Things I Want to Say

by Cyndi Myers

  As the air-conditioning hummed against the late-afternoon heat, he drifted to sleep, and dreamed of the jungle. The air was thick and heavy in his lungs, his vision obscured by tangled vines and leaning tree trunks. A bird darted past, and his heart pounded as he recognized the chunky silhouette of the Brown-chested Barbet.

  He took a step forward to follow, and found himself falling through the air. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. No one would know when he died here, alone.

  But as the ground rushed toward him, he was suddenly caught, as if at the end of a string, and he began to rise again, soaring under his own power. He was flying! He had no wings, only his arms extended in the manner of a child playing airplane. Yet miraculously, he was held upright, floating on a current of warm air. Exhilarated, he searched for the Barbet and spotted it ahead. It seemed almost to be waiting for him, hovering in the air. He zoomed after it, coming so close he could see the feathers lying along its back like scales. Then it raced ahead.

  Effortlessly, he pursued it, swooping and gliding, laughing out loud with joy. He had never felt so weight less. So free. Warm air blew his hair back from his face and pressed his clothes against his body. His fingertips brushed the velvet petals of orchids, and he breathed deeply of their rich perfume. A pair of long-tailed Capuchin monkeys eyed him curiously from their perches in the trees.

  The Barbet flew ahead, always just out of reach. Martin followed, not caring where they ended up, de lighting in the moment. Why had he never done this before?

  The Barbet landed on the end of a branch and began to preen, thick beak ruffling its wing feathers. Martin slowed, and readied for a landing beside the bird, instinctively knowing how to bank and aim for the branch. He stretched out his legs, ready to make contact, some small part of his brain wondering if the narrow limb would really support his weight.

  He woke with a start, eyes opened wide to the sun streaming through his bedroom window. He shut them again, willing the dream world to return, but the orange glow of sunlight against his closed eyelids told him sleep had escaped him. He spread his arms, remembering the feel of flight, but his left side remained leaden and unresponsive.

  Tears of frustration spilled from beneath his closed eyelids and rolled down his cheeks, wetting the pillow. After the freedom of flight, he felt imprisoned in his damaged body, bereft as a child who has lost the only source of happiness in his world.

  Casey decided he’d better try to make it up to his mom for coming home drunk the other day, so he offered to finish mowing the backyard.

  “You can’t,” she said. “There’s a Killdeer sitting on a nest near the pond.”

  “Not anymore. Grandpa and I checked it out the other day. The babies are grown and flew away.”

  “Already?” She checked the calendar. “It’s only been two weeks.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’s all it takes with birds.” He slipped on his sunglasses. “Anyway, think I’ll go mow.”

  “Be careful. It looks like a storm is coming up.”

  He glanced out the window. The sky did look dark in the distance. “I’ll have time to finish before it gets bad,” he said.

  “Okay.” She looked a little dazed. Maybe she was shocked he’d volunteer to do a chore. So maybe he wasn’t that crazy about work—who was? That didn’t mean he couldn’t do it when he needed to.

  He was filling the gas tank on the mower when Mary Elisabeth wandered over from Uncle Del’s trailer. “Hey,” she said, stopping beside the mower.

  “Hey yourself.” He grinned at her. She was wearing Daisy Dukes and a sleeve less denim shirt that tied under her breasts. The ring in her navel glittered in the sunlight. “What’s up?”

  “I heard about your fishing trip,” she said.

  He flushed. “Yeah, Mom’s pissed at Uncle Del. Nothing new about that, I guess.”

  “Smart people do dumb things sometimes.”

  “Yeah.” He set the gas can aside and screwed the cap back on the mower. “I told her Uncle Del didn’t mean any harm.”

  She poked him in the shoulder. “I’m not talking about Del, I’m talking about you.”

  He stared at her. “You think I’m smart?”

  Her smile could have melted chocolate. “Of course you’re smart. I bet you make As in school.”

