Bird

by Crystal Chan

  Still, if Grandpa did something to John, would I stop him? Could I stop him?

  John’s knuckles rapped against Grandpa’s door.

  Silence. Nothing.

  John knocked again.

  Grandpa had been so angry lately: first when he saw John and then that night at dinner, with the rice. I wasn’t sure what he would do if he got angry again.

  John looked at me and his eyes crinkled with an inside smile. He reached for the doorknob.

  My hand shot out and grabbed his arm. I didn’t even think about it, it happened so fast. But that didn’t stop John from opening Grandpa’s door. He peeked inside.

  “Dang it,” he said in his normal voice, but it seemed so loud that I jumped back a little. “He’s not here.”

  I let out a breath, and the earth seemed to breathe again too. But my stomach stayed knotted up. “That’s strange,” I said. “He’s almost always here.”

  John raised an eyebrow. “Or so you think.” He opened the door wider. “Huh. A neat freak. I knew it.”

  John was going to go into Grandpa’s room all the way when I pulled him back and led him down the hall. It just didn’t seem right for John to be poking around. “He almost never comes out of his room,” I said. “He likes staying in there,” I added.

  “Uh-huh.” John stopped in the living room when he saw the family pictures hanging on our wall. They’d been up there so long, untouched and unmoved, that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually looked at them. John was up close staring at them, staring like they were saying something, whispering right in his ear.

  I squirmed. “What is it?”

  He looked at me, then back at the pictures, then back at me. “You look like him.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your brother.”

  I bit my bottom lip.

  “You look like your parents, too.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t. My hair isn’t like either one of theirs.” Mom’s hair was thick and smooth, like water running over her shoulders. Dad’s was wiry. Mine was an explosion of frizz with an occasional spiral.

  John examined my face. “Your forehead. That’s your mom’s. And your chin.”

  “Really?” It felt strange to hear that I look like my parents. I’m always told I look nothing like them.

  “And you had a dog?” John said, nodding at the little Xolo dog that was perched on a ledge between the pictures.

  I blushed. “No, that’s a Xolo dog.”

  “A Sho-low what?”

  “A Xolo dog. Short for Xoloitzcuintli,” I said, pronouncing it all slow and drawn out, Sho-low-eats-queent-lay. “They’re ancient Mexican dogs that protected the king from evil spirits. They were even buried with the king to help guide him in the afterlife.”

  John peered at the dog. “Evil spirits? Cool.”

  I nodded. “So we keep a Xolo dog by the pictures of our family so it can protect us.” I didn’t mention that traditionally, Xolo dogs were usually kept by the doorway of the house, not by the family pictures. We weren’t an entirely Mexican family, though, only partway, so I suppose that meant we could do things differently.

  “Interesting,” John said. He turned to look at another picture on the wall. “Who’s she?”

  “Granny. She died when I was young.”

  John studied her picture, the one where she was standing at the top of a hill, her crisp, white dress blowing in the wind. Grandpa had taken her picture way back, when things were right. Grandpa must have been really different, because she and Grandpa were really happy together. They’d take sunset walks along County Line Road, and they’d dance a lot in the living room too. Dad, Mom, Grandpa, Granny, all in one house, kicking it up. That always makes me feel strange, thinking about that.

  John was still looking at Granny’s picture. “There’s something about her I can’t put my finger on,” he said. I was surprised at how intensely he was peering at it. Then he shook his head. “Wow. She looks tough.”

  I gave John a quizzical look.

  “Like a ‘Don’t mess with me’ kind of lady,” John said, scratching behind his neck.

  I shrugged. “I never knew her.”

  “You have her eyes,” he said.

  My throat got tight. How could he see all these other people in me?

  “I don’t have any pictures of Mom’s family,” I said, but I wished I did, so he could see them in me too. “I don’t know anything about that entire side.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about anyone in my family,” John shot back. I thought he was going to say something else, but he pressed his lips together tight.

