by Cyndi Myers
“Yes, ma’am.” Karen carried the plate to the table. Her mother followed and sat across from her.
“Where’s Casey?” Sara asked.
“He and Sadie walked down the road to a neighbor’s who has a pool.”
“Who is Sadie?”
Karen flushed. “Sadie’s a dog. A big mutt Del foisted off on us. Casey’s crazy about her.”
“And you didn’t have the heart to tell him he couldn’t keep her.” Sara shook her head. “You spoil that boy.”
“You’re one to talk. You never said no to Del.”
Sara smiled. “I see a lot of Del in Casey. I suppose there are worse things than having a dog. He might have asked for a motorcycle. Or a drum set.” She spotted the photo album and slid it toward her. “What’s this?”
“I found it in the linen closet this morning. It’s pictures from our vacation to Yellowstone. Do you remember?”
Sara slipped on her reading glasses and opened the album. “Oh, I remember. The bear.”
“That’s right. We saw that grizzly bear when we were out hiking.”
“I was so terrified after that I refused to spend another night in the tent.”
“Is that why we moved to the lodge? I didn’t think much about it. I was so excited to be able to swim in the pool.”
“Children are easy to please at that age.”
She ate in silence for a moment. She would never have described herself as easy to please. “What was I like as a child?” she asked after a moment.
“You were a very serious child. Frightfully solemn.” Sara removed her glasses and closed the album. “I never knew quite what to make of you. You took after your father that way.”
“I did?” She had never thought she had that much in common with her dad.
“Oh yes. Everything was so dreadfully important to you, from doing your homework perfectly to dressing just so. If anything went wrong, you would pout or cry.” She shook her head. “Del was much easier. He and I knew how to have fun.”
Her mother made her sound so…unlovable. “I wish we’d taken more vacations like the one to Yellowstone. That was fun.”
“After your father saw all the ‘easy’ birds in the United States, he wanted to spend his free time abroad. The thought of traveling in remote areas with two children didn’t appeal to me, so we stayed home.”
“Didn’t it bother you, that he wasn’t more a part of our lives?”
“It did. And it didn’t.” She tilted her head, considering the question. “Sometimes it was easier being able to do things my own way, without interference. And men weren’t expected to be as involved with their children back then. That was the mother’s job.”
Karen ate another California roll. “Is that why you waited until we were grown to divorce him?”
“Partly. I don’t know if it’s hormones, or empty nest, or an awareness of time getting away, but a lot of women in their forties get restless. They start looking for more in life.”
“I thought it was men who had the midlife crises.”
“I’m not talking crises. It could be something as simple as changing the way you wear your hair or taking up anew hobby.” She smiled. “It’s a wonderful chance to find out what you’re really capable of.”
“How old were you when you did all this?”
Sara gave Karen a knowing look. “About the age you are now, I think. Isn’t that interesting?”
She looked away. Interesting. And a little unnerving. She had enough changes going on in her life right now without contemplating more. And yet the idea of making some kind of choice for her life, instead of always reacting to whatever was thrown at her, held a powerful appeal.
Did she want things to keep moving along the way they always had been, or was she ready to make some changes? And what kind of changes? She didn’t know any other kind of life than the one she’d lived for years as a wife and mother and business partner. There had to be other options out there, but the thought of exploring them stole her breath. Reaching for something new seemed to mean letting go of something old. What if she released the wrong thing, and ended up worse off than before?
9
It’s not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
—Aesop, “The Jay and the Peacock”
The Great Crested Flycatcher perched on the uppermost limb of the big pine. The compact silhouette gave it away as a flycatcher; Martin had thought it an Ash-throated at first. Then it turned and sunlight highlighted the yellow belly and the distinctive crest.
He glanced at Karen. She was studying the tree intently but had yet to spot the bird. She was looking too low down. He leaned over and tugged at her sleeve, then pointed toward the top of the tree. “Look.”
It came out to his ears more like oog but she seemed to understand, and elevated her gaze.
“I see it!” Her voice held the excitement of a child spying a prize at an Easter egg hunt. She fumbled with the binoculars, sighting through them, then scanning the treetop, struggling to locate the bird again.
Did she remember nothing he’d taught her? He grunted to get her attention, then demonstrated the proper technique. First, find the bird with the naked eye. Then, without looking away from the bird, lift the binoculars into place and adjust the focus.
The flycatcher leaped into view, the gray throat, yellow belly and rufous tail feathers making identification easy.
“I see it now, but what is it?” Karen asked.
He lowered the binoculars and gestured toward the field guide at her elbow. It wasn’t going to do her any good if he identified everything for her.
She picked up the guide and flipped through it, glancing from time to time at the bird, which remained still on the perch, as if posing for them.
Martin wondered sometimes if birds knew they were being watched. It was a frivolous idea, and he was not a frivolous man, but too many times when he’d been unsure about an identification, the bird in question had turned to show some singular marking that answered his question. It made him wonder….
