped steady her nerves. She’d get through this, she told herself. She just had to have confidence.

The owl stared wide and alert as Ella slowly opened the kennel gate. It creaked on the rusted hinges. The owl didn’t move, but she sensed its nervous coiling of muscle as her gloved hands moved into his space. Gentle, gentle, she told herself as she inched her way closer. Suddenly, the bird lunged back against the far wall of the kennel, flapping its one unbandaged wing loudly against the confined plastic walls. She squinted her eyes against the fury of wing beats and moved in, panic welling up in her chest as the owl thrust its feet and talons at her and began viciously biting her glove. She moved quickly to grab hold of its legs, and once secured, she reached around with her free hand to fold in the flapping wing.

“Good! You’ve got him,” Harris said from behind her. “Now, bring him out and keep a good grip on his talons. That’s right,” Harris said, watching her every move.

Reassured by his guidance, she followed his instructions.

He stood back and put his hands on his hips, grinning. “Congratulations, Ella. Nice job.”

Ella flushed with pleasure and released a long breath of pent-up air. She held in her arms this wonderfully wild creature. It was, she knew, a rare privilege.

“I can’t believe I’m holding an owl,” she said, a bit breathless from the exertion. She looked down at the beautiful bird held secure in her gloves. “I’ve always loved owls. I used to try to find them in the woods in Vermont. I’d prowl around looking for whitewash on trees or pellets on the ground. I liked to pick the pellets apart like a treasure to discover the tiny bones of rodents. Sometimes I’d see one roosting in a tree but always at a distance. Never this close. I feel like I’m breathing rarefied air.”

She looked up then and saw him gazing at her intently, as though he were trying to understand who she was and take her measure.

“Anyway,” she said, feeling a sudden cockiness, “I guess this wasn’t so hard after all.”

As though it had heard, the owl turned its head on its amazing axis and nipped her chest.

Ella gasped in pain and lurched back. She kept a firm grip on the bird but leaned away from the curved beak that was holding fast to her breast.

Harris lunged forward to pry open the owl’s beak. The T-shirt was puckered but no blood seeped through.

“You okay?”

Ella peered down her shirt at her bruised skin. “He didn’t break the skin, but ouch, that hurt!”

“A love bite,” Harris said as he put a towel over the owl’s head.

“Yeah, great,” Ella murmured, her chest still stinging and her pride prickling. “Talk about a comeuppance.”

“You did great, Ella. You stayed calm and kept hold of your bird. I didn’t expect you to get bit right off the bat. We all get nipped sooner or later, but it’s official now. You’ve gone through hazing with flying colors.” He smiled at her so brightly the pain eased. “Welcome to the club.”

A few weeks later, Harris sat on the floor of his living room across a playing board from Marion. It was only ten o’clock in the morning, but they’d already dressed and undressed Gaudy Lulu a dozen times, played several hands of Old Maid and long ago abandoned the dollhouse. This was the third round they’d played and Harris thought he was about to lose his mind.

Marion, however, seemed to be having a wonderful time. She was chattering away like a magpie. He could make little sense of her nonending, convoluted sentences and found his thoughts drifting off to other matters. Occasionally he’d mutter a mechanical “uh-huh” or “oh, yeah?” response to Marion’s questions.

His mind wandered to what Ella was doing in the clinic that morning. Two owls—a barred and a screech—had been admitted the day before with serious eye trauma. The screech’s left eye was so bad it was unlikely it’d regain sight. And some Good Samaritan had brought in an osprey all the way from Beaufort. The ospreys were only just arriving in the Lowcountry, setting up nests, and already this poor fellow was found with its chest impaled with multiple fishhooks. It was in pretty bad shape and would require very tricky treatment. Was Ella up to it? he wondered. If he could just slip into the clinic for a few minutes…

He pursed his lips knowing he couldn’t. He’d already had several arguments with Ella on this point since they’d started this arrangement. His job was to stay a few hours with Marion and not turf her off to someone else. Ella had taken to her job like the proverbial duck to water. All her nursing skills came into play, as he’d suspected they would, and she proved to be adept at treatments. She was still a little gun shy at get ting the raptors from the kennels, but the other, more experienced volunteers were able to cover that for her. Once at the treatment table, Ella had no difficulties dispensing medical care.