  I almost forgot John was adopted. I used to wonder if my parents secretly stole me away from somewhere. When we go out people look at my parents, then at me, and ask tentatively, “Is this your daughter?”—as if I were a neighbor girl or a complete stranger kid tagging along. And we always have to say, “Yes.” Some families never have to say anything—their bodies shout out the answer for them: the color of the hair, the shape of the nose, the curve of the eyes. My body doesn’t shout out that I belong to my parents; it only whispers.

  But John’s body doesn’t even whisper.

  “What’s it like, at home?” I asked.

  He didn’t look at me. “I hate them.”

  I was startled. I would never say that about my family, even if I really, really felt it. “Why?” I asked.

  John kept staring at our wall of family pictures. “It’s not like they’re even my family,” he said. His eyes went back and forth from one to the other, and then to the Xolo dog, always returning to Granny’s picture.

  My fingers played with the insides of my pockets. “What do you know about your real parents?”

  He finally ripped his eyes from the photos and turned to me. “Well, they were black.” John’s words were dry, sarcastic. “But I figured that one out by myself.”

  “You’ve never met them?”

  He turned to me. “You’ve never heard about closed adoptions?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, there are open adoptions and closed adoptions. With open adoptions, you know your birth parents’ names, where they live, and maybe even visit them once in a while. With closed adoptions, you know your birth mother’s age and race. That’s it.” John’s lips twitched.

  “How old is she?” I asked cautiously.

  “Twenty-nine.” The words stuck in his throat. “There. Now you know everything that I do.”

  If I were John, I’d stare down every twenty-nine-year-old-seeming black woman I met and wonder if she was my birth mother. No wonder John was so courageous. The odds of finding her were awful.

  But when I glanced at him, John didn’t look all that courageous. Just the opposite.

  I didn’t want him looking at those pictures anymore. I drew him into the dining room. “Dad was really impressed with my weeding,” I said, “but he mentioned only the areas that you pulled up.”

  A smile crept into John’s eyes. “Those were some massive weeds.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Dad forgets about weeding until they get huge.” Little beads of sweat had gathered on John’s nose. “Sorry we don’t have an air conditioner,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I don’t mind it. Air conditioners are fake. We should be able to handle light beams that come at us from some ninety-three million miles away.”

  I got us some ice water, pulled out two beef patties from the freezer, and heated them in the microwave. As we ate, the morning sun cast a rectangle of light across the surface of the kitchen table. John swirled his ice cubes around in his glass, watching them glint in the sunlight. “You know,” he said, “the sun is here all the time, and yet most people don’t really ever think about it.” His voice was solid again, not like how it was when he was talking about his mother. John’s shoulders relaxed a bit too. “Have you ever thought about the sun?” he asked me.

  “It’s hot,” I offered lamely. I took a bite of my beef patty.
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br />   “Yeah, like twenty-seven million degrees hot. But it’s made out of nothing but gases, right?”

  I didn’t know that, but I nodded anyway. “Right.”

  “So what holds all the hot gas together? What prevents the gases from flying away into space?” His free arm waved in the air.

  My brow furrowed. “Gravity?”

  “Yes!” John slammed his hand down on the table with excitement. He grinned a huge smile. “Gravity!”

  I grinned back. He’d be a great teacher one day. I could just see him dancing in front of the classroom, his students shooting their hands into the air, begging John to call on them. Too bad he was going into outer space.

  His eyes suddenly started sparkling. “The sun doesn’t just have lots of gravity; it has lots of pressure, too.” John walked to the sink to get another glass of water. I followed him.

  “Pressure,” I repeated slowly. I usually think about rocks. Not about pressure and forces. But it gave me a giddy feeling, like my brain was growing and making these connections that I’d never noticed before.

  “Even this sink uses pressure,” he said. He lifted the metal arm. Cold water gushed out. “Your water tank sits above your house and uses gravity to drive the water out of this faucet.”

