by Cari Noga
“Here we are.” Baxter stopped the cart next to a white-draped table in the middle of the outer rectangle. Unzipping one of the laptop bags, he powered it up and navigated to his own site, and then the Canada goose database. “Show me.”
Eagerly, Robby scrolled through the long list, highlighting his chosen forty-eight from memory. Then he started pointing out their shared data points. “All of these leave Ontario around December fifth. They usually get to New York by Christmas. They’re in Hilton Head by end of January. See, the records go back to 2006.
“But none of them have been observed south of New York City since January fifteenth. The date of the crash.” Robby sat back and took a breath, and waited.
“But if they’re in New York by Christmas, they would have been long past the Hudson River by January fifteenth,” Baxter said.
Robby winced. Baxter went right for the weak link. “I was hoping you could explain that.”
“I can. Those geese aren’t in that plane engine. Or in the river, or anywhere near that crash.” He stood up and started unloading the luggage cart. “Your theory’s wrong.”
Wrong. Robby shook his head. He couldn’t be.
“Then why do their dates end?
Baxter shrugged. “Could be a lot of reasons. Most likely, they’re not my geese.”
Just like his dad had said.
Baxter continued. “If they are, you’re assuming that two months without a data point is atypical. I’ll have to look at the database closer, but I’m guessing that forty-eight birds with that interval isn’t an anomaly. Maybe the battery in their chip died. Maybe something did happen to them, somewhere else.
“But not in that plane crash. I can guarantee it. Data doesn’t lie. If those geese have been in New York by Christmas for the last three years, they’re not hanging around three weeks later.”
Robby slumped before the laptop. Baxter stood up. “But it was an interesting theory. You had me going for a few minutes there. Now I’ve gotta get myself set up for tomorrow. Better luck next time.”
Robby stood up and backed away, his head ringing with Baxter’s judgment and dismissiveness.
“Hey, kid, don’t forget these.” Baxter tossed him the flash cards. Robby caught the stack automatically and thumbed through them slowly, watching Baxter go about his preparations, already oblivious to him.
Then, abruptly, he ripped up one. Then two. Then three. When he tried to rip up the rest, the thick sheaf of paper refused to tear. He ran out of the exhibition hall, stuffing the worthless cards in his backpack, tripping over the straps, and colliding with his dad.
Deborah peered through the glass door of the Ithaca Ashram. A dozen women in various stages of pregnancy sat on mats, facing an instructor. She surveyed the group. Except for one next to the wall, most of them looked a good ten years younger than she. Hand on the door, she hesitated, wondering if this prenatal yoga class was really a good idea. Looking up, the instructor beckoned her to enter, forcing Deborah’s decision.
“At the first class, I always like to have everyone tell a little bit about themselves and their baby: when you’re due, if you have any other children, that kind of thing,” she said as Deborah apologetically picked her way through the mats. She found a space between the woman by the wall, who wore a loose Cornell sweatshirt, and another who looked almost fifteen years younger, wearing a peach tank that stretched over her bump of a belly.
“I’ll go first. I’m Ming Su, and as you’ve all noticed, I’m not pregnant.” The class giggled dutifully. “But I have two children and did prenatal with both of them. I hope you’ll find this class helpful with both your pregnancy and delivery.
“Now. Let’s start with you,” Ming Su pointed to a more-pregnant-than-Deborah brunette on the opposite side of the room. Deborah noticed a tattoo on her shoulder blade, bisected by the strap of another stretchy tank, blue this time.
“I’m Stephanie. I’m due in June, and this is my first. It’s a girl, and we’re going to call her Hazel.”
“That’s so pretty!” came a bright voice from the peach tank woman.
“It’s my husband’s grandmother’s name.”
“Lucky you. My husband’s grandmother’s name is Agatha,” Peach Tank said. Giggles erupted around the room.
“I’m Allison. This is my second. I have a little boy who’s three, and this one is a surprise,” said the woman next to Stephanie. “But my husband thinks it’s a boy, too,” she added.
