Unflappable

by Suzie Gilbert

  It’s complicated, said Adam.

  No, it’s not, said Joe. Bottom line is she’s making you look like you’re not in charge. We can’t have that.

  Joe listened patiently, and at the end a kindly smile appeared on his heavily lined face. Are you on drugs? he asked.

  Of course I’m not on…

  Then what are you talking about? Even if things were going well with Luna, which they’re not, have you ever spent more than a week on an island? I didn’t think so. Look. I know you love her. But what is marriage, really? In your case, it’s a piece of paper with dollar signs all over it. If you’ve managed to find the one woman in the world who doesn’t want any of them, then get on your knees, thank God, and run with it. Tell the media you’re divorcing her and she’s not getting a penny. It’ll show the world you’ve wised up, and then maybe you won’t end up with another…what was that last one’s name, again?

  Shannon.

  Right. Shannon. Anyway. Divorce her, get back in charge, and then do whatever you want. Am I making sense?

  “I love America!” exclaimed Sophie, in her charming accent.

  “It’s the land of opportunity,” said Adam.

  “And what about your wife?” asked Sophie. “Are you divorced yet?”

  “It’s in the works.”

  She wasn’t at the eagle place. He had hired a Canadian private investigator to stake it out, and there was no sign of her. She wasn’t with Harrelson, who had returned to Key West after his trial. She wasn’t at the Western Pennsylvania Wildlife Center. She wasn’t at Starfish Key. She wasn’t with any of the animal people on her phone list.

  “There is a chance I will move to Los Angeles,” said Sophie. “Do you have a house there?”

  She was stunning. Heads turned when she entered a room. “I certainly do,” he replied. “Would you like to see it?”

  He thought of the day he crossed the wide lawn of Cielo Azul to meet his new zookeeper. She stood waiting in the sunlight, her curly hair auburn, her eyes Caribbean blue. She wore khakis and a white sleeveless shirt. Hanging from a leather cord around her neck was a silver bead, and inside was the downy feather of an eagle.

  “Adam?”

  Lilac-colored silk. Stars in a summer sky.

  “Adam?”

  He looked up and smiled. “This has been a most enjoyable evening,” he said. “My apartment is not far from here. Would you like to go there for a nightcap, or shall I take you back to your hotel? I leave the choice to you.”

  She returned his smile. “A nightcap would be lovely,” she replied.

  • • •

  Luna wandered along the ridge and slept beneath the stars. She cooked over a fire, and when it rained she moved her sleeping bag into the cabin. Twice a week a pair of Hélène’s volunteers appeared with supplies.

  She had left Ned as he slept and hiked up the mountain, accompanied by five of the volunteers. They readied the site for her, and spent the night. In the morning, at her insistence, all five returned to Hèlène’s. For a week her mind and body closed ranks, her body absorbing its remaining adrenaline while her mind shut its door and allowed her to sleep. She rose so she could eat and use the camping toilet, then she returned to her sleeping bag.

  As she healed, her system loosened its protective grip. She spent fewer hours asleep. The stitches in her arm began to itch. The road burn on her thigh scabbed over. Memories returned, vying for space as she hiked. When she ejected them, they appeared at night in a form far worse. Not Ned, though. When she banished him from her waking hours he slipped between her nightmares, piloting one of his carefully restored cars or holding Mars on a glove, allowing her a moment of respite before her dark dreams returned.

  She knew the farther the distance between them, the better it was for Ned. They had been thrown together by chance, not choice. Besides, relationships were fleeting and destructive, and she was still married to Adam. Ned had moved on, she was sure, and she was safe on her mountain. But each time the volunteers appeared with supplies she held her breath, hoping, until it became clear Ned was not with them.

  Warren arrived long after time became irrelevant. He emerged from the forest, a steak dinner in his backpack, singing “People Are Strange” in a voice uncannily like Jim Morrison’s. He gave her a hug, kissed her forehead, and stretched out by the fire pit. “Ned’s fixing your house up,” he announced.

  She flinched, as if his words had cut her. “I don’t know what to do with this information,” she said.