Hell, the truth was, she’d come on like gangbusters, sending the dust flying and turning the place around, just as she had in the house. The clinic had never been so clean and organized.

At first he’d been a tad disappointed that the first thing she’d see at the clinic were microorganisms on work surfaces. Sure, he knew that bacteria could be transferred into a bird’s body with fatal results, but most people who worked here were awed by the fierce beauty and commanding presence of the raptors. Most developed strong feelings and a dedication to rehabilitate them. Ella seemed a little stand-offish with the birds. Her emotions connected instead with preventing contamination, cleaning and disinfecting. Little typed signs were posted all over the clinic for infection and disease prevention, each with numbered instructions under headings such as: Wash your Hands! Keep Food Off the Treatment Table! Keep Medical and Food Instruments Separate!

The volunteers joked about the signs, but beneath the humor he saw respect.

He had to admit he was a little jealous. While Ella was making a difference in the clinic, all he was doing was sitting on the floor, rolling the dice and moving some blue peg around a brightly colored game board.

“Daddy!”

He blinked, realizing that Marion had been calling him. “What?”

“It’s your turn,” she said, clearly exasperated.

“Oh. Okay. Sure.” He picked up the dice and rolled it. Six. He looked at the board with a blank expression. “Now, where am I?”

Marion frowned and pushed away the board. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

Harris couldn’t disguise the relief on his face. “You don’t have to. What do you want to do next?”

“Watch TV.”

“Nope. Not an option. Want to pick out another game?”

She shrugged, keeping her eyes on the ground.

“What about this one?” he asked, pulling from the cupboard some silly game where they had to do surgery on a battery-operated game board.

Marion shook her head no.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

She just groaned and stretched out on the floor as if she was tired.

He felt a sudden panic. “Are you feeling sick? Is that it? Maybe I should check your blood.”

She snapped her head up and her eyes were narrowed. “No! You don’t have to check my blood.”

His stomach dropped, thinking that they were headed for a temper tantrum. They hadn’t had one in weeks and it just went to prove that he wasn’t up to taking care of her. He stood up, reaching out for her hand.

“Come on, let’s just do it.”

“No, Daddy! I don’t need to.” She mulishly kicked the playing board, sending the pieces flying.

Convinced her blood sugar was dropping, his heart began pounding. “Stay there,” he ordered as he hurried from the room to gather the test kit from the bathroom. How could he have not noticed, he berated himself? He’d missed the signals. Again. His hands shook as he took the test kit from the bathroom shelf.

When he returned to the living room, Marion was gone.

“Marion?” he called. Even as he looked for her in the kitchen and raced up to the bedroom, he knew in his bones that she’d run out. He pushed open the back door and ran outside, feeling panic rise in his chest. “Marion!”

The little girl was nowhere to be seen. He did a quick run around the house, then across the lawn straight for the clinic. He burst through the door, breaking all rules by raising his voice.

“Ella! Is Marion in here?”

Ella rushed out from the treatment room wearing an X-ray apron. Her face was tense and alert. “What? Is she missing?”

“She ran out of the house.”

“How long ago?”

“Just minutes.”

Ella took a breath. “She can’t have gone far. Let me get this owl back in the kennel and I’ll help you look. She’s got to be right around here.”

Harris turned on his heel and headed for the med units. Inside, he found Clarice and Brady scrubbing out Med Unit 8 while the two ospreys inhabiting the space were huddled in the corner as far away from them as they could get. But no Marion. Coming back outside, he saw Ella running toward him from the clinic.

