Sparrow Migrations

by Cari Noga

  “I don’t want to scare people. I didn’t mean to scare Paula.”

  Sam blinked. He couldn’t recall Robby ever expressing a desire to positively impress someone else. “Good. That’s really good to hear, Robby.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do I make her like me again?”

  Shit. Back to the unanswerable. “I’m not sure, Robby. She was pretty scared.”

  “But you said it wasn’t my fault.”

  “She doesn’t know that, though.”

  “Maybe I could explain?”

  “Maybe.” Sam thought about Robby trying to explain his own autism to a neurotypical. “I guess you could try.”

  He thought of something else, though he knew Linda would disapprove. She always said the NTs needed to walk halfway, too. That it was only fair those off the autism spectrum do their part to bridge the gulf toward those on it. But fairness was an irrelevant ideal to a twelve-year-old boy navigating a first crush, or whatever this was. If Paula wasn’t going to walk halfway, Robby would have to go all the way.

  “It might help if you apologized, too.”

  “OK.” Robby hooked his headphones over his head. “How long till we get there?”

  Brett waited in the kitchen for Amanda to open the door she’d exited not twenty-four hours ago. And a lifetime ago, too, Brett thought. Because life as Amanda knew it was now over.

  Brett had spent the morning modifying their guest room into her bedroom, the first step in a transition to—well, she wasn’t sure yet what was next. But her part in the charade was over.

  Once he found out she had no intention of trying to leave with Amanda, Richard’s reaction seemed more a preacher’s than a husband’s, saddened that she would “choose an unnatural path.” But he showed little hurt or betrayal. That was perhaps the saddest thing of all. Both of them had vowed to love and to cherish each other until death did them part. And both had failed to live up to those vows.

  But the absence of an angry scene carried relief, too. Now with the truth out, maybe Richard could find someone else to fulfill the vows with. Or maybe he would dive further into being pastor. Brett was utterly ambivalent about what Richard would do next. For the moment, she wasn’t even worried about what she would do next. She felt like she did on the ferry before the plane crashed, circling Manhattan with Jackie. Free. A little crazy. Alive. Happy.

  She had emptied the birdseed sack into the feeder that morning. Springtime now. Time to fend for yourselves, she thought, shaking the last seeds out. It felt good to throw away the scratchy, heavy burlap sack.

  She was puttering with the dishes when Amanda walked in, still wearing her pajamas under her jacket. She carried her costume, wrinkled and crooked on its hanger, and an armful of carnations and roses, still wrapped in the cellophane in which the enterprising lobby vendor sold them.

  “Have fun at the party?” Brett recognized the pink roses she had presented backstage. Amanda dropped everything in a heap by the kitchen counter and slid onto a stool.

  “Oh, I had a great time. We stayed up till, I don’t know, like five in the morning. Mrs. Hamilton has this great house, with a walk-out basement, and a bunch of us took sleeping bags out to her patio and slept on the lawn chairs.”

  “Wasn’t it a little cool? It’s barely April.”

  “Oh, a little, but not too bad. Most everybody else fell asleep, but Neil and I stayed up talking all night long. He played one of the T-birds, do you remember him?”

  “Hmm. I don’t think so.”

  “He’s tall. Dark brown hair, brown eyes.”

  “Are some of those flowers from him?”

  Amanda blushed but nodded. “Anyway, he’s a senior. He said he was really glad that I tried out, and he got a chance to meet me.” She sighed happily.

  “I’m glad you had a good time, sweetheart. You were absolutely fantastic. Mrs. Hamilton told both your father and me that you’ve got real talent. For both voice and drama. Talent you should think about cultivating in college.”

  Amanda looked away. “She told me that, too. But the best drama schools are all out of state. New York, mostly.”

  “And?”

  “They’d probably be too expensive, us living here, out-of-state.”

  “That’s your dad talking. Don’t get too far ahead of things, Amanda. College is a year and a half away. Let’s just see what happens between now and then.”

