Be Light Like a Bird

by Monika Schröder

  23

  “How did you do?” Mrs. Russo asked when we visited her at the library the next afternoon. We had dropped off the photos and poster the day before, and Mrs. Russo had asked us to check back in with her. “Your exhibition is quite popular. Many patrons have commented on it.”

  “Too bad it won’t make any difference,” I muttered. “The township will vote in ten days and just give Mr. Zusack the land.”

  “That’s a gloomy outlook, Wren,” Mrs. Russo said. “You shouldn’t be so pessimistic. At least more people are informed about what’s going on. Who knows, something might come out of it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said. “But I still wish we could do more.”

  “We should write to a state senator,” Theo suggested.

  I shook my head. “We’ll just get one of those canned letters that says, ‘Thank you for expressing your concern… blah, blah, blah…’”

  “But look at the headline in the paper,” Theo said, picking up the copy of the Soo Enquirer on the circulation desk. “Senator Larsson is coming to the Soo the Saturday after next. That could be our chance.”

  “He’s not going to talk to us,” I said, taking the newspaper and skimming the article.

  “You could at least try,” Mrs. Russo said.

  “What if we wrote a petition and collected signatures?” Theo suggested. “Remember when we talked about civil actions in social studies class? We read that article about people in Detroit who submitted a petition signed by a thousand people to save an old train station from demolition?”

  “We won’t find a thousand people in Pyramid,” I said.

  “You won’t need a thousand,” Mrs. Russo said. “Even if you only collect fifty signatures and submit them to the township board with a petition, they’d see that it’s not just two kids who want to preserve Pete’s Pond. Many adults think that way too.”

  “I could ask my dad to take it to the university,” Theo said, sounding enthused.

  “And I’ll point out the petition to patrons at the circulation desk,” Mrs. Russo said.

  I had to agree. It did sound like a good idea.

  “I could take it to Mr. Leroy’s store,” I offered. “And we could collect signatures at the farmer’s market on that Saturday when the senator is here.” I held up the newspaper. “It says that the TV station will be there to film him talking to people. We could bring along a poster or something to hold up when we’re with him. If we do something out of the usual, we might get on TV too.”

  “Now you’re getting the right attitude,” Mrs. Russo said, giving me a thumbs-up.

  “Where can we find out about petitions?” Theo asked.

  “Let me see.” Mrs. Russo turned in her chair and typed on her computer keyboard. “I think I can help you draft the text.”

  * * *

  “You said you needed shirts and pants,” Ma said as we entered JCPenney on Saturday morning.

  When I’d told her about Theo’s request, I’d waited for some comment from her regarding him being a boy and such. But she hadn’t said anything, just asked when we wanted to go.

  “Yes,” Theo said, as we walked past the men’s section toward the back of the store.

  “Let’s start with pants,” Ma said, stopping in front of a shelf with jeans. “Do you want slim fit or flexible waist?”

  Theo looked at me and shrugged. “Slim fit,” I said.

  “What size are you?”

  “I think a twenty-four,” Theo said.

  “Here, these might be good.” Ma pulled a pair off the shelf and held them out in front of him. “We’ll bring you another size if this one doesn’t fit.”

  Theo disappeared into the fitting room, and Ma and I looked for shirts.

  “Do you think he’d like this?” she asked, holding up a long sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a truck printed on the front.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s a basics only kind of guy. Nothing too funky.”

  “How about this one?” Ma asked, pointing to a dark-green long-sleeve T-shirt.

  “That’s better,” I said.

  “It’s kind of fun to shop for a boy,” Ma commented.

  Doesn’t it remind you of shopping for Dad? I wanted to ask. But I knew that kind of comment would darken her good mood. She certainly wouldn’t start talking about Dad while we were at JCPenney with Theo. So I let it go.

  Just this one time, I told myself.

  “What do you guys think?” Theo asked just then. He had come out of the changing room and was looking at himself in the mirror. The jeans fit well.

