Sparrow Migrations

by Cari Noga

  “Amanda’s a wonderful young woman, Brett. You’ve been the best mother you could possibly be, sacrificing your own happiness for the sake of the family you thought was best for her,” Deborah said. “But Gracie will probably hate me. What mother brings a child into the world with fifty-fifty odds she’ll become an orphan?”

  “The odds aren’t your fault. Stop punishing yourself for something you can’t control,” Brett said, empathy infusing each word. “And she wouldn’t be an orphan. She has a father. A father who needs to step up to the job, even though you didn’t ask me.”

  “You think I should try to get back together with Christopher?”

  She sounds hopeful, Brett thought. Like she wants me to talk her into it.

  “That’s not my decision. Do you want to get back together?”

  “I’m not sure. Helen thinks I’m crazy to even consider it. She wants me to move to Seattle. And I was angry at him when I was pregnant. Furious. But then when I went into labor, I just called him automatically.”

  “So he was there? At the birth?”

  “Not the birth. I couldn’t reach him. By the time he got the message, it was over. He came to the hospital the next day.”

  “That didn’t make you angry all over?” Brett said.

  “At first it did. I told myself it was his fault I was so exhausted and miserable. But then, just getting through the day drained every bit of energy I had. He did call a few times, asking what I wanted him to do. But she was always crying, or needing her diaper changed, or needing to be fed. I didn’t have enough energy to call him back, let alone be angry.”

  “And what about now?”

  “It’s all just gone. It sounds so corny, but all I feel inside is love for Gracie.”

  “So is there any love for Christopher?”

  Deborah bit her lip.

  “You don’t owe me an answer. But love or not, he has a responsibility to Gracie. Your beautiful, healthy baby Gracie, safe upstairs right now. The child you’re sacrificing yourself for, trying to be two parents. Asking what you want him to do, that’s a cop-out. He has to figure out what he needs to do. He’s Gracie’s father, not you.”

  “I want to believe you.” Deborah wiped her eyes again. “But that still leaves Gracie at risk.”

  “Then get tested,” Brett said, without hesitation.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Christopher squinted at the Ivory Tower’s menu, one of those blackboards scrawled over with colored chalk and hung so high it was almost illegible from the floor. He gave up. He wasn’t really hungry, anyway.

  “Just coffee,” he told the girl with the nose ring behind the cash register. He sat at the counter in the window, watching for Deborah. Ten o’clock passed. 10:05. 10:10. 10:15. He was about to call her when she breezed in.

  “Happy New Year.” She hung her coat on the chair next to him and sat down, so quickly he didn’t have a chance to stand and hug her. “Sorry I’m late. It’s a little harder getting out the door on time these days.”

  “It’s fine. Still Christmas break.” He tried to ignore the wish that he would have been able to hug her. She looked pretty much like she used to on weekends, her hair in a ponytail with workout clothes and a Cornell sweatshirt on top.

  “Right. Just coffee for you?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I’m starving. I’m going to order.” She pulled a wallet out of a giant pink polka-dot bag he’d never seen before and went to the counter, not even looking up at the blackboard.

  “Morning,” the nose ring girl greeted her. “The usual?”

  “Yes, thanks, Molly.”

  “Large dark roast, black, and a breakfast egg sandwich with cheese on an everything bagel. Coming up. How’s that little angel?”

  “Angelic. Most of the time, anyway.” Deborah answered. Christopher couldn’t see her, but he could tell she was smiling.

  “Sounds like you’re a regular here,” he said when she sat down.

  “I guess so. I started coming with Julia after prenatal yoga classes. I like it. It’s cozy, friendly.”

  “And you’ve brought the baby, too, sounds like.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Grace, Christopher. Her name is Grace. I call her Gracie. At Julia’s.”

  “Grace. Right. You said. That’s pretty.” It was, though the nickname surprised him. Deborah and he had always shared a distaste for nicknames, politely but firmly correcting colleagues who inevitably shortened theirs to the expected Debbie or Chris.