“Is it some kind of vireo? No, that’s not right.” She flipped through the guidebook, studying the pictures, scanning through the list of identifying features, habitat maps and descriptions of birdcalls. “A flycatcher, then. The size is right.” She looked at him for confirmation and he nodded.
“All right, then. I can eliminate the ones that don’t live here.” She hurriedly flipped pages, impatient as she narrowed in on identifying the sighting. “That one’s head isn’t right…. That one doesn’t live here…. That one’s wrong….” She stopped and studied the illustration of the Great Crested Flycatcher, then checked the bird above them through the binoculars again.
Obliging of it to sit still so long, Martin thought. Most of the time in the field you were lucky to catch more than a passing glimpse. He’d have to teach her to make a more rapid assessment. She needed to learn to note features such as the presence or lack of wing bars, the shape of the beak, colors and their pattern, eye stripes or rings, and a dozen other distinguishing characteristics, all in a matter of seconds.
He’d long felt that birders would make excellent witnesses in the event of a crime, provided they were focused on the villain, and not some more interesting feathered quarry on a nearby telephone wire.
“It’s this one.” She held the book out in front of him and pointed to the painting of the Great Crested Flycatcher.
He nodded and waved a shaking hand toward the notebook in her lap. “Mark.” Which came out mar but she understood.
She carefully noted the time, day and location of the sighting. “That’s three new ones this afternoon,” she said. “I’m afraid I have a long way to go to catch up to you.”
She never would catch up, of course. She had no serious interest in being a big lister. Which suited him. He hadn’t worked this hard to make records that would be easily broken, even by his own progeny.
It was enough that she wanted to sit here with him now, to learn a little of what
he had to pass on to her. She’d surprised him when she’d come to his office a few days ago and asked him to teach her about birding. For forty years she’d shown little interest in his avocation, and now that he had lost most of his mobility and practically all his powers of speech, she wanted to share this with him.
“I just thought, as long as I was here, it would be a good time to take up anew hobby,” she’d said.
A more morbid man might have suspected she wanted to learn his secrets before he carried them to the grave with him.
“It’s very peaceful here, isn’t it?” she said, focusing on the tree once more. It rose thirty feet into the air and in its branches Martin could hear and see dozens of birds, mostly the chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and sparrows common to backyard feeders throughout the United States. Bright red Northern Cardinals and blue-and-white Eastern Jays rounded out the local hoi polloi. Karen had added all these to her list in the first two days of their birding together.
She’d impressed him with her ability to sit quiet and still, observing. Before, she’d struck him as a woman plagued with the need to be busy, like her mother, who had once protested that fidgeting had been proven to burn calories, so she saw no need to give it up.
Maturity had brought a settledness to Karen he appreciated. Maybe she did have some qualities from his side of the genetic helix.
“Is that what attracted you to birding? This sort of zen quality to it?”
There was nothing zen about the compulsion he felt to list birds. It was as if the more time he spent finding birds and adding them to his list, the greater his chances of understanding their ethereal nature. Plus, he wanted to accomplish something few men had accomplished. Not blessed with great brains, brawn or ability, he’d sought to see more birds than anyone else in the world.
But he had no way of expressing this so that Karen would understand. Instead, he shrugged, and scanned the tree once more. Silence settled between them again, a stillness void of the awkwardness he’d felt too often in her presence. Birding had given them that, at least. Something they could do together without the need for conversation.
Except that Karen was in the mood to talk. “Do you remember when I was a little girl and you taught me about birds?” she asked.
He would not have called his few attempts to share his passion with his children a success. They grew impatient with sitting still so long, though Karen, at least, had had a good memory for names and details. He nodded.
“I think I probably spent more time picking wildflowers and collecting pretty stones that I did actually seeing birds on our expeditions.” She lowered the binoculars and turned to him. “Mostly what I enjoyed was getting to spend time alone with you.”
He blinked, startled that she had such positive memories of what, for him, had been frustrating outings. The boundless energy and short attention span of his children when they were small overwhelmed him, and he had never felt he was really getting through to them.
“I found a photo album the other day, with pictures from that vacation we took to Yellowstone, when I was eight. Do you remember?”
He nodded. He’d seen Trumpeter Swans and Whooping Cranes during that trip, and Sara had been frightened by a bear. He also remembered that Karen had not been afraid at all. She’d been eager to tell him about the grizzly. Together, they’d looked through one of his nature guides, and read about the great bears. He had a sudden memory of eight-year-old Karen standing in the circle of his arms, listening raptly as he read to her from the guidebook. The realization that he had had a part in creating something as perfect and precious as this child had overwhelmed him. Affection and wonder and pride left him speechless, and terrified that he might do or say the wrong thing and lose her altogether. When Sara called Karen to wash up for supper he was almost relieved to have the chance to school his feelings into a more comfortable reserve.
He studied the woman beside him, looking for signs of that girl. They were there, in the dimple to the left of her mouth, and in the way she tilted her head to one side and smiled at him now. “That was a fun trip, wasn’t it, Dad? I wish we’d taken more like that.”
