by Cari Noga
“They’re OK, right?” he asked. The road was still wet, even though the sun had been up for hours. The storm must have been really bad out here.
“We’ll see, Robby,” his mom said.
It was her maddening nonanswer voice. Robby sighed, yanking his sweatshirt strings to tighten his hood, and pushed his feet down on the floor, willing the car to go faster. He had to find Ruth. She would know.
At the Visitors Center he sprinted across the parking lot to the building. Ruth wasn’t at the admissions desk, and she wasn’t in the big room with the maps and topographic models, and she wasn’t in the little auditorium where a video about the park played on a continuous loop. Robby was out the door again, almost colliding with his parents. Behind them he spotted one of the white park service trucks pulling in. Through the open window he saw Ruth at the wheel.
“Ruth!” He pounded down the parking lot, behind the building, to the area reserved for park vehicles. “The plovers are OK, right? They made it through the storm.”
From behind her sunglasses, Ruth stared down at him. She opened the door, climbing down to crouch beside him, at eye level. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. Her eyes looked shiny.
“They’re OK, right?” He jerked the sweatshirt strings, drawing his hood so tight his eyelashes brushed the cinched edge.
Slowly, Ruth shook her head. “I’m sorry. The storm washed out two nests.”
Robby counted up quickly as his parents joined them. “Eight eggs?”
“Six. Two were already gone.”
“Well, there’re still eight nests left then, right?” his mom now spoke in her brisk, let’s move on now, voice.
“Counting the deserted one from yesterday, only seven,” corrected Ruth. “It’s absolutely devastating. Plus, we’ve not confirmed the whereabouts of the breeding adults from those nests.”
“Oh,” his mother said in a small voice.
“I’m so sorry, Robby,” Ruth said. Still crouched down, she put her hand on his shoulder. “I wish there was something we could’ve done.”
He twisted away from her hand, balling his fists. The throbbing was starting, his limbs turning rigid. “Any we saw yesterday?”
Ruth nodded. “The last one.”
The throbbing accelerated, moving up his body, from his churning stomach to his shoulders to his ears, where it roared and pounded, drowning out the adults’ voices. The last one. The four pristine eggs he had been so relieved to see, after the disappointment of the smashed one and the fear for the orphaned pair. He recalled the wave from his dream, a cold, noisy invader, thrashing the beach, sucking the eggs and their pebble nest into its swirling turbulence. It was all a waste. The exclosures and the plover patrols and coming up here. All of it. The plovers’ song was silenced. The plovers were dead.
“UnnnhhhhHHH!” The throbbing poured out his mouth in a guttural roar. His arms and legs vibrated. He pounded the truck door and kicked the tires on Ruth’s truck. He felt his father grab him under his armpits, trying to pull him away. Lunging for the truck’s side-view mirror he held on, still kicking at the tires.
Unprotected by his summer sandals, his toe smashed against the hard rubber. Pain ascended over the throbbing, and he became deadweight, knocking his dad over backward. They both sprawled onto the damp dirt of the parking lot, Robby’s keening fading to a whimper. Then silence.
Robby stared up into the blue sky. He didn’t know how much time had passed. His mother’s face hovered at the edges. And another woman, sunglasses on her head. She had her hands on her hips. The ranger. Ruth. He turned his head. His dad, brushing dirt off his legs, reached down to pull him up.
“That was a meltdown,” he heard his mom tell Ruth. “This happens a lot when Robby gets overwhelmed. It’s part of his having autism.”
Ruth just stared at him. In a fluid motion she stooped to pluck a weed from the parking lot. She twirled it between her thumb and forefinger a few times. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Clockwise. After she was sure Robby was watching her, she extended it to him.