  Nor could he really believe they were sitting there, talking about their daughter, whom he hadn’t even seen awake yet. She was born by the time he got Deborah’s message the night she went into labor, sleeping when he visited the next day and every other time since. They had talked a few times, but conversations were always curtailed by Deborah needing to change a diaper or feed her or tend to some other need. Sitting there now, Deborah no longer pregnant, it was all starting to seem like a crazy dream.

  “I have some news,” she told him, sipping her coffee.

  “News?” His internal guard went up.

  “I’m not going to get Huntington’s.”

  Huntington’s. Emotions galloped through his head. Blissful confusion for a moment more. Fleetingly, happiness. Then the dawn of comprehension, of memory, of polarized positions. Of the mocking magpie ringing in his office last winter. He had to unclench his jaw to speak.

  “You had the test.”

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t have the gene.”

  “No.”

  “So Gracie’s not at risk, either?” He was back in the kitchen the day when Matt called with the name of the Columbia doctor. Valentine’s Day, it was. He had discovered his wife had undermined their marriage on Valentine’s Day.

  She shook her head. “Huntington’s doesn’t skip generations. She’s safe.”

  Faintly, Christopher registered relief. But her deception felt as raw as it did almost a year ago. He knew she was trying to meet his eyes, but gazing out of the shop window, he saw only their unresolved past reflected back. And Deborah, sitting there, unapologetic.

  “Christopher? This is good news. Right?”

  Christopher unclenched his teeth and closed his eyes. “Why should your news mean anything to me now, Deborah?”

  She pushed her plate away and laid her hand on his arm. “You told me you miss me.”

  “I said that.” It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago. “I missed us. But we don’t exist anymore, do we?”

  She didn’t reply. But her eyes were crestfallen. Unbelievable.

  “You thought this was going to change things. You luck out and don’t have Huntington’s. I’ll come home, we’ll be a family and live happily ever after.”

  Slowly, Deborah nodded.

  “Damn it, Deborah. The end doesn’t justify the means. It doesn’t change that you lied. Or that you put the baby at risk, too.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But that’s done. Over with. We have a daughter now.” Deborah spoke angrily now, too. “I’m sorry I disappointed you. But you were the one who decided it ruined our entire relationship. You were the one who decided to move out.”

  Christopher opened his mouth. Deborah held up her hand, cutting him off.

  “I can’t keep rehashing the last year. I called you about the future. If you don’t want to be a husband anymore, well, I can handle that. But you said yourself she deserves two parents. So give her that much. Give her a father. Not a drop-in, once-in-a-while father, either, but a dependable one.”

  They sat silently, both staring into their coffee.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he said finally.

  “How about, ‘I’d like to meet my daughter. When’s a good time?’”

  Christopher stared
out the window again. The sun had broken through the clouds, and he could see past his own backlit reflection now, out into the street. With the students gone for break, it was quiet at this time of day. He had said all throughout her pregnancy that he’d fulfill his role as father to the child. To Grace. Unbidden, Dr. Felk’s face rose in his mind. Don’t let it get too late.

  He turned to Deborah. “All right, then. When’s a good time?”

  Robby stepped down from the school bus, his boot sinking into four inches of fresh snow. Maybe a snow day tomorrow. He hoped Paula wouldn’t want to cancel tonight’s Audubon meeting. They had a lot of work to do, planning the Big Day.

  The diesel engine’s roar faded as he plowed to the front door and opened the mailbox, flipping through the envelopes. Nothing from Cornell. March 1, when they had said accepted applicants would be notified, was still more a month away. Still, he couldn’t help looking.

  Inside, he dropped the mail on the kitchen counter. His parents were still at work. The house was quiet, just the way he liked it. He laid his headphones next to the mail. The bus ride home hadn’t been too bad. After his mom found out about his walks home last year, she insisted that the school escort him to the bus. That made him mad. He had refused to get on a few times, delaying the whole line of buses until she came to pick him up, her face tired, her voice strained.