  “You could just consider it,” he replied.

  He chopped a stack of wood, cooked their meal over the fire, and removed her stitches with his multitool. When he left in the morning, she lay on her back and stared at the clouds. She pictured Ned at Starfish Key, brown-haired, pony-tailed, slouching and looking noncommittal. She replayed their journey north, from Warren’s all the way to Hélène’s.

  It’s the eagle courtship ritual! she told him at Esther’s, fumbling with the CD.

  Not the courtship ritual! he gasped, in horror.

  Otherwise known as the Death Spiral!

  They sure got that right!

  They were on the same page, she thought. Fixing the house was just a nod to the past, a way to channel his remaining adrenaline. She couldn’t live at Harry and Rose’s, but maybe he could. Maybe she could give him the house, as a way to thank him for all he had done.

  • • •

  At the top of the hill stood a farmhouse, and behind it a barn. The classic red Chevy was parked near the front steps. Clustered around it it were two cars, a pick-up truck, and a van.

  Ned had flown to Kentucky and stopped at the Blue Moon Wildlife Center. He retrieved his car from Iris’s brother’s barn, then he drove to Pennsylvania. He spent one night in a roadside motel, feeling a sweet, fleeting moment of anticipation when he woke up alone in an unfamiliar room.

  He tracked down the executor of Harry and Rose’s will, a retired lawyer who kept the title to their home in one of his files. So you’re the famous Ned Harrelson! the white-haired man said. He drew up a contract stating Ned expected no financial return for repairs on the Burke’s house, barn, or property. I hope you can get her to come back, he added.

  Ned sat at the kitchen table, attempting to respond to the email his office had sent him that morning. On the table before him were invoices, receipts, and a nearly completed master list. The cleaners, carpenters, painters, and decorator had been working for two months. “I know, Francine, I’m on it, ” he said, answering his phone without checking the screen.

  “Wassup?” asked Warren. “How you doing, man? I hear you’re fixing up her place.”

  “Uh, yeah, I am,” Ned managed, taken aback. “I’m good. You?”

  “Good.”

  “Have you seen Luna?”

  “Saw her yesterday.”

  “Where?”

  “She was in her own space.”

  Ned knew trying to cross-examine Warren would get him exactly nowhere, so he tried a different tack. “How is she?”

  “Okay.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “She needs a little more time.”

  “How much more?”

  “Sorry, man, I really wish I could tell you. Listen, I gotta go. I just wanted to check in and tell you she’s all right. You need anything, just call me.”

  “Right. Black phone.”

  Autumn turned the fields to burnished gold, the oaks and maples to a fiery blaze, and Ned wandered through the restored house. It was beautiful and serene. It was the kind of place that made him wistful, that made him long for the kind of complete and happy life its occupants must surely live. He sat in the living room on the edge of the couch, thinking, why did I do this?

  • • •

  The air was chilly when he arrived. The sky was streaked with purple. Hélène sat on her porch wearing a heavy wool cardigan, holding a glass of red wine. On the table beside her was the bottle and another glass. She watched him approach, her face impa
ssive.

  “I must have called you two dozen times over the last few months,” he said, sitting beside her. “I’ve talked to everyone here but you.”

  “Have some wine,” she replied.

  Ned let out an exasperated sigh. He spilled a few drops as he poured, then he set the bottle down and raised his glass.

  “To the birds of the air,” said Hélène, in her insinuating whisper.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  Hélène gestured to a ridge in the distance. “She lives in the forest. Like in your fairy tales.”

  “There’s a house up there?”

  “It depends on your definition of a house.”

  “Can I drive up and see her?”

  “There’s no road. It’s a three-hour hike.”

  “Can I call her?”

  “There’s no service.”

  Ned drained half his glass. “Why won’t she see me?”

  “She believes she has done you harm. And any further contact will cause you more. ”

  “Do you know how she’s caused me the most harm? By disappearing on me!”

  “Harm is relative.”