His fingers closed over the thin stalk. The rain had nourished it, too. The stem felt stronger and looked greener than the dry, browning one he had picked yesterday. Rolling it as Ruth had, between his thumb and forefinger, he concentrated on how the movement felt, rather than the twirling, fuzzy head. With his index finger he rolled it along the pad of his thumb, one, two, three, four, five until his finger couldn’t bend anymore. Then slowly he straightened it, one, two, three, four, five until the two fingers were parallel. And back, keeping the pressure even. And forward. Ruth waited.
“I understand feeling angry and sad. I am, too. But you can’t let it get the better of you. There’s still so much we can do to help them. Believe me.” She cleared her throat. “Remember the eggs you spotted yesterday?”
Robby nodded.
“We collected those early yesterday afternoon, after our patrol volunteers monitored for four hours with no sign of the parents or the fourth egg. They’re up at our captive-rearing facility now.”
“What happens there?” Robby said.
“I’ve got a Skype call update in ten minutes. You can come to my office and see for yourself if you’d like. As long as your foot’s OK.”
“Yes,” Robby answered instantly. Before his parents could say anything.
“Let’s go,” Ruth said, leading the way.
Ruth sat down in the lone desk chair that constituted the seating in her cramped office. Robby craned his neck, trying to see her laptop screen. As soon as she logged in, a man’s face filled the screen.
“Morning, Ruth.” He wore a T-shirt and glasses and didn’t look nearly as official as Ruth.
“Hi, Josh. I’ve got some folks with me today. They were on the hike when we found the eggs yesterday. Robby here actually spotted them.” Ruth turned the laptop slightly.
Robby saw his own face, encircled with his hood, appear next to Ruth’s in a little square in the bottom corner of the screen. Right next to hers. He looked down. He hadn’t realized they were practically rubbing shoulders. He took a step away. His face moved out of the square on the screen. He hesitated, then shuffled back a half step. His face reappeared.
“Hey, Robby.” Josh smiled. “Good work. You gonna be a biologist someday?”
Robby shrugged, turning to Ruth. “Where are the eggs?”
“Let’s ask. Fill us in, Josh?”
“Everything’s great. Starting with, there’s just one egg now.”
Beside him, Robby felt Ruth’s body tense before he heard it in her voice. “Just one? What—”
On the screen, Josh’s face receded as he backed away. Now Robby could see what looked like a big plastic box with a bright light over it. Hands grabbed the laptop and carried it closer to the box. Inside, Robby could see one egg.
And one chick.
Beside him Ruth’s body relaxed. He felt her hand grip his shoulder. Her voice was relieved, light.
“It’s hatched. Look, Robby, it’s hatched!”
“Got here a few hours ago and found this one,” Josh’s disembodied voice said.
“Is it male or female?” Robby asked.
“We won’t know till adulthood. Unless we do DNA testing,” Josh said.
“Either way, it’s fantastic.” Ruth leaned back against her chair, smiling.
“Wow.” His mom’s voice, faintly.
“Way to go, Robby.” His dad’s? Or Ruth’s? Robby didn’t know. He was riveted to the screen. He could see now why plovers belonged on beaches, where they blended with the sand and pebbles. In the stark, sterile box, the tiny chick looked so alone. It was a female, he decided. Her parents had deserted her. One sibling was smashed on the beach. One was missing. One was still in its shell.
“Will the other one hatch soon?” he asked.
“I think so,” Josh’s voice answered. �
�Eggs in a clutch usually hatch within a day or so of each other.”
“What happens now?”
“They’ll stay at the biological station for about thirty days,” Ruth said. “They’ll be able to fly then, and we’ll bring them back here and release them.”
“Release them?” Robby turned from the screen to look at Ruth.
“For their winter migration. They’ll need to head south. Look.”
From a pile of papers she grabbed a US map. The Great Lakes were dotted with Xs. So was the Atlantic coastline from North Carolina to Florida.
“We’ll band these before releasing them, so we can keep track of them. Eventually they’ll show up on the map.”
“Back here?”
“Probably not. Nesting where they were born would lead to inbreeding. They need to find their own territory.”
