“All right. Where are these birds, and why do I need to see them?”
“I knew you would realize that this is the right thing, Rebecca.”
That’s Doctor Sorenson to you was the first thought that entered her head. He called her by her birth name, Rebecca. Which she thought sounded far too mature for herself, yet he treated her like a child. An idiot child at that. The second thought that went through her head was, Bite my ass.
“It seems there’s a flock of warblers in Dalton, Georgia.”
She waited the briefest of moments. “This is an odd time of year for them. Did they just never leave? They should be in Canada.”
“They did leave. But the local birdwatchers say they’re back, and they’re nesting.”
“Nesting?” This was maybe as interesting as the frogs. “All right. I’m hooked. What do I do?”
“When can you go?” His fingers still steepled in front of him. His hair was still on the greasy side and she still trusted him about as far as she could throw him.
“Tomorrow.”
“You’ll drive down, make a preliminary assessment and let us know if we need to assemble an ornithology team, or if there’s a fluke or an obvious issue.” He handed her a three by five lined card. The cheapest paper for making small notes on, by his own statements. “Call this man at this number when you get in; he’ll be more than happy to show you the birds and their newly chosen habitat.” Warden dismissed her with a disdainful wave of his hand, and gave her his back even before she could have possibly started out the door. But that was okay, his front wasn’t his best side.
3
Jordan looked around the living room. It was cozy and warm, and the deep-toned plaid couch screamed everything but ‘Eddie’ to him. Kelly must have done all the decorating.
The room was a definite step up from his own place. One, that it was in a house, on a lot with a yard and a swing set even. Two, the carpet was lacking in the stains his had come with. Three, the kitchen was fully functional.
He’d never been here before. After all the time he and Eddie had spent blowing things up together as kids, somehow he had never seen the house his cousin had built with his own hands and his own construction crew. It seemed a shame to see it only now that Eddie was getting buried.
Kelly sat on the couch, taking all of it much better than Jordan had expected. So when Aunt Agnes left her alone, he tried to casually saunter over with his soda in hand and position himself next to Kelly.
“How are you holding up?” It was her voice asking him that question before he could ask it of her.
“I’m all in one piece.” And before he could ask anything, she started in.
“Eddie was always telling me stories about the two of you and the M-eighties, or the illegal fireworks. Were they true? Could he have really walked into your medical school and convinced them that you had a sordid past and shouldn’t have been admitted?”
Jordan laughed. He hadn’t expected laughter and not from Eddie’s widow. “Yes, it’s all true.” And Jordan tried to use his opening. He had to know. “What happened? I thought he was in remission.”
“He just caught this stomach flu. It got worse and worse. The E.R. and his regular doctor told us that it would pass. Then he passed out, and by the time they admitted him he was in a coma.” She took a sip of the gin and tonic that she was holding in both hands, unaware that it had sweated a ring onto her linen skirt. Jordan waited, seeing that she was just steeling herself for something important. “Before . . . with the leukemia . . . he had made me promise to pull the plug. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I just knew he’d come back around. But three days later he flatlined and there wasn’t anything they could do. He was gone.”
For a moment, her hand shook, rattling the small cubes of ice exposed above the level of liquid in her glass. But then it stilled.
“Kelly, I don’t get it. That doesn’t sound like Leukemia at all. And I never heard of a stomach flu that put anyone in a coma. How was his white count?” He had leaned forward, elbows on knees, soda clenched in both hands.
This time when she looked at him her eyes saw his face, but no further. “Jordan, what are you doing?”
“I just want to find out what happened.” He reached for her arm, but she was already jerking it back out of his way, standing in one fluid motion, her hands raising.
“Why!?” Her voice was as loud as it was high pitched. “Why! What can you do? He’s gone. Just when I was getting comfortable with the thought that I might get the forever I signed on for. In five days he went from healthy to dead.”
Jordan opened his mouth to apologize, but she didn’t let him.
“Can you bring him back? I know that he’s dead. But stop asking me these goddamn questions. I don’t know what his blood count was. I just want him back.” She dropped the glass then. It fell in almost slow motion, and even as he was aware of everyone in the room staring at him like the leper he was, he reached for Kelly and set her back on the couch to keep her from falling. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She was in tears now, full streaming tears, the fallen glass unnoticed.
Even if everyone else hated him, Kelly didn’t seem to. Although he would have understood. He shouldn’t have pushed her like that. With a great sigh Aunt Agnes picked up the glass, luckily still in one piece, and sent her husband, Bill, running for paper towels. Kelly stayed there, crying into his shoulder, while slowly, everyone around him went back to their business.
He had forgotten the cardinal rule. That these were people. He could always remember that when it was strangers. But with his own family he pushed. And he shouldn’t.
And he had ruined it. As much as he regretted hurting Kelly, and pushing her past whatever safety barrier she had found, he more regretted that he wasn’t going to get his information that he wanted.
They were all still looking at him. Why had he done it? He could answer but they wouldn’t like it. They were all blue collar by choice, and he had gone out and paid through the nose to educate himself, to do what he wanted. But he had learned a whole new language, and they didn’t speak it. Jordan didn’t fit. And he’d upset one of the people who did. One at the center of the circle.