  “Perfect,” Ma and I said in unison.

  24

  On Wednesday afternoon it was my turn to clean the apartment. I was straightening up Ma’s room when I noticed a small plastic bag on her dresser. As I moved it aside to dust, I couldn’t help but peek inside — a lacy black bra and matching underpants stared out at me. The label said they were made of silk. The price tags were still on both the items — thirty dollars each.

  Why did Ma need expensive silk underwear? She’d always told me that underwear had to be made from practical cotton to tolerate hot temperatures when washed.

  A cold, anxious feeling rose inside me like dark water. This was a clear sign. Ma had found another Mr. Someone. What was I going to do? I hadn’t been able to prevent it from happening the past two times.

  For a brief moment I wished Dad were here so I could talk to him about it. Now that was crazy. Obviously, I couldn’t talk to my dad about the other men Ma was dating. But he’d always had this way of making my worries go away.

  “Let them flutter,” he’d tell me, waving a hand in the air. If he saw me frowning, he’d say, “You’re still holding on to it.” Then he would reach over and tickle my stomach, adding, “Laughing always helps.”

  And it had.

  But now I couldn’t find my sense of humor. And I couldn’t make the worries flutter away. Instead, the dark water kept rising, and by the time I finished the dishes, something in me had snapped.

  I searched the apartment. I looked in Ma’s drawers, in her closet, in the bathroom vanity. I didn’t even know exactly what I was looking for. But at the same time, I was terrified of what I might find.

  In the living room I spotted several of Ma’s romance novels scattered on the side table next to the sofa. That was her new obsession. For as long as I could remember she’d read detective stories, but now she only brought home books with a guy in an open shirt on the cover. They all had titles like Loved Again, The Wolf at the Door, and Exposure.

  I headed back into Ma’s bedroom. On her nightstand, she’d left her planner. I wanted to look inside, but I knew it would be wrong to snoop. But then I thought about the bra and my suspicions. That settled it. I opened the planner.

  The form for the post office with our forwarding address was still tucked in a pocket inside the front cover. So she still hadn’t sent it.

  I slowly turned to this week’s entries. The words Greg, Chez Amide Café, 4 p.m. were scribbled on tomorrow’s date. Greg? Who was Greg?

  Just then I heard a key rattle in the door and quickly put the planner back where I’d found it. I raced back to the living room and sat down on the sofa with my back to the door, pretending to look for something in my backpack.

  Ma came in and headed straight for the kitchen. “Chinese or Mexican — which one do you want?” she called.

  “I’ll take Mexican.”

  “I can’t eat with you,” she added. “I’m already late for work. But I needed to grab this.”

  It was safe to turn now, and when I did, I saw Ma holding the plastic bag from her nightstand. She pulled the silk bra out and let it dangle from her index finger.

  “Can you believe it?” she asked. “My coworker Deborah gave me this set of underwear. It doesn’t fit her, and the s
tore won’t take it back since she doesn’t have the receipt anymore. She left it in my locker with a note.” Ma shook her head. “As if I would wear a silk bra. I’ll give it back to her tonight.”

  * * *

  After Ma had left, I breathed a sigh of relief. The bra had turned out to be nothing to worry about. But there was still the entry with a man’s name in her planner. I could have asked Ma about Greg, but I was too afraid to hear that he was the new Mr. Someone.

  Instead, I decided to go on a mission to obtain information by visual observation — or according to Mr. Leroy, reconnaissance.

  25

  The best spot to overlook the entrance to Chez Amide turned out to be inside the Northern Lights Bookshop across the street. After school, I positioned myself next to the paperback shelf by the window and waited.

  Ma was almost on time. I could tell she’d come directly from work. She wore the same shirt and cardigan combination she’d put on that morning. In front of the café, she stopped to take out her little mirror and freshen up her lipstick. But she didn’t enter the coffee shop; instead she just waited outside.