  “OK.” Amanda slid off the kitchen stool. “Guess I’d better put this stuff away.”

  “Leave it there for a minute, would you? I want to show you something.” Brett’s heartbeat accelerated. So far, the conversation was almost assembly line, the same kind of small talk she and Amanda shared every day. Now came the moment to cast the monkey wrench into the machinery.

  “All right.” Amanda followed her down the hall to the door opposite her own, the door to the little-used guest room.

  Brett watched her look around, taking it all in. The treadmill that had sat unused for years was gone. The bed was cleared of the wrapping paper and Christmas decorations that had been piled there since New Year’s. The formerly bare nightstand now was outfitted with a lamp, an alarm clock, a picture of Amanda as a baby, and one of her most recent school portraits.

  Amanda looked confused. “What happened in here?”

  Brett’s hopeful smile wobbled. This was it. Jackie was right. It was far easier on the phone and in her imagination. She cleared her throat. “This is going to be my bedroom now.”

  “Your bedroom? But what about Dad?”

  “He’ll stay upstairs.” Brett stared at her daughter earnestly, willing her to understand.

  “I don’t get it,” Amanda said.

  The monkey wrench glanced off a gear as Brett took a deep breath.

  “You remember my trip to New York in January? Seeing me on the news?”

  “Yeah.” Amanda crossed her arms, visibly defensive. “What’s that got to do with anything now?”

  “Do you remember seeing the woman on the boat with me?”

  “The one from the food pantry conference? The one you visited in Charlotte?”

  “Right. Her name is Jackie.” Brett exhaled slowly, then breathed in again. The room felt closed in and tight. She could see Amanda’s face changing, the flush of excitement from the play fading, a furrow in her brow appearing.

  “I actually met her at that conference I went to last year. There wasn’t any conference in January.”

  “There wasn’t?” Amanda looked totally confused.

  “Jackie and I arranged to meet in New York, just the two of us.” Avoiding Amanda’s eyes, she plunged ahead with her confession. No more secrets. She wanted everything out now.

  “Jackie and I just wanted to . . . to see each other. When we met last year, there was a . . . a connection between us. It wasn’t anything we planned. It just happened. It was something that I had felt before, with others—other women—but always repressed.”

  Stealing a peripheral glance at Amanda, Brett could see her daughter’s expression changing again. Astonishment. Repulsion. And fear.

  “This time, though, I couldn’t. She’s married, too, to a pastor. Maybe that’s why it seemed safer, at first. I knew she would understand why it was so hard for me . . . I thought at first we could just be . . . friends, maybe. Someone who would understand, not judge. But once we got to New York, it was clear that wasn’t going to be all it was.”

  “What was it?” Amanda was biting her lip.

  Brett took one more deep breath. “Lovers.”

  With a final clank, the word wedged itself into the gears that had turned Amanda’s life so smoothly for sixteen years.

  “Oh, my God,” Amanda sat down on the bed, elbows propped on her knees, hands over her eyes. “You’re a . . . a . . .you’
re a . . ?” Her voice shook.

  Brett nodded.

  “Say it.” Amanda dropped her hands from her face and looked straight at her mother. “Tell me you’re—you’re—that word.”

  Guilt, sorrow, and fear churned in Brett. But washing over it all, incredibly, was a tide of pride. The worst part of all of this had been lying to Amanda. “I don’t want my daughter to think I’m a hypocrite,” she’d told Jackie. Well, the truth was out now. The giant, elephant-in-the-living-room truth. Freed from the anchor of her secret, Brett felt weightless, almost like she was floating.

  “I am a lesbian, Amanda.”

  “Oh, my God.” Amanda hugged her knees to her chest. “Are you leaving? Are you going away with—with her?”

  “No!” Alarm spread through Brett. “That’s over now. I haven’t talked to Jackie since February.”

  “Then why are you telling me?”

