Hummingbird

by Hummingbird (retail) (epub)

  A boy on a bike dodged past me on the sidewalk. The wind blew around my bare ankles. Halfway to the community mailboxes, a car sped by going much too fast and I resisted the urge to throw a rock after it. At the end of the block, I felt my pockets again for the mail key. For a moment, I thought I’d lost it, that I’d come all this way for nothing, then my hand closed around the metal slug and I jammed it into one of the small doors in front of me. The mailboxes made me think of the big wooden advent calendar Dad had lugged out each December, which tipped me into another, more recent memory: a pile of gifts on the floor, a small girl at my feet, gleefully tearing paper. “No,” I said, in a firm voice, banishing the image, before looking around to see if anyone had heard me. I opened my mailbox and slid my hand into the narrow cubby, pulling out the usual stack of flyers and bills, surprised to find an envelope with actual handwriting nestled among them. Even if Meredith hadn’t identified herself as the sender, I would have recognized her writing from the countless notes she’d left around the house when we were together.

  I clutched the envelope to my chest, nearly bending it in half. On the walk home, a high tone sounded in my ears. My lungs forgot when to pull, when to release. My house looked like a neglected church, like a burrow in the mud. I made it to the gate and struggled with the latch. The next-door neighbour came around the side of her house with a rake, her smile fading when she saw me. She said something I couldn’t understand, her features pinched in concern. I held up the envelope, meaning sorry no time to talk, and wrestled open the gate. Dad was up on the roof, laying shingles. Dark clouds rolled over the house. Nickel-sized hailstones pounded the grass all around me. I hurried up the stairs, protecting the envelope with my body, threw open the door, and stopped. A little girl was toddling unsteadily towards me.

  “Daddy!” she cried.

  The structure of the house had changed dramatically, the little foyer opening up into a living area, the upper floor merging with the lower and spreading out. The child nearly fell, wheeled her arms for balance, and kept coming. Her hair had been recently brushed. Her pajamas were clean and covered in cartoon monsters. She took a few last tripping steps and threw herself at me. I thought I wouldn’t have the strength to catch her but I did, lifting her up, marvelling at her absence of fear, her unqualified joy at seeing me.

  I hugged her close. Christine. Still with me. Still here. She squirmed to be put down, wanting to show me something, but I couldn’t let go, couldn’t stop hugging her, my arms locked around her little body.

  Meredith came out of the kitchen, looking alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, unable to speak.

  “Felix, what is it? What’s happened?”

  Christine struggled to get away. “Mommy!”

  Meredith took her from me and I staggered back against the wall, then sank to the floor and covered my face with my hands, overwhelmed by the loss of the very people in front of me. Meredith kept saying my name. Eventually, the urgency in her voice got through and I managed to slow my breath and look up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She was hushing Christine, who looked terrified. “Talk to me,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  I made a vague gesture and realized that I was holding an envelope. Not a letter from Meredith, but a bill from the power company. I held it out to her. “I brought in the mail.”

  Meredith waited until Christine was down for the evening before approaching me in the TV room. She’d been scheduled to work the night shift and had changed into her scrubs, addressing me in a gentle but firm voice.

  “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

  I turned off the television and set the remote aside. “I told you, I was confused.”

  “Were you seeing things?”

  “No.”

  “Hearing voices?”

  “No.”

  “I need you to be sure about this, Felix.”

  “I am,” I said, still traumatized by the specific way I’d experienced Christine’s loss—not as a time-traveller might feel it, with a degree of self-awareness, but as my actual future self, knowing no other reality but that one. I couldn’t say exactly how I’d lost her (or why I was back in my old house for that matter), but her absence had been an unchangeable fact of my existence, like an amputated limb.

  “This confusion,” Meredith said. “Is it still with you now?”

  “No.” I rubbed my face “I’m fine now, really. I think I might have just forgotten to take my meds.”

  “What?” she said. “When?”

  “Today. And yesterday, maybe.”

  “Did you check the pill caddy?”

  “No.”

  Meredith hurried out of the room and came back with a long plastic container, looking slightly panicked. “Five days,” she said. “You’ve missed five days, Felix.”

  “Really?”

  She showed me Thursday through Monday, three pills nestled in each little cube. For the second time that evening, I found myself thinking about Dad’s old advent calendar: cubbies, compartments, holes …

  Meredith shook out Monday’s pills and gave them to me. “Here. Take them now.”

  I hesitated, frowning at the pills in my hand.

  “Felix.”

  “No, you’re right. I was just thinking that it’s a little late in the day. They might keep me up.”

  “I’ll get you some water.”

  She went into the kitchen and I stared at the dark television, thinking about Chad Temple’s murder, and the oak tree by my old apartment. In both cases, my premonitions had come true. I scoured my mind for specific details from this latest vision, but as my future self, I’d been consciously avoiding any thought of Christine. Meredith came back into the room and handed me a glass of water. It was not a gentle recommendation, but a requirement. I put the pills in my mouth and washed them down.

  “Good,” Meredith said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “These things happen. I’ll double-check the caddy from now on. I should have been doing it all along.”