“When are you due?” Ming Su prompted.
“Oh, yes. August. August tenth.”
“I’m August eleventh!” chirped Peach Tank. Deborah wished she had chosen another spot.
The third woman introduced herself. Megan, who sported a lime-green tank and tattoos on both arms as well as her left ankle, was pregnant with her first, a boy, due May 1. Another ripple went around the room as the most-pregnant among them commanded instant respect.
“You could be celebrating Mother’s Day this year!” was Peach Tank’s comment this time, delivered in an excited squeal.
“I’d better send my husband out now,” Megan said with an eye roll that earned chuckles of appreciation. “You think he’s going to remember that with a week-old newborn in the house?”
Deborah smiled gamely with the others, unease beginning to set in. Three for three married. Though she and Christopher had done nothing to change their formal status and she still wore her wedding ring, she had already started thinking of herself as a single mother. She could see Peach Tank wore a wedding band, too, as did the silent-till-now older woman on her right.
Deborah stole another glance at her. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Deborah couldn’t place her. Maybe it was just the Cornell sweatshirt. If she had any tattoos, they weren’t visible. The woman smiled as she nodded at Deborah’s own Cornell shirt. Feeling better, Deborah rested her hands on her belly, right hand over left, a gesture she’d found comforting lately.
Two of the next four didn’t mention husbands. One of those who didn’t was expecting twins. Deborah started to feel a little better. Peach Tank was Kate, pregnant with her first, indeed due August 11. A boy, who would be named in honor of his paternal heritage, Earl Wyatt Montgomery IV. Poor kid. It was her turn.
“I’m Deborah. I’m due in November with my first. I work at Cornell.”
Where did that come from, she wondered. No one else had identified an employer, though she couldn’t believe none of them worked.
“Oh yeah?” Ming Su spoke up. “You’re lucky. They have a great maternity leave policy. My husband worked there in grad school. A woman in his department had a baby and got four months off, then came back to work part-time for two months until summer. She got practically a whole year off.”
“Well, I’m not on the faculty, so I won’t get summers off,” Deborah replied.
“You might decide not to go back to work, too, you know,” Kate chipped in. “I know I’m not. They’re little for such a short time.” She sighed. “I can’t imagine missing any of it.”
“Me either,” Megan and Stephanie spoke up simultaneously. Kate smiled happily; two more for the stay-at-home side. Deborah felt another flicker of unease. She earned the higher salary, anyway, and now with Christopher out of the picture, she had no choice but to work. She caught the eye of the older woman next to her, who gave the slightest eye roll Deborah had ever seen. She felt a surge of gratitude.
“Let’s move on,” Ming Su said quickly. “We’ve one more to go.” She nodded at the woman to Deborah’s right.
“I’m Julia. This is my first. I’m due August first.”
“Wonderful. Thanks, Julia. Now let’s begin in mountain . . .”
Her voice faded as the pieces clicked in Deborah’s mind. Julia. Julia Adams. The woman who had tried to enlist her in the nonprofit cause at the dean’s picnic. The one whose husband had huddled with Christ
opher, discussing the grant. The one whose texts she had blown off following the crash. She cast a furtive, sidelong glance. No doubt.
“Now if you ever feel tired, or light-headed or winded, you need to go into child’s pose,” Ming Su’s voice interrupted her nagging conscience. “That’s a resting pose where you’re on knees and elbows . . .”
Beside her, Julia stage whispered. “Child’s pose? The rest of them must have that mastered already. What are we grown-ups supposed to do?”
Deborah’s surprised laugh came out like a snort. God, did that feel good. She glanced at Julia again. Maybe the unreturned texts were no big deal. Her Cornell sweatshirt was faded, like she’d had it a while. Deborah wondered if she was an alumnae, or worked on campus, too.
“Let’s quiet our minds now, please,” Ming Su said sternly. Peering through the curtain of her hair, Deborah saw she was looking at them. “So much for being the grown-ups,” she whispered back to Julia.