  “No, it’s not!” He glanced at the ridge. “Is she staying up there so she can be ‘free?’ Because that’s bullshit! If she won’t leave that mountain then she’s not free, she’s just living in a really big cage!”

  Hélène regarded him implacably. Ned forced himself to meet her eyes, even though he felt he was tempting fate just by sitting next to her.

  “Mars and Banshee have joined the group of unreleasable eagles,” she said, turning toward the flight cages. “Each day I go out and sit with them. I would never do that with the wild ones.”

  Ned threw caution to the winds. “Are you trying to be metaphorical?” he snapped. “Are you trying to tell me Luna is a wild bird, and I should keep away from her?”

  “You’re not as smart as you think you are.”

  “I think I’m the biggest idiot who ever lived! If I were smart, I would never have left Florida!”

  “Then why don’t you learn?” said Hélène. “Everything changes. Birds. People. Times. Egg to chick. Predator to prey. You may try to slow it down, but you can’t stop it. And only rarely can you hurry it along.”

  Ned glared. “Why are you so casual about all this? Aren’t you supposed to be passing her your torch? Isn’t she supposed to be the new environmental savior? Because that’s what all the rehabbers say!”

  Hélène waved her hand, as if the whole subject irritated her. “Maybe she doesn’t want my torch. Did any of you ever think of that?”

  She gestured to the bottle, and Ned poured again. “Are you the same man you were when you met her?”

  “You know I’m not!”

  “Did she ask you to to change? No. You did it on your own, even when you were afraid. She gave you the room you needed. And when the stakes were the highest, you raised an eagle on your glove.”

  Ned rested his elbows on his knees. He removed his glasses and wearily rubbed his eyes. “Hélène,” he said. “She didn’t even say goodbye.”

  Chapter 31

  Chris and Philipe arrived at the cabin, flushed and damp from their brisk three-hour hike. “Hi, Luna!” called Philipe.

  “We brought you more food,” added Chris, “and Hélène wants to talk to you!”

  She pulled on her boots and jacket and followed them down the rocky trail. She found Hélène in a flight cage, sitting on her wicker chair. On a high perch, Mars preened the feathers on Banshee’s neck.

  “Some people can live in solitude,” said Hélène, when Luna was seated on a folding chair beside her. “Not all of them.”

  “Ned’s fixing the house,” Luna replied, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Why does that make you sad?”

  “I don’t know. How should I feel?”

  Hélène’s hand closed around Luna’s. Her grip was firm. “‘Should’ is a ridiculous word,” she said. “And you’ve been sad long enough. Try another feeling.”

  “I need to get back to the cabin,” said Luna, still holding her hand.

  “Safe travels, chérie,” Hélène replied. “But before you go, Ned is moving to Portland on Thursday.”

  • • •

  A gust of wind sent bright leaves spinning onto the surface of the pond. Ned sat on the Burke’s back porch, watching a car roll slowly up the driveway. The three of us used to sit on the dock and watch fireflies, Luna once told him. Rose said the bravest ones fly so high they turn into stars.

  He answered his ringing phone. “Inter-nedt!” said Earl. “You’re not still going to Portland, are you?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Aww, why don’t you move here? Julie Marie’s friends are all hot for you! Did those people come back to see the house?”

  “Yeah. They just drove in again. The agent says they’re going make an offer.”

  “You’re keeping some of that money, right?”

  “Just what I put in. The Burke’s lawyer will put the rest in a trust for her.”

  “But that was months of work!”

  “Shut up, Earl.”

  • • •

  Luna felt a painful tightness in her chest as she parked beside the Chevy. The barn door was new. The paint was fresh. There was a swing on the porch. Fall flowers lined the walkway.

  Quietly she entered the house. She picked up the photograph of Harry and Rose, beaming beside her as she held a Golden Eagle. Heat rose in her throat. She put down the photograph, and continued into the living room.

  The couch had been reupholstered. The overstuffed chair by the window was now in front of the fireplace. Hanging from a formerly empty wall was an antique wooden painting of an eagle, wings outstretched, arrows clutched in its feet. SPIRIT OF ’76, read the banner. Luna teetered, not knowing which way she would fall.