  “So our water pipes have water sitting in them right now, just waiting to be let out,” I said slowly.

  John grinned. “Looks like you get . . .” Suddenly he snatched the sprayer and blasted it on me. Frigid water gushed all over my clothes.

  I screamed and lunged at John, half laughing, half shrieking. His grip on the sprayer was tight, but I angled the nozzle back at his face. John’s skin dripped with water, his mouth wide and open and howling with laughter.

  “You get an A!” he cried.

  “Agh! You’re awful!” I shouted, but the words were hard to say because I was laughing so hard. He kept spraying water right at my face, his free arm holding my wrist so I couldn’t run away.

  “You see? Water pressure!” he shouted.

  I managed to jerk my body to the side to avoid another cold stream, surprising John, who still held my wrist.

  The stream of water sailed past me and right onto Grandpa.

  I didn’t know where Grandpa had come from or how long he’d been there, but there he was. Right behind me.

  Dripping.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream or run away, and I think that just got me confused inside because I didn’t do anything at all; I just stood there.

  Grandpa’s jaw clenched as he stared at us, his eyes sparkling with rage.

  But John sure wasn’t frozen. He looked at Grandpa and me and busted out laughing, holding his sides. The sprayer dangled in the sink, the faucet gushing out a stream of cold water.

  I didn’t know Grandpa could move so fast. He sidestepped me and lunged at John, whose lips were still in a smile from a sliver of a moment ago. Grandpa grabbed John by his T-shirt and started shaking him violently, his fists solid as rocks. John thrashed against Grandpa’s hands, and maybe he was stronger than Grandpa thought, because at one point when they were fighting, Grandpa lost his grip on John’s T-shirt and his fist crashed into John’s cheek. John cried out and staggered back into the kitchen counter. Grandpa followed after him and tried to wrestle him toward our front door.

  John’s cry jolted through my bones. I ran at Grandpa, pounding on him like an avalanche, beating on his back with my fists, and trying to pull him off John. Grandpa couldn’t get too far, though, because the kitchen screen door opened and Mom stepped in, her arms loaded with plastic grocery bags.

  She took one look at us, dropped her bags, and cried, “Jewel!” I let her pull me from Grandpa, and she stood between me and them, like a shield. “What is going on?” she cried.

  “What are you doing home so early?” I blurted out. I suppose that wasn’t the most intelligent thing to ask at a time like this, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

  “Stop this!” she yelled at Grandpa. Then she turned to John. “And who are you? What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice shrill and high. She looked back at Grandpa, who was still clutching John’s shirt.

  “I’m here,” John said tightly, “because Jewel invited me over. And her grandpa punched me in the face for no good reason.” John’s free hands pushed Grandpa’s away, and he stalked to the other side of the kitchen.

  “Grandpa, is that true?” Mom asked.

  Grandpa glowered at John.

  “It’s true,” I said, feeling sick. “Grandpa punched him.”

  “Looks like Jewel’s grandpa forgot about the whole mi casa es su casa thing,” John replied, holding his cheek.

  Grandpa’s nostrils flared. His eyes were flint stones sparking as he stared at John. His breathing came in quick pants, and he shifted his weight like he was ready to spring at John again at any moment.

  Mom stepped in front of Grandpa. “Enough. You are not to touch this young man, do you hear me?”

  Grandpa sneered.

  “He is Jewel’s guest. Our guest. You have no right to lay a finger on him.” She stared him in the face, her hands on her hips. I’d never seen Mom speak so directly to Grandpa before. “Leave this room. Now.”

  Grandpa glowered at her, then at John. He turned around, took a couple steps to the dining room table, and snatched the saltshaker. As he stared at John, he shook some salt onto the floor.

  “Leave,” Mom said.

  The way she said that made me shiver.