“Prepare yourselves to connect with your babies,” Ming Su instructed. “Close your eyes.”
Reluctantly, Deborah did. She hated feeling blind.
“Set aside the world of getting ready, to-do lists, baby registries. This time is about you and your baby. Getting ready to experience birth together.”
Lulled into the idea, Deborah laid her hands against her belly again, then crossed her arms, hands cupping her hip bones, and tried to imagine labor. Tried to imagine her stomach growing as big as Angela’s. Tried to imagine feeling a kick from the inside. The day her assistant began her maternity leave, the baby kicked just as Deborah hugged her good-bye. Angela laughed and apologized. Deborah laughed, too. But privately she had been in awe of the power of that baby’s kick on the other side of her abdomen, now more than three years ago.
Awaiting the sensation now herself was a little scary. She tried to imagine birth, to imagine pushing. Tried to imagine a baby’s head emerging between her legs. Tried to imagine cuddling and comforting it, warm and wet and crying. Bringing its soft, fuzzy head to her breast to nurse. And then Deborah herself was crying softly, tasting salt as the tears ran down her cheeks.
She was scared. She was angry at Christopher. Everything he and Helen had said was true. She had no idea how she would manage alone. The pressure at work was rising. She had two out-of-state trips this month and another in May. She hadn’t yet told Phillip her maternity leave would begin almost as soon as the law school campaign went public. Something brushed her arm.
It was Julia, offering a tissue. “It’ll be OK,” she whispered.
Gratefully, Deborah accepted the tissue. Julia’s was the first voice of empathy she’d heard since February, almost two months ago. A kindred soul offering a kernel of faith. Deborah concentrated on that kernel, seeding it firmly in her own soul.
“Namaste, ladies.” Ming Su tipped her head toward them an hour later. “See you next week.”
Side by side, Deborah and Julia rolled up their mats.
“Thanks for the tissue,” Deborah started. “And I’m sorry I never got back to you about your fundraising project.”
Julia dismissed it with her hand. “It’s fine. And I was actually kind of relieved to see someone else get overwhelmed with all this.”
“Yeah? You do, too?”
“Definitely. It’s a huge change, and not very much time to adjust, if you think about it. Nine months to create a creature who’s going to depend on you for almost twenty years. I mean, I knew my husband for five years before we even got engaged.”
“Right.” Deborah wanted to head off a husband discussion. She nodded at Julia’s sweatshirt. “Alumni, too?”
“Alumni. Twice, in fact. Undergrad and master’s in social work. Then I put Michael through his PhD.”
Deborah nodded. Michael was Christopher’s colleague, the other lead on the big grant. Were they friends, too? She decided she didn’t care. Julia seemed like someone who could be a friend. She hadn’t had a real female friend in Ithaca in a long time, since Elizabeth moved down south.
“Listen, I’m sure you probably have plans already, but I could sure go for a cup of coffee. How about you?” Deborah asked.
Julia looked at her watch and grimaced. “Can’t today. After class next week?”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Deborah said.
NINETEEN
Christopher was barely in time for Baxter’s presentation. He hadn’t slept well. He’d missed his connection out of Detroit and was forced to rent a car to get to Lansing. Then he learned the agenda had changed, and he was now scheduled to present immediately after Donald Baxter, who would suck all the air out of the room. To top it off, he was booked into a room next to a bank of rattling elevators.
Still, it was better than the depressing fellow’s apartment, prefurnished with an ugly ’80s seafoam couch, sagging with worn-out springs, and a coffee table with permanent coffee rings. Plus the baggage of resentment and anger that he had moved in himself.
The conference room was predictably packed. The only seat left was in the middle of the back row, next to a kid wearing a Detroit Lions hoodie. Kids weren’t unheard-of at these kinds of conferences, but one that young was unusual. Hoping he wouldn’t fidget, Christopher squeezed into the row as Baxter was introduced.