  This year’s route was more tolerable, though. It was shorter, and the kids were less rowdy. No one tried to steal his preferred seat—driver’s side, six rows back—where he’d settle down with his headphones and one of his field guides. On days like today, the bus was a lot better than a wet, cold walk. Robby poured a glass of chocolate milk and went to his room.

  The new snow formed a soft peak on the bird feeder outside his window, as yet undisturbed by feathered foragers since he’d filled it that morning.

  His phone vibrated with a text. Paula.

  “Should we cancel?”

  Robby typed back. “No. Gotta talk about the Big Day.”

  The website and the Big Day were what they promised the club. The website had been easy. But the Big Day, a twenty-four-hour race where members competed to see and record the most bird species, was a lot more complicated, even with Alex helping. He had officially joined the club and was planning to turn the Big Day into an extra credit project for his advanced biology class.

  “I know . . . OK. C u at 7.”

  After dinner, his dad drove him to the Central United Christian Church. The headlights cut a swath through the dirty white fishbowl of the evening.

  “You and Mom are both driving on the Big Day, right?”

  “Right. We’ll take turns. Six-hour shifts, probably.”

  “And we’ll take the SUV.” This car didn’t have a GPS.

  “Right.”

  “You’ll make sure the gas tank’s full before we start.”

  “Right.”

  “And we’ve got the Michigan atlas, and the county maps for Wayne, Macomb, and Oakland.”

  “Right.”

  “And backup maps. In case something happens. One gets wet. Or ripped. Or something.”

  “Right.”

  “OK.” Robby put his hand on the door handle as his dad pulled into the church parking lot. “See you later.”

  Sam watched him disappear inside. They had been through the checklist already, and would countless more times until the Big Day on May 1. But Sam knew he would answer Robby’s repetitious questions without complaint. With each one, the memory of the silent, sullen son who had become so obsessed with geese a year ago grew fainter.

  It wasn’t that birds cured Robby. He was wired differently than the neurotypical majority, and that would never change. Like the piping plover was a rare bird, Robby was a rare boy. But he was a boy, not a diagnosis. And birds were proving to be the bridge he and Linda had hoped for, a perch from which their boy could safely venture beyond the bunker of his brain to form real-world relationships. Dr. Felk. The ranger up north. Paula. Eventually, maybe, Alex. Maybe this professor at Cornell.

  Maybe even his own father.

  THIRTY-TWO

  All right, everyone. Let’s try to keep on schedule, shall we?” Lab director Peter Hawkins brought to order the meeting of the Cornell Bird Camp Oversight Committee.

  “We’ll start with the good news. You’ll remember we talked about the upcoming feature in Audubon magazine.”

  How could we forget, thought Christopher. Peter had mentioned it at every meeting since October. Audubon had pushed it back from the November issue to January to March. Each delay had amplified his dramatics about the future of camp. Now, he brandished a copy of the glossy cover above his head.

  “The piece is in the current issue, which hit newsstands last week. Already, our camp website hits and inquiries are up by double digits,” the director recited the numbers with relish. “We can expect to see the same spike in applications, especially after subscribers begin receiving it this week.

  “I’d like to personally thank Christopher Goldman,” he continued. “As the article’s primary source, he’s done us all proud. Christopher, thank you.” To Christopher’s chagrin, Peter began applauding.

  Blah, blah, blah, thought Christopher. Get on with the meeting, already. He thought of Robby, and hoped his application would measure up in this stiffer competition. Since Robby’s November e-mail, he’d monitored the applications. Robby’s had arrived January 4, postmarked January 2, the first date applications were accepted. Acceptance letters would go out March 1, now less than three weeks away.