  A few minutes later, a white Volvo station wagon, a newer model than ours, slowly drove by. The driver waved to Ma as he passed, then parked a bit farther up the street. He got out, and she walked toward him. They shook hands. No kiss — not yet.

  Greg looked older than the other guys Ma had dated. He was even a bit shorter than Ma and wore a tweed cap. A tweed cap! After a moment, they walked toward the parked car and stood next to it for a while, talking, smiling, and admiring the vehicle.

  I wondered if she was telling him that her dead husband had driven a similar car. Would she say dead or deceased? Or did she call Dad her late husband? I’d overheard her saying that to the landlady once. Who’d made up that expression? It wasn’t fooling anyone. A dead person is not late. A dead person is dead. A dead person won’t be coming back later.

  Mr. Tweed Cap threw the keys over to Ma. She caught them, all smiles, and got in on the driver’s side. Greg stepped in on the passenger side, and they drove off.

  * * *

  When I got home, the white Volvo stood in the driveway. I raced upstairs and slammed the door to our apartment behind me.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “Who?” Ma asked from the sofa, putting her romance novel down.

  “The man who drives the Volvo?”

  “Which man?” she asked.

  “I saw you earlier at Chez Amide with a guy wearing a tweed cap. His car is in the driveway.”

  “He’s not here,” Ma said, frowning. “I bought the Volvo from him.”

  “What? What about Dad’s car?”

  “I told you it was beyond repair.”

  “How much did you take from the savings account?” I demanded.

  “Eight hundred dollars,” Ma said, sounding irritated. “Are you going to make a big deal out of this?”

  “It is a big deal,” I said. “It’s my money, too.”

  “I needed wheels, and this was the cheapest way to get them.”

  “You should have told me,” I insisted.

  “I told you that Karl said the old Volvo couldn’t be fixed.”

  “Dad loved that car,” I said. “He called it Sven, his trusted Swedish workhorse.”

  Ma got up and walked toward me. “It had to be done,” she said quietly. “There’s no point in keeping a broken car.”

  She took another step in my direction, but I backed away. “How could you do that? It was the last thing we had of Dad’s!” With the back of my hand I wiped away a tear.

  “Come here, Wren,” Ma said.

  But I didn’t want her to touch me. I could hardly breathe. I had to get away from her. In that moment, I was so mad I almost hated her.

  * * *

  For a while I pedaled around aimlessly, looking for roadkill. Placing a dead animal in the ground would have made me feel calmer — maybe. I wasn’t even sure of that anymore. But I couldn’t find one and decided to go to the pond, hoping Theo would be there.

  I knew it was unlikely — he’d told me in school that he had to go to the dentist — but I still imagined him waiting on the boulder. He would have listened, and I would have felt better just by telling him.

  But when I reached the pond, our usual spot was empty.

  I picked up a pebble and threw it into the pond, watching the rings widen and ripple across the water. The cloud was pressing down on me once again. I couldn’t tell if the extra pain came more from missing Dad, or from the way Ma had hurt me.

  A bird’s nasal yammering echoed through the forest. I knew which bird made that sound and looked for the white-breasted nuthatch in the trees. Then a small hawk, a kind I didn’t recognize, appeared. It had a blue-gray upper body and rufous bars on white underneath. Dark red eyes. Wings short and rounded. Tail long, squared with heavy bars. Yellow legs and feet.

  I had brought my backpack with my bird book and journal with me, and I pulled them both out. My bird book said it was a sharp-shinned hawk. I wrote its name in my journal. Next to it, I wrote the date, location, and weather. Then I tried to draw the bird, but it flew away too quickly.

  If Theo were here, he could have taken a photo. I shook my head to clear it. Why did I keep thinking of Theo?