Polite applause followed. By consensus Baxter’s reputation was that of an egomaniac at best and insufferable at worst, but most of the audience, like Christopher, couldn’t afford to miss what he might say.
Today he was tipping more toward his insufferable self. Christopher tried to concentrate on the presentation. It should have riveted him. Baxter claimed to have identified a new flyway between Ontario and South Carolina.
It was one of the shortest durations documented, departing in late December and returning in mid-March. Baxter attributed it to global warming, and it was most common among birds who lived in heat-trapping urban areas. They simply didn’t have to leave as early as they once did.
All of that was well-trodden in the journals. But Baxter’s latest breakthrough showed a profound physiologic impact. With less distance to cover, he had documented nearly a five percent decline in the wingspan over three generations of Canada geese. Meanwhile, the birds’ evolutionary instinct to feed before the long flight south continued undisturbed. With a smaller wingspan transporting the same weight, the task of flying was more taxing.
Takeoffs in particular were harder. The geese required more distance to gain their migratory altitude than they were known to need even five years ago. Nor could they fly as far or as fast without resting. So more takeoffs were required over the course of the migration route, further draining the birds.
The room was buzzing already when Baxter delivered his cliff-hanger.
“Of course, the likelihood of more low-flying flocks in the future has significant implications for humans, especially in well-populated flyways like this one, which includes Toronto, the New York-New Jersey-Philadelphia area, Washington DC, and Baltimore.
“To offer just one example of a consequence, let’s consider the well-documented problem of aircraft bird strikes. Most recently we had the so-called ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ crash this past January.”
Christopher’s head jerked up. Goosebumps prickled his arms. Brace for impact. Icy water sloshing over his ankles. Flight attendants shouting. Deborah’s plaintive pleading.
“You heard it here first: When that investigation’s complete it will be Canada geese from this flyway that drove that plane into the river. And we’d better hope for more hero pilots out there, folks, because my data points to many more birds flying into engines.”
The buzz crescendoed. Next to Christopher, the kid in the sweatshirt jumped up and leaned forward, stabbing his finger at Baxter. “You lied!” he cried. “I was right, and you lied.”
The man on the boy’s other side rose, too, pushing his arm down, trying to get him to sit back
down. “Robby. Stop it. Sit down.”
“It was my idea, Dad! Mine! I told him yesterday!” Robby’s arm fell, though he remained standing. “He said I was wrong. I knew I wasn’t.”
“We’re leaving. Go, Robby,” his father said, towing him out of the row. “Move it. I mean it. Now.”
Christopher followed them out. He had no desire to sit through the Q & A that was sure to cut into his presentation time. Better to leave and try to collect his own thoughts. The father had taken the boy down the hall, but Christopher could still hear their conversation. Irritated, he pushed the button for the elevator. Apparently he’d have to go back to his room.
Sam faced off with his son.
“Robby, what’s the matter with you? Why are you calling him a liar? When did you even talk to him?”
“Yesterday! When you were looking for me.”
“You were having a conversation with him? What did you have to talk about?”
“His database. I’ve been studying it.” Robby dug into his pocket and held up a thumb drive. “He asked me to tell him more.”
“The conference keynote speaker?” Sam was skeptical. “Really?”
“Ask Paula! She saw him. Told me to follow him. Talk to him. And he stole my idea!”
“Robby, I know you’ve been obsessed with those geese since the crash, but you just can’t go around accusing people . . .”
“Robby! Mr. Palmer!” The door from the conference room burst open, and an older man wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a tie hustled down the hall. Sam crinkled his forehead. The face was familiar, but Sam couldn’t place him.
Robby, though, recognized him right away.
“Dr. Felk!”
Sam blinked. Indeed it was, the bearded, bespectacled ornithologist from the American Museum of Natural History who was so awed by Robby’s instincts. The man responsible for bringing them here, here himself.
“Wonderful to find you here,” Felk said, shaking both their hands. He gave Sam an extra pump and a pat on the back. An attaboy for bringing Robby.