He rode home with his Dad in silence. Anyone else would think his father carefully schooled and stoic in his lack of expression these past few days. But Jordan knew better. Dad simply hadn’t had it in him since his Mom had died.
He was in his old easy chair within moments, tonight. There was no reproach for Jordan’s behavior, as he might have gotten when his mother was alive. Even though he knew his Dad didn’t approve, he didn’t hear about it. “’Night, Dad.”
His father didn’t answer. Just a quick look in his direction and a nod let him know he had even been heard.
Jordan lay on the bed, his hands laced behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. His thoughts turned to Jillian briefly, wondering if her day at Grady Hospital had been horrifyingly long. But he realized that she had probably done just fine without him. A small smile played across his lips before it was erased by his medical mind.
Eddie had died of the stomach flu and a coma. And none of it added up. If anyone here would know that something was off with Eddie’s death it was Jordan. But no one was listening.
Kelly’s words haunted him.
Why! What can you do?
In five days he went from healthy to dead.
He couldn’t bring Eddie back. He just wanted to understand. But there wasn’t even an autopsy. Not for a man who had leukemia for five years.
His lids slowly gained the weight of sleep, and within moments the glare of bright light. He blinked against the harsh sun through the windows he hadn’t bothered to close, because he hadn’t believed that sleep was coming. He was still in his slacks, his shirt, and his tie. All of it formerly pressed and Sunday best.
He had the whole day to contemplate his horrible behavior from the evening before. The idea that God was punishing him for it began with the taste of old gym
towels in his mouth.
With only a few blinks in a lazy attempt to clear his head, he pushed his way off the bed and into the bathroom. Relief surged at the flavor of mint replacing the gumminess of sleep. Jordan reached into the stall and flicked the shower on, the sense memory of where exactly to turn the dial remained even in this blurry state. Within a minute the water was a decent temperature, and he had yanked his tie loose and proceeded to strip. He almost fell back asleep standing there naked under the ancient showerhead.
By the time Jordan was downstairs, his Dad stood at the stove, his one concession to real-life cooking was the electric griddle that was perpetually on the counter top. The smell of Bisquick pancakes brought Jordan back to every other weekend he and his Dad had spent since his mother had died. He sat down with no conversation and ate until he was near bursting. Wondering all the while, as he always did, if his father made the pancakes even on weekends when he wasn’t home. He’d never had the heart to ask.
Just as Jordan set down his fork, the phone rang. His father motioned with the spatula that Jordan was to answer it. In China, children cared for their parents unto old age. In Lake James, Jordan saved his Dad the social effort involved in answering the phone. “Hello?”
“Jordan?” The voice was soft and sweet and he couldn’t quite place it. “It’s me, Kelly.”
“Oh, hi-”
“I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday. We all need to make sense of it in our own way.” He could hear her breath across the line in the sharp inhale she needed before she continued. “You need to know. I don’t want to. I don’t care what you find out. But I signed a release to the hospital, and told them you were with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that you needed them to cooperate.”
“Kelly . . .”
“No, It’s okay. If it had been you, Eddie would have found the answers leveling a field with a caterpillar and a backhoe. This is how you find yours. I’m just sorry I wasn’t more understanding yesterday.”
“Kelly.” He took a deep breath. “Thank you, and I’m sorry I upset you. I just . . .”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
“Listen Kelly, I wanted to tell you that Eddie once told me that he was the luckiest guy alive to have you.”
“Liar.”
“No he did. He then told me what a pansyass I was with my nose in books all the time.”
He heard her sniff even as she laughed. “Thank you. . . have a good flight home tonight Jordan.”
Great, he had made her cry. Yet, she had given him access to Eddie’s medical records. He wanted to jump up and down and cheer. He hated himself for it. But he had nine hours at the hospital until he had to leave for his flight.
Becky wasted little time unpacking her duffle bag and simply splashed some water on her face. The hotel was covered by the Amateur Birdwatchers; it was far nicer than anything Warden would have approved of her staying in.
She pocketed her room card and slipped her purse over her shoulder. Making certain that her door locked behind her, she found her way back to the elevators and wondered what she was getting herself into. She spotted Marshall Harfield easily, mainly because he was the only person actually sitting and waiting in the lobby. He had told her that he had dark hair and dark eyes, and that he would be wearing a blue ABA jacket. What he had neglected to tell her was that the dark hair was thinning and the ABA jacket was bright enough to scare away all kinds of wildlife and that it was struggling to stay closed around the wide girth of his belly.
He neglected to tell her that he was nervous and that he would startle when she approached him. Wiping his hand on his pants he held it out while he greeted her. But she couldn’t very well refuse to shake his hand. He led her out to his car, plastered with ABA and various other bird bumper stickers. Some even thought they were funny.
As they left the parking lot, he began a stream of nervous chatter. Becky, of course, listened with half her thoughts to Marshall, and the other half wondering what she’d gotten herself into. Her heart leapt when he reached into the backseat, but all he produced was a series of marked volumes on the Georgia Spotted Warbler.