He nodded, and blinked away stinging tears. Regrets were a poison he wanted no part of, but now, speechless and immobile, they worked on him with painful intensity.
He grabbed up his own binoculars and raised them to his eyes, pretending to search the treetops once more. He was almost grateful he’d been robbed of the ability to speak. In the best of times, he’d never known what to say to his daughter. There were no words to explain this paradox of wanting to reclaim a closeness he had forfeited long ago, and the fear that the price he owed for such a privilege was far too dear.
Karen had turned to birding as away to connect with her father, but she was surprised by how much she enjoyed looking for birds, watching their behavior and trying to determine their identity. She had no desire to count and categorize species the way her father did, but the solitary, out-of-doors nature of the activity made for a lot of time to be alone with her thoughts.
Her life up till now hadn’t had much room for contemplation, and the nature of some of her thoughts surprised her. There was the usual litany of worries about the boys, Tom, their landscaping business and her father’s health. But once she’d gotten all that out of the way, she found herself remembering things that hadn’t come to mind in years—ambitions she’d had as a girl, old hurts and triumphs long since put aside, beliefs she’d held that hadn’t proved true. In those hours spent on the front porch or out back by the pond, eyes trained overhead and heart turned inward, she felt like an archaeologist removing layers of refuse and artifacts to reveal clues about her life as it was once lived, secrets she’d once told herself and then forgotten.
She was sitting in a lawn chair by the pond, watching a Golden-fronted Woodpecker trace a crooked spiral up the trunk of a half-dead yellow pine when Casey found her one late afternoon. Sadie ran ahead to greet her, tail wagging. Karen ignored the dog and jumped up from the chair. “What is it? Is Grandpa okay?”
“He’s okay. He’s taking a nap.” Casey bent and scooped up a pinecone and hurled it toward the pond. “I came out here to see what you were doing.”
“Bird-watching.” She held up the binoculars, feeling a little foolish as she did so. To a teenager, watching birds must seem about the most uncool thing a person could do. “I’m trying to figure out what your grandfather finds so fascinating about it.”
She sat once more and Sadie sat next to her and put her head on Karen’s knee. Karen absently rubbed her ears and was rewarded with a steady drumming of the dog’s tail. It amazed her how quickly the dog had insinuated herself into their lives. How quickly she’d come to seem, even to Karen, like part of the family.
“What have you seen so far?” Casey came to stand beside her chair.
She flipped to the front of the guidebook, where she’d been keeping her list. “This afternoon I’ve seen an Eastern Wood Pewee, two Killdeer and a Golden-fronted Woodpecker. Others, too, but those are the ones that are new to my list.”
He sat on the ground beside her chair, long legs folded up like a grasshopper, knees sticking up. When was the kid going to stop growing? He’d need all new pants before school this fall. She frowned at a hole in the toe of his right shoe. “Why is there a hole in your shoe?”
He stretched out his leg and examined the hole. “I guess my toe rubbed through. These shoes are a little tight.”
“We’ll try to get you another pair one day this week.” She added it to her mental list of things to do. Later, she’d transfer it to the running tally she kept in a notebook in her purse. Her brain, she’d jokingly dubbed the notebook. The thing that enabled her to keep all her plates in the air.
“That’d be good.” He gazed out over the small pond, silent for a moment, then said, “When we were little, Grandpa would bring us out here after supper to fish. He’d put worms on our hooks and we’d toss our lines in, and while we waited for the fish to bite, he’
d teach us about birds.”
“He would?” She searched her brain for some memory of such a tender familial scene and found none. “I don’t remember him spending that much time with y’all.”
Casey scratched at a mosquito bite on his arm, then leaned back, propping his weight on his hands. “It was that summer I was nine. Matt and I stayed here with Grandpa and Grandma while you and Dad went on that cruise.”
How could she have forgotten? It was the first vacation she and Tom had taken together since the boys were born. They’d spent a week in the Caribbean, drinking fruity drinks, soaking up the sun and making love every afternoon in their tiny cabin. They’d dubbed it their second honeymoon, and vowed to make it a semiannual tradition. But they’d never found the time or money to go again.
Sadness washed over her at that thought. Why had they denied themselves that chance at closeness, that opportunity to remember what made them a couple? If nothing else, this time spent apart had opened her eyes to all the little things they’d left out of their relationship, things maybe they both needed.
“So do you think Grandpa decided to be a petroleum engineer so he could travel all over looking for birds, or he started watching birds because his job took him all over the world?” Casey glanced up at her.
“The former, I think. I seem to remember he started birding while he was still in high school.” She looked down at her son, at the cowlick at the top of his head. It delighted her that all the carefully applied styling gel in the world couldn’t tame that little-boy curl of hair. “I guess he was lucky to find a job that allowed him to indulge his passion.”
“I think it’s cool when you can earn money and still do what you love.” He plucked a piece of grass and twirled it between his fingers. “Like Uncle Del. He owns the oil-change shop, but he takes off whenever he wants to go fishing and stuff.”