  “Okay.”

  “How do you feel now?”

  “Tired.”

  She collected her keys and purse and looked at me closely. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  She lingered by the front door. “I could stay home, if …”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You’re positive.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll remember to put her monitor on?”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything at all.”

  I kissed her goodbye, applying a few more degrees of pressure than usual to convey a confidence I did not feel.

  After she’d pulled out of the driveway, I lay in the dark bedroom, the sensitivity of the baby monitor on high. A low hiss came from the receiver as it registered a sound in the nursery. I listened for a minute, then went down the hall and quietly opened Christine’s door. The nursery was dark, a blue halo coming from the nightlight on her dresser. I approached the crib and peered down at her sleeping body: arms stretched out on either side, like she’d died while trying to fly. I watched her chest for the subtle rise and fall of breath. She whimpered in her sleep and I reached down and took her hand in my own. If she was aware of me, she didn’t show it, breathing deeply and evenly. I let go of her hand and lay down on the floor beside the crib, watching her face through the bars, trying to guess what dreams were tumbling through her head, whether I was there, and in what guise—loving giant or capricious ogre. Having placed myself between Christine and any conceivable threat, I put my hands behind my head and shut my eyes.

  What felt like seconds later, someone turned on the light. I rolled over, groping around on the floor for a weapon. Meredith was standing in the doorway in her scrubs.

  “You’re back?” I said, groggily.

  “It’s morning.”r />
  “Really?”

  “Didn’t you hear Christine crying?”

  I looked over and saw Christine standing in her crib, her face streaked with tears. Sunlight was leaking around the blackout drapes. Meredith came over and hoisted her out.

  “You haven’t been in here all night, have you?” she asked me.

  I sat up with a groan. “She had a nightmare.”

  “Oh no.” Meredith stroked Christine’s face. “Is that right? Did you have a bad dream, honey?” Christine nodded seriously. “Well, everything’s all right now. Daddy kept you safe, didn’t he?”

  She nodded again, though it seemed to me with less certainty. I slowly got to my feet, as Meredith bounced Christine in her arms.

  “Silly Daddy,” she said, keeping her voice light, while giving me a thoughtful look. “He didn’t even have a pillow.”

  The next night I slept in Christine’s room again, with pillows and a blanket, and the night after that. By the end of the week, I’d installed a cheap air mattress on the floor.

  “Do you think it’s good for her?” Meredith asked over Sunday breakfast. I watched Christine eat a diced-up pancake with her hands, ready to intervene at the first sign of choking.

  “It makes me feel better,” I said.

  “But she’s been sleeping so well on her own.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but I have concerns.”

  “What kind of concerns?”

  “Things happen.”

  Meredith sighed. “Nothing’s going to happen, Felix.”

  When we’d first started dating, she’d gone on at length about the children she’d seen in her time in emergency medicine. Kids with drain cleaner in their bellies and missing fingers; mortally injured babies hemorrhaging on gurneys. At the time, she’d maintained that nearly every one of those incidents could have been prevented with a little more adult supervision, but now that Christine was the one at risk, Meredith was strangely cavalier about it all.

  “I just think we need to back off a little,” she said. “Give her some room to grow.”

  I put down my utensils, no longer hungry. “In daycare, you mean.”

  She’d been talking about enrolling Christine in daycare ever since her maternity leave had expired, in spite of my objections. “Well, yes,” she said. “Don’t you think it would be good for her to be around other kids?”

  “She can do that at a playground.”

  Meredith snorted, then raised a hand. “Sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s just … when have you ever taken her to a playground?”

  I glanced over at Christine in her booster seat, wondering how much of this she was taking in. She’d eaten half a pancake and was making swirling patterns in the syrup with her fingers. “Have some eggs, sweetie,” I said, and she made a face at me. I’d been cooking more since Meredith had gone back to work: wholesome, balanced meals. I kept the house clean and small objects out of reach. I’d bolted the bookshelves to the walls and stuffed the electrical outlets with protective plugs. I’d rigged the cupboards and doorknobs with childproof devices and installed baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. I literally never let Christine out of my sight. No daycare in the world could have kept her half as safe as I could keep her.

  “She doesn’t need that,” I said, as Meredith filled a sippy cup with orange juice.

  “What?”

  “The juice. It’s bad for her teeth.”

  “It has vitamins.”

  “It’s loaded with sugar.”

  Meredith put the sippy cup down, looking amused.

  “Anyway,” I said. “It’s too late for daycare. They fill up months in advance.”

  “That’s true. But there’s a place not far from the hospital. Olivia—the new intern I’ve been telling you about?—she knows the owner. She told me they can make room for Christine. They’re holding a spot.”

  “When did you find this out?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

  “I don’t know. Sometime last week.”

  “I want deuce,” Christine said quietly.

  Meredith stroked her head. “I know you want juice, baby.”

  “Last week? When did you plan on telling me?”

  “I’m telling you now. We should at least think about it. They have a really good reputation.”

  “I want deuce!” Christine said more loudly.