  He made a face. “You’d lose that bet. I hate school.”

  “Why? Because it’s boring?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Just suck it up and get through it.” She shrugged. “You have to do that sometimes.”

  “I don’t see why. I mean, why not do what makes you happy, as long as you’re not hurting anybody?” He figured she could understand that philosophy.

  “But sometimes you end up hurting yourself.” Her expression was serious now. If not for the whole short-shorts and navel ring thing, she might have looked like somebody’s mom. “If you don’t finish school, how are you going to support yourself? And what if you meet someone and want to get married and have a family? Then you’ll need to support them.”

  “Whoa. I’m not thinking about sup porting anybody right now. I can deal with that when the time comes.” What was it with women? Did they all have this mom-thing inside their brains? Something tripped a switch and this perfect mom-speech came out? It was wild.

  “The choices you make do affect your future,” she said. “Realizing that is part of growing up.”

  Was she saying she didn’t think he was grown-up? He stared at the ground between his feet. “I guess sometimes it’s more fun to stay a kid.”

  “Yeah, we all feel that way sometimes.”

  She nudged his shoulder again, the smile back in place, and he relaxed a little. “Do you feel that way?” he asked.

  “Oh, sure. I bet even your mom feels that way every once in a while.”

  “Mom? No way. She was born grown-up.”

  She laughed. “No, I bet she sometimes thinks of ditching all the responsibility and just doing what she wants for a change.”

  This idea was both frightening and intriguing. His mom, a free spirit? He shook his head. “If that’s the way she feels, why doesn’t she?”

  She leaned against the mower and crossed her arms under her breasts. “Maybe because it’s too scary. Or maybe because she loves you all too much not to keep looking after you.”

  He fiddled with the gear shift knob on the mower. “Mom’s not one for a lot of mushy talk. I mean, I know she cares about us, she just doesn’t say it all the time. Not like some women. I have this one friend, Joe—his mom hugs and kisses him and tells him she loves him every time he leaves the house. Like he’s going to forget or something.” He shuddered. “I always feel kind of embarrassed for him.”

  “Some people are more expressive than others,” Mary Elisabeth said. “It doesn’t mean they love any more, they just like to talk about it, I guess.”

  “If something’s the truth, I don’t think you have to keep saying it.”

  “Yeah, but you should say it every once in a while, just to remind yourself.”

  He fiddled with the gear shift some more, watching her through half-closed eyes. He got the feeling something was on her mind. “So did you just feel like giving me a bunch of advice today?”

  “No, silly.” She looked at him sideways, almost shyly. “Actually, I came to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?” His heart hammered in his chest. “Are you going away?”

  “Yeah. My sister in California invited me to come out and stay with her for a while. I think I’m going to do it.”

  “What about Del?”

  “Oh, he’ll be all right. A man like him never goes long without a woman around.”

  The casualness of her attitude bothered him. He’d thought she really cared about his uncle. “Aren’t you going to miss him?” Wasn’t Del going to miss her? “Sometimes. We had fun.” She straightened. “But I’m not ready to get serious about someone right now. And he isn’t, either, which I guess is why things wor
ked for us. Maybe I’ll hook up with a surfer dude in California.”

  Too bad Casey wasn’t a surfer. And about ten years older.

  “So what about you?” she asked. “Are you going back to Denver soon?”

  “At the end of the summer, I guess.” He looked toward the house. “Grandpa’s doing better.”

  “He is. I’m glad. He’s an interesting guy.”

  “I guess he is.” He glanced at her. “Most people are interesting, if you get to know them a little.”

  “I like the way you think.” She brushed off her shorts. “I guess I’d better be going. I told my sister I’d leave in the morning and I still have packing to do.”

  “Thanks for stopping by.” He wiped his hand on his jeans and offered it to her. “Have a good trip.”

  “You, too.” She took his hand and held it in both of hers. “Remember, you can get through anything if you have to. Even boring school.”