  “No, it’s fine,” said Ned, his voice coming through the screen door. “They must have gone into the barn.”

  She paused in the kitchen. The rooster-shaped pitcher was the same, the new microwave was not. The sun shone through the windows. “Because I want to see Portland,” said Ned’s voice.

  Luna climbed the stairs and hovered in the doorway of Harry and Rose’s room. Everything was the way they had left it, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She wiped her face on her sleeve, picked up a pillow Rose had embroidered, and cradled it as she sat on the bed. She closed her eyes, wondering how she had survived all these years without keeping a single thing that belong to them.

  She continued to the guest room, where Ned’s bags were packed. She almost started down the stairs, but forced herself toward the last room. She could almost hear the mirror shatter, see the hurled cup break, and feel the silver stars crumple as she ripped them from the ceiling. Bracing herself, she stood in the doorway.

  The room was still. The cataclysm had passed. The clothes were back in their drawers, a new mirror gleamed on the wall, and a blue flowered cup rested on the table. Her collages were framed. Her acceptance letter from Cornell was taped together and tucked into a basket. Luna raised her eyes to the ceiling, where the stars had returned to the sky.

  • • •

  The turquoise water slid past her like silk.

  Harper undulated her body and long flippers, moving with the easy grace that propelled sea creatures for miles without effort. Through her mask she could see shafts of sunlight illuminating the Porkfish and the French Grunts, the Indigo Hamlets and the Queen Angelfish, all of them glowing against the coral bed below. She had been searching for a dolphin pod for hours. She climbed into her boat, headed for land, anchored a hundred yards offshore, and dove back into the water. When the sun began to descend there was still no sign of them, so she sighed and swam toward her boat.

  She had spent days writing her proposal, titled it “The Differences in Communication Patterns Between Spinner and Bottlenose Dolphins,” and sent it to Luna’s contact at the Senzimir Wildlife Foundation. Two weeks later their res
ponse arrived in the mail. Harper, always proud of her sang-froid, pulled out the check, dropped the envelope, and sat down heavily on the floor. Eight days later she moved to a two-room cottage in the Bahamas, bought a 10-year-old Triumph with a Yamaha outboard, and set up her sound equipment.

  Luna was off the grid, so she emailed one of Hélène’s volunteers. Can you get a message to Luna? she wrote. Tell her this: Your debt for the birdnapping is paid.

  She was fifty yards from her boat when the pod found her. There’s something behind me, she thought, then the tranquil sea turned dark and muscular. She pumped her legs, trying to keep up, as the dolphins sliced through the water on both sides and beneath her. One jumped over her head, twisted in the air, and knifed back into the depths. Another peered into her mask, steadily and inquiringly, then surged forward. They tightened around her, closer and closer, until she thought her heart would burst from the joy of their acceptance; then they all slipped away, a few shooting upward and falling back into the sea.

  Harper slowed, breathless, as the last of the pod glided past her. She looked to the side, hoping for a final moment of contact, and saw an eye hovering above a wet expanse of beard. “Dammit, Warren!” she cried, yanking off her mask. “You scared the shit out of me!”

  “But I thought you liked sea monsters!”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I asked the dolphins, of course.”

  Harper grinned, treading water. “I suppose you’re going to invite yourself to dinner.”

  “Actually, I’ve invited myself for a week.”

  “A week! Well, hmm. You might come in handy.”

  “I’m pretty good in the water. Want to see how long I can hold my breath? I’ll go down, and you start counting. Go ahead, start.”

  Warren disappeared, and Harper counted out loud.

  “One. Two. Three. Whoa!” She grinned and splashed, trying to maintain her composure. “Four. Five. Nine! Twenty-five! Ohhhh! Twelve! Fifty! Ahhhh! A hundred and sixty-seven!”

  She threw back her head and cackled. “Submerging!” she cried, and vanished beneath the sea.

  • • •

  Ned sat on the top step of the back porch. “No, I never heard from her,” he said. “I know. Listen, the buyers are here. Talk to you later.”