  On my way home, I found a raccoon lying dead on the road. Its head was smashed, and part of its brain had leaked out on the asphalt. I got off my bike, put on my gloves, and dug a shallow hole near the shoulder. The raccoon was too big for the trowel, and I had to pick it up with my hands. I dropped it into the hole and pushed the soil over it.

  When I was finished, I jumped on my bike. I pedaled hard and fast, waiting for the relief I usually felt when the burning in my lungs singed away the pain of missing Dad. But it didn’t work. The cloud had turned purple.

  26

  The next morning our first period was English. Ma and I had not spoken since I learned about the Volvo. She’d already left for the diner by the time I got home and had worked late, then slept in this morning. That was probably for the best since I was still so mad at her.

  At school I couldn’t focus on the novel we were reading in class. The book was about a kid — an orphan — called Maniac Magee who could run fast. I could relate. I felt like I’d lost both parents too.

  In Spanish class we discussed holidays and family traditions. Mrs. Quezada wanted us to come up with a new holiday — an invented one that could become a new tradition in our families, like a half birthday or a monthly picnic. We were supposed to make a poster with a description of the new holiday and a drawing to illustrate what we would do on the day. The idea was that we would show our posters to our parents during the portfolio night at the end of the week. I knew Ma would attend.

  Everyone was really excited. All around the room, kids were calling out their ideas. Callum wanted to celebrate his dog’s birthday, and Victoria dreamed up a Pink Day when she and her mother would only wear her favorite color.

  Mrs. Quezada had a hard time reminding everyone that this was a Spanish assignment. “En Español, por favor,” she pleaded.

  I made a poster with a drawing of an airplane flying over the ocean. Then I printed Dia del Padre Muerto in big black letters in the sky. At the bottom, I drew the two of us — Ma and me — on the beach. Tiny little stick figures, dressed in black.

  Mrs. Quezada had said that during portfolio night, our parents would be invited to talk to us about the new holiday. Ma would have to look at it with me. This time she could not run away. I would have created an irreversible situation. One that couldn’t be altered by those affected.

  A fait accompli.

  * * *

  At lunch, I met Carrie in line in the cafeteria. There was a plate with two lettuce leaves, three slices of tomato, and a carrot stick on her tray. I picked up two slices of pizza, and she frowned at m
e. “Aren’t you worried that you’ll get fat eating all that greasy food?”

  “No, I’m not worried. I like pizza,” I said, taking a big bite.

  There were two seats available at the table near the door, and Carrie and I sat down opposite each other. Her eyes searched the cafeteria, but our teacher had asked Victoria to stay back and finish an art assignment.

  At the other end of the cafeteria, I saw Theo sit down. Why hadn’t I waited to have lunch with him? I certainly didn’t want to share what was on my mind with Carrie.

  We ate in silence for a while. Carrie scooped up a lettuce leaf with her fork and balanced it carefully. Then she suddenly blurted out, “I heard you’re exhibiting your bird photos at the library and collecting signatures for a petition against my dad’s landfill.”

  “We’re just collecting signatures,” I said. “It’s not a big deal.” I was thinking about Ma and didn’t have any patience for Carrie’s hysterics.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” she said. “Making my dad out to be some evil destroyer of nature.”

  “I’m not doing anything to you.” I looked at her and added, “Not everything is about you.”

  Carrie inhaled sharply and glared at me. “You probably just want to hurt my dad because you don’t have one.”

  Suddenly the kids at the tables nearby grew quiet. Everyone was watching.

  I didn’t know how Carrie had found out about my dad. I was mad at her for saying that, and at the same time, I was scared of what I felt the need to do next.

  Then I heard Dad’s words again: You are braver than you think you are.

  I slowly got up, not saying a word. But before I left, I paused and looked down at Carrie. My voice was calm when I said, “I don’t think I want to have anything to do with you anymore.”

  27

  I waited for the terrible remorse to wash over me. But it didn’t come. Instead, I felt relieved. It was time. I had to get away from Carrie. It was a good thing that I’d walked out on her.