  “As you know, we hoped that this piece would appear earlier in order to benefit our recruiting,” Peter continued. “Given the circumstances, I’m proposing that we extend our application deadline through March fifteenth.”

  A stir reverberated through the room. Christopher caught the eye of Michael Adams. He was moonlighting on the bird camp faculty, too. Michael shook his head slightly, then nodded at him. Christopher glanced at Foster, who repeated the gesture.

  Christopher understood. As the one singled out with thanks, he stood the best chance of successfully protesting this unfair change in the rules. He sighed, wishing he were out in the field, away from academic office politics, then raised his hand.

  “Excuse me, Peter, but changing the application deadline at this point? That’s unfair to the applicants who abided by the rules.”

  The director’s eyebrows shot up. “Unfair? How about canceling bird camp at the last minute? Does that sound fair?”

  “But that’s not going to happen. That’s not a real risk.”

  “Absolutely it’s a risk,” Peter retorted. “Over the last five years, five to ten percent of camp spots have gone unfilled. That’s our profit margin, right there. We need to fill every single one of those spots.” His gaze swept across the faces. “Eventually, we have to make it competitive enough that we can raise tuition.”

  Another murmur went around the room. Anger surged in Christopher’s gut. Michael Adams spoke up. “Can’t you change the deadline next year? We’re all aware the bottom line is important, but—”

  “Are you?” Peter Hawkins almost seemed amused. He looked around the room. “Do you know how much it would have cost to buy this kind of space in Audubon?” His words barreled out. “Over one hundred thousand dollars. That frees up money that we can now spend half a dozen ways. Hire a couple graduate assistants. Upgrade the software for the acoustic library.” He looked pointedly at Christopher. “Provide housing for visiting professors, gratis.

  “You did your job. You did it well. My job is to maximize the opportunity. We’ll be taking applications through March fifteenth.”

  Dismissed and disheartened, Christopher slipped out the door.

  Michael Adams followed. Pale sunlight streamed through the corridor windows that overlooked Sapsucker Woods.

  “Man. What a prick. Glad I don
’t have to work for that guy year-round.”

  That about covered it. Christopher exhaled, rubbing his temples.

  “I’m not even sure this bird camp gig’s worth it, but with a new baby, I could use the extra cash, you know?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Christopher replied.

  “Yeah, diapers, doctor’s visits, they all add up, and Julia’s still not working. But she loves being at home with the baby. She’s got a whole schedule worked out—play groups three days a week, library story time, all that. I thought all the kids in Ithaca were in college. Never knew there were so many little ones.” He laughed. “Deborah’s been over a lot. Gracie’s a real cutie.”

  Christopher froze as Michael spoke their names. He and Deborah were old news on the Cornell grapevine. It couldn’t have escaped Michael Adams. Did he just assume Christopher was like other part-time dads, picking up the kid on weekends? Since the coffee shop meeting, he had spent six mornings with Gracie, but she slept through three of them. The most interaction he’d had was giving her a few bottles. Still, it took his breath away to hold her and realize she was part of him and Deborah. One time she’d fallen back asleep while drinking from the bottle. He’d sat there until Deborah returned, marveled at how beautifully everything worked, from her quick, shallow breaths to her steady heartbeat to the grasp of her tiny fingers clenched around one of his.

  “She is, isn’t she,” he said cautiously.

  “Yeah.” Michael chuckled. “Tiny little thing. Quiet, too. The rest of the kids will all be crying, howling. Gracie, she’ll just sit with Deborah, nice and quiet, content as can be. I think she was born a couple months after my guy, right?”

  “November tenth.” Christopher repeated Michael’s words to himself. Tiny. Quiet. Like him, perhaps? Would she prefer the solitude of libraries and labs, or take after Deborah and be able to chat up a lamppost?

  “But Nate’s a little quarterback already. Nineteen pounds, I think Julia told me. Gracie looks so delicate next to him. An owl and a hummingbird, that’s what they remind me of.”