Within moments, he had her flipping pages, finding out details and seeing that everyone who had ever printed anything about the Georgia Spotted Warbler agreed that they were only Georgian during the winter months. If it was true, then these birds were way out of sync. And Marshall Harfield had found his groove and a warm smile that he shared with anyone who could get excited over an unremarkable brown bird.
Her whole attention was turned to him as he continued, and she didn’t even notice the drive. They were pulling up to a farmhouse outside Dalton and four people were standing in the middle of the front lawn, their bright blue ABA jackets giving them away. They all but pulled Becky from the car and smiled and shook her hand in turn as Marshall introduced Dr. Rebecca Sorenson around to the lot of them. They were polite enough to make it through introductions, then they were all speaking on top of each other.
She posed the question to the group in general as she was getting the hang of understanding them. “So last year the birds flew in the proper pattern, and they left last spring at the appropriate time . . . but now they’re here way too early.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Not exactly.”
Becky decided to go with the kid, Weston, who had said ‘not exactly’. “Explain please.”
“This is the nesting ground for this flock, every year they’re here in Mrs. Chesterfield’s orchard. Well, last year they didn’t arrive on time. And two weeks later we found them while we were out looking for spotted woodpeckers over at the Dalton Arboretum. They were there, the warblers, and they were nesting. So we thought that was weird-”
Becky’s brows knit with questions. “How do you know it’s the same flock?”
Anne, the older woman, spoke up this time. “I’ve been watching this flock for years. The birds come and go, but there’s a consistency. You’ll see the same birds for quite a few years. We named the ones we can positively I.D. There’s Marsha, Jan, Cindy, Greg, Bobby, and Alice. Sam, Peter, and Tiger didn’t come back this year.”
Clearly no one else in the group thought anything of the names that Anne was rattling off.
Marshall smiled again, his big beaming smile. “That’s why we called the Biodiversity lab. Last year our birds were a bit off. But this is way out of our league.” He grabbed her by the arm, but by now she took it as a good sign, “Do you want to go see them?”
She nodded, and Weston rummaged through his backpack to come up with a bright blue ABA hat, which he held out to her. “I thought you might like a hat. We have Lyme ticks.”
“Thank you, Weston.” Before she knew it, she was in the back woods of Georgia, in eighty-five degree heat, and eighty-five percent humidity, trailing a team of birdwatchers. They laughed, and she didn’t even ask as they pointed out Boss Hog and Roscoe, two woodpeckers who were squabbling over a nearby tree.
It was two a.m. when Jillian spotted Jordan at the airport curb. He stood with one bag over his shoulder and a carry-on just clinging to the tips of his fingers, looking much worse for the wear than she was.
Pulling up, she spilled out of the car, her arms offering up a hug, and immediately she saw the awkwardness of the move, but it was too late to stop herself. He was a co-worker, and not family. Even if she was here in the middle of the night.
Jordan was startled by the move, but he hugged her back, maybe even just a moment too long, clearly out of it, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he passed out right there in the pick-up lane. But he simply threw his bag into the backseat, and slid, bone weary, into the passenger side. “Thank you . . .”
If he was going to say something else, it was lost in the moments between starting the car, and her intense scrutiny of the few other vehicles in the pick-up lane while she tried to find her way back to the freeway. From the expression on his face and the way he hid it behind spread fi
ngers, his cousin’s death had been hard on him.
When he finally looked up, she handed him the extra soft drink she had gotten for him. “I don’t know if you want this, maybe you just need to go home and pass out, but I was getting one anyway.”
“No. I’m starving, actually. Thank you.” He sighed, sucked down a good portion of the soda, and two seconds later started talking again. “I can order a pizza right now, right? Will you come up and share it with me? I need your help.”
That pulled her brows together. He was tired and not in there. And he wanted her to come up for pizza in the middle of the night? But again she didn’t get to say anything.
“Eddie had leukemia. But he died of a stomach flu that put him in a coma.” Frustration carried bell-clear in the soft deep timbre of his voice.
“What? I don’t know of any stomach flu that does that.” She pulled up to the curb in front of his building.
“Exactly.” He popped open the car door and retrieved his bag. “I alienated my family asking questions. All they know is that he’s gone. His wife is right, I can’t bring him back. But I can’t answer any of the questions either. . . . And you probably really want to go home and get some sleep.”
“Actually, I’m wide awake now. Buy me a pizza and tell me all about it.” She closed her car door and turned the key, managing only a small wince in the still city night air as the horn beeped that the alarm was engaged.
In the elevator he rummaged through his carry-on bag, producing a heavy folder that looked at once brand-new and well-worn. Jillian took it from him, while he entered his unit and went around the small living/dining area, opening windows, and turning on lights and the fan. The first slight breeze hit her face and it occurred to her that it was stuffy in here, even for the middle of the night. She turned the file over. “This says the file was released to Dr. Jordan Abellard of the CDCP. . . Did you use the CDC to get this?”
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