  “I want to be honest with you. I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

  “You were pretending to be my mom?”

  “Of course not.” Again, Brett’s heartbeat accelerated. “This doesn’t change anything between you and me. I love you. You’re the best part of my marriage to your father.”

  “And what about him?”

  “Who?”

  “Dad!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you getting divorced?” Amanda spoke abruptly, angrily.

  “I—ah, well, we haven’t discussed details. But this move”—Brett gestured around the room—“is a first step.”

  “Are you going to tell other people? People at church?”

  Brett hesitated. “Well, not right away. And I won’t make a public announcement, certainly. But eventually, I suppose, people will find out. Otherwise I’d still have to pretend.”

  “You’re breaking up our family. And you don’t think you’re changing anything?” Amanda exclaimed, jumping up from the bed. “You’re ruining my life.” She swabbed roughly at a tear leaking down her cheek and turned to the door. “I’m tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

  Watching helplessly as the door banged behind her daughter’s shaking shoulders, the pilot’s famously unemotional last instructions the day of the crash resurfaced in Brett’s mind. “Brace for impact.”

  The passengers’ fright was unimaginable. But with impact, at least there was an end. The emotional free fall Brett tumbled in now felt like eternal damnation.

  EIGHTEEN

  In the lobby of the Lansing Radisson, Robby claimed the end of a sofa next to a giant fish tank. His dad, Ed, and some other club members lined up to check in. Paula and the rest dispersed to vending machines and the bathrooms.

  Settling himself firmly into the upholstered corner, Robby felt himself relax. The rhythm of the water pump, the random but constant motion of the fish, and the blue-green tones of the water were all soothing. He dug a deck of homemade flash cards out of his backpack. On each was a goose from Donald Baxter’s database.

  He wanted to figure out just which geese met their deaths in the spinning blades of the Airbus engines. Using Baxter’s database, he had narrowed it to ninety-eight birds that for the last three years followed a winter migration path from the reservation in Ontario down the East Coast to Hilton Head Island.

  The timing was a little off. The data put most of the geese past New York City by Christmas at the latest, and the Hudson River crash took place more than three weeks later. But Baxter could explain that, Robby was sure.

  In the meantime, he studied each flash card, which bore the bird’s band ID number on one side and its key data points on the reverse. Each bird had a minimum of eight dates. Robby had memorized all of them for the forty-eight birds he considered the most likely victims—none of which had been observed on the migration route after January 15. He was now working on the other fifty that he considered less likely accident contenders.

  He was staring at the flashcard for goose eighty-six when Paula appeared in his field of vision with a Diet Coke and a bag of M&Ms. She had her headphones on and sat down on a chair across from him.

  “Hi,” Robby said.

  She glanced up. “Oh. Hi, Robby.”

  “I’m doing research.” He waved the flashcard at her.

  “Oh yeah?” She crossed her arms and legs, jiggling her foot.

  “On the geese. You know, like you said.” It was her idea, after all, that the geese had come from Donald Baxter’s reservation.

  “Donald Baxter’s geese?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are you learning?”

  “I think I know which geese caused the plane crash.”

  “Really?” Paula took her headphones off. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Are you going to talk to him about it here?”

  Robby hadn’t thought about actually speaking to Donald Baxter. But Paula was interested now, and talking to him. Maybe he should say yes. As he considered the idea, his gaze wandered past Paula, over her shoulder, to his dad in line at the registration desk. What was it his dad said in the car? What was he supposed to say to Paula? Apologize? Yes, that was it. He adjusted his gaze in the direction of her face. “My dad said to tell you I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For that night. In the car. When we drove you home. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Paula looked away. “OK.”

  “It’s not my fault that I do that.”

  Paula didn’t reply. Robby tried again, reciting his dad’s explanation. “My brain works different. So sometimes I act different.”

  “OK,” Paula said again, crossing her arms. Suddenly her attention swerved. “Look! There’s Donald Baxter! He’s here!”