“Where have you looked so far?” Ella asked.

“The house, the clinic, the med building.”

“How about the resident birds? She likes the crows.”

“The crows,” he muttered, the connection clicking in his brain.

They ran together to the resident pens. He was very much aware of her support as she trotted at his side. As he rounded the curve of shrubs, Harris’s throat constricted with relief when he spotted a small child’s form standing beside Lijah inside the crow pen.

“Thank God,” Ella said, breathless as she came to a stop beside him.

Looking at Marion, Harris thought she seemed calm and attentive, bending at the waist to get a closer view of the smaller of the two crows. Gone was her fury and any signals that she might be having a blood sugar attack. It was obvious that she was engrossed in whatever Lijah was telling her. Harris saw the gentle smile on Lijah’s face, too, and it didn’t escape him that the old man was enjoying this brief interlude with Marion.

“She doesn’t look any worse for wear,” Ella said. “In fact, she seems to be having a wonderful time with Lijah.”

He pushed his hair from his face and waited for his breathing to catch up to his heart rate. “As long as she’s not with me, she manages pretty well.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. Everyone loves Lijah. He just has this way about him.”

“But I’m her father. Put me in there with her and she’ll throw a tantrum.”

Her mouth settled in a crooked smile. “What happened this morning?”

“Damned if I know. One minute we were playing Chutes and Ladders, and the next she was kicking the board and telling me she didn’t want to play anymore. I thought she was having an insulin reaction.”

“Was she?”

“I don’t think so now. But how could I know with diabetes? It’s like riding a damned roller coaster. I was getting the kit when she snuck out.”

“So she knew you were going to test her?”

He pursed his lips and nodded curtly.

“Let’s take a walk.”

Spring had not officially arrived in the Lowcountry, but the soft promises of redbuds and cherry blossoms, greening marshes, creamy saucer magnolias and a palette of pastel colors floated in the balmy breezes.

They took off down the gravel road, traveling nowhere in particular. As she walked shoulder to shoulder with Harris, Ella was keenly aware that their relationship wasn’t employer-employee any longer as much as colleagues, perhaps some day friends. They’d shared too much to maintain such formality between them. Their dinnertime was no longer the torturous effort at communication. The talk was lively, full of questions and reports about their days and banter about people and birds they both knew.

Neither one spoke right now, however. She sensed that they were walking toward a new plateau in their relationship. The gravel crunched beneath their shoes and the songbirds called in the trees. Usually Harris kept his eyes to the sky, unconsciously scanning for birds. Today, however, she saw that his eyes were on his feet as he placed one foot before the other.

“I can’t tend to Marion. It just isn’t working,” he said at length.

“It’s only been a few weeks. Give it more time.”

“Marion doesn’t want to spend time with me.”

“I don’t know how you got that idea. She adores you. She loves spending time with you.”

“This morning we were playing a game and the next thing I knew she was kicking the board away and quitting. Does that sound like she was having a good time?”

“Were
you
having a good time?”

“Me? That’s not important. The idea is to make Marion happy.”

“Then you didn’t have a good time.”

“No.”

“I think we’ve just found the heart of the problem.”

“What do you expect me to do?” he said, his voice rising with frustration. “Dolls and board games are not fun for me.”

“Then why play those games with her?”

He seemed perplexed. “You told me she needed playtime, so we played.”

“Who chose the board games?”

“She did. We pulled them out of the cabinet and she picked out the ones she wanted to play.”

“But think, Harris. Who decided to play board games in the first place?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’ll wager you did.”

“What’s wrong with board games? I grew up playing them.”

“There’s nothing wrong with board games, except when that’s all you play. How many days have you depended on that as the basis for interaction with your daughter?”

He didn’t have to reply. She could read the answer in his troubled expression.

“In the end, Harris, you chose things to do that you
didn’t
enjoy—for her sake. And she tried to play those games with you—for your sake. So with all the best intentions, you both ended up miserable.”