  “Yeah.” Though he still wasn’t so sure about that.

  She surprised him then, by tugging him toward her and stretching up to kiss his cheek. Then she was gone, walking across the yard without looking back.

  He put his hand to his face, still feeling the soft brush of her lips against his skin, her flowery perfume filling his nostrils. He felt warm all over, and as if his feet might not be touching the ground.

  Wow.

  Karen watched Casey and Mary Elisabeth out the kitchen window. The young woman had already stopped by the house and said her goodbyes. Karen wondered how Casey would take the news of her leaving. She was pretty sure her son had a crush on his uncle’s girlfriend. What teenage boy wouldn’t? Mary Elisabeth looked like a Playboy center fold come to life.

  Karen was surprised by how much she was going to miss the younger woman. Mary Elisabeth was the kind of person who calmed the atmosphere just by being in a room. Dad was less argumentative when she was around, and even Del could be pleasant under the influence of his younger girlfriend.

  She envied Mary Elisabeth, too, for going off on her own, the way Karen never had the courage to do. She’d had big dreams of traveling and making her way in the world, but in the end she’d stayed right here in Tipton after graduation, leaving only when Tom had provided the opportunity.

  Now here she was, her children almost grown, her husband angry with her for not giving more of herself to him, her brother disgusted with her because she’d made the mistake of thinking life should be neat and orderly and people’s reactions predictable.

  She had done one thing right, at least. She and Dad understood each other now. No, he hadn’t been the perfect child hood father she’d wanted, but neither had he been the horrible one her selective memory sometimes made him out to be. He’d done the best he could with what he had in him. Something she’d tried to do for her boys, too.

  She left the kitchen and wandered down the hall to Martin’s study. She was surprised to find him, not at the computer as she’d expected, but at the window.

  “Storm coming,” he said. Every day his speech was clearer, though he was still unable to use his left limbs.

  “We could use rain,” she said. “The weatherman said this is the remnants of a tropical depression from South America.”

  “Birds get caught in big storms,” he said. “Blown off course.” He looked at her, his expression charged with anticipation. “Chance to see…birds not seen her e…before.”

  “Maybe we’ll both have some to add to our lists,” she said, though she doubted there was a bird anywhere near here that her father hadn’t already seen. “Casey said the Killdeer chicks are grown and gone already,” she added.

  He turned from the window again. “They have to grow up fast,” he said. “Be ready for…migration.”

  She picked up a paper weight from the edge of the desk, then set it down again. “What do the adult birds—the mothers—do after the chicks are grown?” she asked. “Do they stay with them or what?”

  His forehead wrinkled as he pondered the question. “They go on…being birds.” He shrugged. “That’s all.”

  She nodded, the skin on the back of her neck tingling as the idea took hold. Was she like the Killdeer? Could she go on being Karen? Did that mean staying the same, or trying something different?

  She’d never thought much about her future—what life would be like when the boys were grown, and beyond that even, to when she could retire from the landscaping business. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to think about a time that seemed so scary. She’d spent her whole life being busy, catering to those around her. What would she do with herself when they no longer needed her?

  “Dad, can I ask you a question?”

  He looked at her, waiting.

  “Why birding? What about it made it worth leaving your family, traveling all over the world and enduring so many hardships?” She looked at the awards arrayed on his wall. Surely he hadn’t devoted so much of his life to acquiring these pieces of paper. She looked back at him. “I’ve read all the articles written about you in birding magazines, about how you’ve walked across deserts and stood in the cold for hours and gotten up in the middle of the night—all to see birds. Why would anyone do that?”

  He frowned, the lines on his forehead deepening. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and moved to the computer and began typing.

  She came to stand beside him, and watched the words form on the screen.

  I don’t know how to explain.

  “Try. I want to understand.”