  A man stood in the lobby, hands on his hips. He looked like he came from Canada, Robby thought, wearing a thick parka, a cap with earflaps, and gloves. Old, too. Older than his dad, but not as old as Dr. Felk. Surveying the lobby, he appropriated a brass luggage cart and steered it back out the doors.

  “Come on!” Yanking his hand, Paula pulled Robby to his feet and into the center of the lobby. He barely had time to grab his backpack. They watched Baxter maneuver the luggage cart through the parking lot to the back of an older minivan.

  “Well? What are you waiting for? Go talk to him!” Paula’s face was so close Robby smelled the chocolate from the M&Ms. What if he kissed her? The sudden urge paralyzed him.

  “Robby, it’s Donald Baxter! He’ll be mobbed for the rest of the conference. Now’s your chance. Go!” She pushed him gently. Robby stumbled a few steps, but gained enough momentum to get out the door.

  Walking up behind the minivan, Robby could see it offered room for a driver and front passenger only. All the other seats had been removed to make room for Baxter’s gear, which he was now piling onto the luggage cart. Two laptop bags, a digital projector, a giant portfolio bag, and a stack of a half-dozen large, clear storage tubs, each labeled with the name of the taxidermied bird inside.

  “Where is that Greylag? I know I had it on my list. Where could it have gone?”

  “The Greylag goose?” Robby asked. “I thought that was only found in England.”

  “British Isles, actually. Usually true,” Baxter replied, not turning from the interior of van. “But I spotted one on my reservation last summer. Hen and a flock of eight chicks. Found the hen again last November. Idiot hunters must have got her by mistake and were too cowardly to take her, in case they got caught. So I took her. Aha. There she is.”

  He leaned in and tugged another large plastic bin. It wouldn’t fit on the luggage cart. “Useless thing.” He began rearranging his boxes. “If I use her to educate others, at least she won’t have died for nothing.”

  Robby smiled in excitement. Just like he felt about investigating which geese crashed into the plane. “I’ve been using your database, and I think—”

&nb
sp; “Hold on.” Baxter stopped shifting boxes and over the top of his glasses looked directly at Robby. “Who are you?”

  “Robby Palmer.”

  “You’re here for the conference?”

  Robby nodded.

  “And you’ve been using my geese databases?”

  Robby nodded again. “Canada geese database.”

  “Goes back to 1984. One of my best documented. Good choice. Go on.”

  “I think I found out which geese caused the plane crash.”

  “A bird strike crash?” Baxter’s brow wrinkled.

  Robby nodded. “In New York. In January.”

  Baxter’s wrinkles smoothed out. “Pilot landed the damn plane in the river, right?”

  “Right.” Robby was bouncing up and down on his toes now. “I was there. On a boat in the river. I saw it.”

  “Were you now?” Baxter mumbled, more to himself. “And so?”

  “So there’re ninety-eight birds who migrate through New York around that time. To Hilton Head. And no data points for half of them since the crash.” Robby held up his stack of flash cards.

  “Interesting,” Baxter glanced at the cards, but now seemed more interested in Robby. “Your conclusion?”

  “They’re in the engine.” Robby scrutinized Baxter’s face closely. This was what the whole trip came down to. The whole last two and a half months. If Baxter said he was wrong, then—well, Robby didn’t even want to think about that.

  “Hmm. Plausible. Certainly plausible. I’d have to review your data. Care to accompany me to my exhibition space?” Baxter didn’t wait for an answer. “Here. You can carry Greta.”

  “Greta?”

  “The Greylag goose. Come on.” He handed Robby the oversize box, slammed the van doors, and steered the cart back into the lobby.

  Obediently, Robby followed Baxter back into the hotel, through the lobby, and into the exhibition hall. Conference participants were setting up at booths arranged in two concentric rectangles. He forgot about Paula. He forgot about his dad. He was going to show his research to someone who understood it and find out once and for all what had happened to those birds.