  Grandpa clenched the saltshaker and shook his fist at John with it. Then he stomped down our hallway and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. Water was still gushing out of the faucet, and I went to turn it off. John was rubbing his face, casually, as if he got punched every morning.

  But I had seen that look of fear in his eyes.

  “Is it bad?” I asked.

  “I can’t believe he hit you,” Mom said, putting a hand to her forehead.

  “Take a look for yourself,” John said, pointing to the already swelling skin at his cheekbone.

  “Oh, my God,” Mom said, lightly touching the skin around John’s eye. “Let me get you some ice.” She crossed to the refrigerator. “Why is there water all over the floor? And your . . .”

  Wet clothes clung to my skin. It was hard to hide a water fight. “John was teaching me about water pressure,” I said lamely.

  “Water pressure?” Mom’s brow furrowed as she slipped some ice into a grocery bag, then doubled it over so it wouldn’t drip everywhere.

  John smiled a lopsided smile. “Jewel was asking about the physics of water faucets, and I was teaching her,” he said. “And I think the lesson got a little out of control. We’ll clean it up, don’t worry. It’ll be even cleaner than when you left it.”

  “I see.” The skin around Mom’s eyes turned soft, like when she wants to smile but doesn’t. She handed John the bag of ice. “Rose. Call me Rose.”

  I was confused. Rose? Not Mrs. Campbell?

  He took the ice and pressed it to his cheek. “I’m John.”

  “John?” Her voice turned thick.

  John nodded.

  I winced.

  She looked at him for a good, long time. Finally she wiped her hands on her pants and took his right hand in both of hers. “I’m glad you’re here, John.” She glanced at me. “And you picked a great day for a lesson on water pressure.”

  I grinned.

  It didn’t take long for John and Mom to hit it off. She sat the two of us down at the kitchen table and brought us iced tea and even suddenly appeared with those expensive packaged cookies that were her favorite.

  “When did you get to Caledonia?” she asked him, pushing the plate of cookies in his direction.

  “Just a couple weeks ago. I’m visiting my uncle Tim for a while.”

  Mom’s brow furrowed. “Tim McLaren?” She was too polite to mention that Mr. McLaren was white.
r />   “Yup,” John said, sipping his iced tea. He turned his face slightly toward our oscillating fan to catch the humming breeze. “He’s my mother’s brother.”

  Mom stared at him. “Really?”

  John smiled his moon-teeth smile. “I’m adopted.”

  Mom’s eyebrows popped up in understanding, then furrowed, embarrassed.

  “I don’t know anything about my biological parents,” John said, even though Mom hadn’t asked any question at all, “but my adoptive parents are great, so that makes up for it, I guess.”

  My jaw went slack. His anger was completely gone. Where was that sheet of black ice that had slid over his face just a little while back, in the living room? Now it was as if his adoption was almost an afterthought, something that you think about only when you’re too bored to think about anything else.

  Mom was smiling like those ladies on the commercials. “Mr. McLaren’s a wonderful man,” she gushed.

  I tried not to let my eyes get all bug-eyed. Mom doesn’t even know him.

  John grabbed a cookie. “He’s okay,” he said noncommittally.

  “Where do you live?”

  “We’re in Norfolk, Virginia. Dad’s a university professor, and Mom works for an insurance company.” He smiled, then winced and repositioned his ice pack on his cheek. “I have no idea what she does, but she works in the tallest building in town.”

  “Wow.” Mom had her elbows on the table, holding her glass of ice water with both hands, her eyes dancing. John could talk about dung beetles and she’d be fascinated. I squirmed. Maybe she was being nice because she felt guilty for Grandpa hitting him in the face.

  Still, she never looked at me like that.

  “That’s terrific that you have a great family,” Mom was saying.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” John said.

  My back muscles tightened the way they do when someone is lying. Except I didn’t know if John was lying to Mom or to me.

  John grabbed another cookie. “They’re excited I’m studying to be an astronaut.”