“Oh.” Robby looked at his feet. Ruth sounded excited, and so did the man in the computer. But the odds against the tiny bird, all alone in the world, seemed huge. And his toe hurt.
“Robby, I won’t lie to you. There are no guarantees. Mortality’s high on the plover’s first migration. We lose more than half. But we don’t have a choice about whether they go. It’s biology.
“But we do have a choice about what we do here. This—” Ruth swept her arm, taking in her office and the laptop, “all this doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when people do the right thing. Like setting aside this park to begin with. Like watching and observing them in their habitat—just like you did yesterday. Keeping records and providing assistance when we can, like with the exclosures and the banding and the captive rearing.” She paused. “Even being sad when they’re harmed. Because if you weren’t sad, it would mean you didn’t care.”
Silence filled the room. Robby could see dust floating where the sun streamed in the window. On the computer screen the little chick seemed to be pecking the bottom of the box. Then he heard something. A faint cheep. He stepped closer to the computer.
Again. Cheep, cheep.
Robby pushed back his hood and tilted his head down to hear better, closing his eyes to block any distractions.
Cheep, cheep. Louder now. And maybe stronger?
Opening his eyes, Robby’s gaze fell on the map. There were lots of Xs. Lots of places for this little one to go. Lots of places where people would be on the lookout next summer. And even though they were going home later today, now he could Skype with Ruth and Josh and check in on her. Until it was time to release her.
He touched the chick on the screen so it looked like it was pecking his finger. He exhaled deeply, blowing his bangs out of his eyes. Behind him, he heard his mom sniff. Suddenly, Ruth’s radio crackled.
“Platte Point patrol one to ranger. Platte Point patrol one to ranger. Over.”
Ruth lifted the radio off her hip. “Ruth here. Go ahead, Platte Point. Over.”
“Reporting four new chicks at Platte Point. Nest ten. We’ll need to schedule the banding crew out here. Over.”
“Copy that, Platte Point.” Ruth pushed back her chair and looked at Robby. She had a question on her face.
Robby looked back and nodded. “Let’s go.”
TWENTY-SIX
Moving day, July 3, broke hot, humid, and silent. Richard had left for church. Amanda, whose cool distance had hardened to frozen estrangement over the past weeks, was spending the night at Abby’s. Her heart a crater in her chest, Brett had agreed to the sleepover, brightly promising to call from Ithaca.
Leafing through the newspaper as she drank her coffee, Brett noticed the date. She’d officially begin her new life in Ithaca on Independence Day. Images flashed through her mind. Sailing on the ferry with Jackie. Making the guest room into her own. Stumbling upon the Ithaca job posting. She’d felt giddy, almost intoxicated with freedom. She tried to dredge up a remnant of those feelings, but when it was permanent and final, independence was a lot scarier.
Carrying her coffee cup to the sink, she looked out the window to the bird feeder, hanging empty and still in the thick summer air. The moving truck was due in fifteen minutes. She had only one task left, and then she’d be ready.
When Amanda came home, she found a gift bag on her bed. Inside was a cell phone and an envelope. Her mother’s neat handwriting filled the lined paper inside.
Dear Amanda, she read. I know you’re unhappy with me, and scared, and angry. If I could make this easier for you I would, but that would mean more lies.
I’m going to miss you terribly, and I’m worried about you. I’m going to call you often. I got you this cell phone so we could talk privately. You might not want to talk to me, at least for a while, but when you do, you’ll have it.
In the meantime, I’m leaving you something else that helped me all these years, when I was feeling unhappy and scared and angry. You got me the bird feeder for Christmas when you were about four. I’m sure your dad helped you pick it out, but I’ll never forget your face—so excited—when I opened it on Christmas morning.
Filling that feeder all these years, I’ve learned that when someone else depends on you, you take care of yourself. That’s how I coped. I knew you were counting on me to be there.