  When you’ve waited all night and endured the heat or cold, and finally you see the bird you’ve been seeking—the feeling is so beautiful, so sweet…. You know then that you’ve done the right thing. The thing your soul needs you to do.

  She blinked, and read the words on the screen again, letting them soak in. The thing your soul needs you to do. What did her soul need her to do? Was this restlessness she felt of late a sign that she needed to make changes in her life—find a new job? Travel to another country? Leave Tom and start over with someone else? Or by herself?

  She hugged her arms across her chest, as if she could ward off the psychic chill that swept through her. She didn’t know if she was as strong as her father, who endured great hard ships in hopes of some elusive reward. She didn’t think she was as brave as Mary Elisabeth, willing to uproot herself and move across the country for the sake of trying something different. And she wasn’t as carefree as Casey, who trusted the future to take care of itself.

  That brought her back to the mother Killdeer, and the idea of being Karen. Who was this mysterious woman, and how could she discover her? How could she find the thing her soul needed her to do?

  16

  If life is, as some hold it to be, a vast melancholy ocean over which ships more or less sorrow-laden continually pass, yet there lie here and there upon it isles of consolation on to which we may step out and for a time for get the winds and waves. One of these we may call Bird-is le—the is land of watching and being entertained by the habits and humours of birds.

  —Edmund Selous, Bird Watching

  The storm hit while they were eating supper, rain sounding like gravel against the windows, the tops of the pine trees bent like heavy stalks of wheat in the on slaught. Before he went to bed that night, Martin persuaded Casey to help him position the spotting scope. “Tomorrow…we’ll see what blew in on the wind,” he explained. He hadn’t much hope of adding to his list, but he might be able to point out something interesting for Karen or Casey to add to their lists.

  He also had the boy open the window a couple of inches. He lay in bed later with the lights out, breathing in the green smell of wet pine and fertile loam. It reminded him a little of the jungles of Brazil, which smelled of wet and growing things, and the pungent richness of decay.

  He fell asleep to the drum of rain cascading off the eaves, which became the steady cadence of dew dripping from the leaves of rubber trees.

  A familiar cry assailed him, and the Brown-chested Barbet flitted into vie
w. It landed on a branch above his head and cocked one eye at him, as if to pose a question or a challenge. Then with a soft flutter of wings it rose into the air and flew away.

  Martin spread his arms and stood on tiptoe, a fledgling eager to join in the flight. But gravity held him firmly to the ground. No longer could he fly among the treetops with the birds, though the memory of how that freedom had felt stayed with him, like the scent of a loved one clinging to his clothes though they were long departed.

  He clenched his fists and a keening cry of mourning tore from his throat. Why was he trapped here this way, immobile and useless, the things he loved most out of his reach in the treetops?

  He woke before dawn, irritable and unrested. The rain had stopped and the sky had lightened to an ashy gray. Restless, he maneuvered from the bed to the wheelchair and rolled to the window, where he checked the spotting scope. Already, birds were awake, scratching for worms and insects in the rain-softened soil, bathing in puddles that formed in the driveway, singing from the tops of the pines, their songs trumpeting the joy of a fresh new day.

  A movement in the azaleas caught his eye. He turned the scope toward it and dialed down the focus until he could make out a thick-billed, sturdy bird. He closed his eyes, heart pounding in his chest, then opened them again, sure he must be dreaming.

  With its black mask and golden crown, the barbet looked like a bird in costume for a party. The brown band across its chest that gave it its name was clearly visible. It turned and looked right at Martin, bright black eye staring into his as if it knew. You couldn’t come to me, the bird seemed to say. So I came to you.

  He held his breath, unbelieving, while the bird remained still, looking at him, as if waiting for an answer. He tried to stand, to move closer to the window, but pain exploded in his head, driving him to his knees. With his right hand, he groped for the window sill, trying to pull himself up, but his arm had lost its strength. He landed hard on the floor, and lay curled into himself as the world went black.