  “It sounds expensive,” I said, nudging the milk I’d given Christine a bit closer.

  “It’s actually quite reasonable.”

  Christine glowered at me. “I. Want. Deuce!”

  I grabbed the juice and slammed it onto her tray.

  “Settle down,” Meredith said.

  “It’s all she ever drinks,” I snapped, wanting to carry Christine to the nursery, close the door, and wall it off with heavy furniture.

  Meredith regarded me sternly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just have a bad feeling about all this.”

  “Why?”

  Before I could answer, Christine tossed her sippy cup onto the floor. “All done,” she announced.

  “Are you sure?” I said. “You didn’t touch your eggs.”

  “No like.”

  “Baby, it’s important.”

  “No like!” She hit her plate with both hands. Scrambled eggs and half-eaten pancakes flew everywhere. I gave her a look and she started to cry. I tried to unstrap her from her booster seat, feeling Meredith watching me.

  “Owie!” Christine yelled.

  Her leg was caught. I jerked it loose.

  “Owiiiiiiie!”

  “It’s just ketchup,” I muttered.

  “I want Mama!”

  “Daddy’s got you,” I said.

  “I want mama!”

  Meredith was standing beside me with open hands. I tried to settle Christine for another second, before handing her over, more roughly than I meant to.

  “Daddy hurt me,” she moaned.

  “No,” I said. “Daddy was trying to help you.”

  “Come on.” Meredith said, carrying her away from the table. “Let’s get you washed up.”

  They left the room and I heard the tub start running. Soon Christine was happily splashing in the water. I stayed at the table, looking at my half-eaten breakfast, as bells started to ring in the church down the road. I’d never been religious, but felt briefly compelled to obey the call, surrendering to an authoritative stranger who would tell me what to believe, what to do.

  “Can you come in here for a second?” Meredith called.

  I looked in the bathroom.

  “I need to get some towels from the basement. Would you mind sitting with her for a minute?”

  “I can get the towels.”

  “I want you to sit with her,” she said, with a meaningful look.

  I sighed and changed places with Meredith, regret flooding me as I watched Christine play in the bubbles, a plastic animal in each hand. She lifted one to her mouth.

  “No,” I said gently, and she gave me a surprised look. “Not in your mouth, sweetie. Dangerous.”

  She reached for a toy boat on the edge of the tub. I pictured her slipping and hitting her head, her submerged, lifeless body staring up at the ceiling, her fine hair undulating around her face.

  “Careful.” I reached down to steady her.

  She snatched the boat, looking as annoyed as a one-and-a-half-year-old can look.

  I noticed Meredith’s hair dryer on the counter (unplugged, far from the tub) and tucked it into a drawer. “There,” I said. “Daddy’s watching. Daddy’s not going to let anything bad happen.”

  A few days later, I took Christine to the playground: hovering beside her, snatching rocks out of her hands, and scanning the grass for sharp objects. “They can hurt you,” I explained to Christine. “These things can hurt you.” Another group of children showed up, and I subtly discouraged her from playing with them. When a boy with scabbed knees started talking to her, I swooped in
to remove her from the interaction, loudly reminding her about a fictional appointment we were late for while she flailed in my arms and screamed, “I wanna stay!”

  Back at the house, she immediately began climbing the furniture, using the knobs on her dresser like grips on a climbing wall. I pulled her down and took off the knobs with a screwdriver. At lunch time, I cut her food into smaller and smaller pieces. Still envisioning her choking, I pureed them in the blender.

  “No like!” she wailed when I presented her with the mash. “No liiiiiike!”

  “It’s the same!” I yelled back. “It’s exactly the same food!”

  When Meredith came back from work, an uneasy calm reigned in the house, me assuring her that everything had gone fine, while Christine sulked, unable to articulate the battles we’d fought throughout the day. That night as I lay beside Christine’s crib, watching her sleeping face, I kept returning to the vision I’d had of a future without her. I wanted to believe it had all been in my mind, a projection of my own dark fears, but it just felt true. If I was to have any hope of saving her, I needed more information—a time, a place, some broader context—and that was going to mean another trip to the future. I was running out of time. Back-to-school flyers had started showing up in the mailbox. Meredith had purchased a miniature pink backpack and a tiny pair of running shoes. Daycare was happening, no matter how I felt about it, and that meant the potential threats to Christine were about to increase exponentially.

  The next morning, I was in the TV room watching cartoons with Christine, when Meredith came out of the bedroom. “Did you take your meds yet?”

  “Hm?” I said after a moment, still watching the screen.

  “Your meds.”

  “No. Not yet.” I usually took my medication after breakfast, but hadn’t made it beyond the couch that morning. I got up and went into the bathroom, leaving Christine with Meredith. The peppy theme song from Dora the Explorer bled through the door, making me want to cry. I took down the pill caddy and opened the door for the day. Three pills were waiting for me: a pentagon, a circle and a lozenge. I picked them up and weighed them in my hand for a moment, before tossing them into the toilet, where they sank to the bottom like little capsized boats. Then I flushed them down.