You’ll always be my daughter. But you don’t need me like that anymore. It’s my chance to spread my wings. I hope someday you can understand why I have to do this now.
Please feed the birds for me, Amanda. I’ll know you’re OK if you’re feeding the birds. I love you.
Mom
Tucked inside the envelope was a twenty-dollar bill with a Post-it note stuck to it, also in her mother’s handwriting. Wilson’s gets bulk feed in end of September. And a second Post-it, with two phone numbers. Mine. Yours.
Clutching the letter in one hand, Amanda dropped onto her bed, her sobs echoing in the empty house.
“Good afternoon, Deborah DeWitt-Goldman.”
Christopher exhaled with relief. After what seemed like half a dozen rounds of phone tag, he was finally speaking to her.
“It’s Christopher.”
“Christopher. Can I call you back? I’m right in the middle of something.”
Her urgency sounded manufactured. It’s not too late, Arthur Felk had told him. But it was only getting later.
“No, you can’t call me back. We’ve been talking to voice mail for two weeks now.”
“I’ve been busy. I’ve kind of got a lot going on now, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Deborah was not normally sarcastic. Neither was he, but he couldn’t squelch it now.
“I had noticed. You showed me a picture, in fact.”
“Oh, so you looked at it, then?”
Only about a hundred times since, he thought but did not say.
“Of course. And I wanted to talk to you about it. But you dropped that picture in front of me and then just left.”
“Kind of like you did, back in February.”
Touché. And ouch. He didn’t know what to say. A pause stretched between them. Deborah spoke again, sounding apologetic.
“This is silly. We sound like children ourselves.”
“I guess so,” Christopher conceded.
“I’m sorry about all the messages. I really have been busy, and I guess I just don’t know what to say anymore.”
Christopher didn’t know either, so he steered the conversation away from themselves. “Dr. Felk wants to meet with you.”
“He already came to see me.”
“He did?”
“Right after your hike.”
“Such as it was.” Christopher thought back to the abbreviated trek. “Did you set up the endowment for him?”
“I’m helping him get started. A joint endowment is complicated. Then after I’m gone, the medical school development staff will take over.”
“After you’re gone?” Christopher sat up.
“On my maternity lea
ve.” He caught a prickly note in her voice again, as if he’d forgotten the main subject.
“But that’s not till November, right?”
“Actually, I’m starting at the end of September. I’ve got vacation and sick time I need to use before the end of the year, so I’m going to take it easy for a bit before she’s born.”
Before she’s born. There it was again, that feminine pronoun that made everything feel so much more real. And September was next month already. “Phillip’s OK with that?”
“I don’t need him to be OK with it, Christopher. I’m entitled to the leave. It’s policy.”
“And it’s three months?”
“Four. And I’ll be entitled to more vacation at the start of the new year that I’ll tack on. So I expect I’ll be off until at least the first of April.”
“You’ve made a lot of plans, haven’t you?”
Deborah laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Someone has to, Christopher.”
“How’s Helen?” He allowed a note of accusation in his voice. He wanted to remind her. She was as responsible as he for their split, for bearing the burden of planning the future.
He reached for his wallet and found the picture. The black-and-white print had faded to a purplish-brown, like a bruise. The date stamp was three months ago. How much would she have changed by now, his daughter? As much as her mother? As much as him? Less than three months to go now. Was it enough time for him to get over Deborah’s deceit? Could he ever, if she continued to refuse to accept any responsibility for their circumstances?
“She’s doing fairly well, all things considered. I’m going out to see her in October, after my leave starts.” The manufactured urgency returned to her voice. “Really, Christopher, I’ve got to get to a meeting now.”
“You’re flying to Seattle? That late in the pregnancy? Is that safe?”
“The doctor assured me it’ll be fine.”
“OK. Well, I . . .” He paused. He’d what? See her later? Talk to her later? Call her later? Soon? Nothing sounded quite right, yet he wanted something that implied future contact.