The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  She backed out slowly, pulling the door all the way shut, and ran to her room as quietly as she could. One more night in it, one more night before Hugh’s apartment was livable.

  Maybe, if she stayed flat on her back and faced the ceiling all night, maybe then she wouldn’t risk smelling him in the sheets. Maybe then she could keep herself from falling apart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ‘I need a job.’

  In the small white room which passed for the sheriff’s office, Colin McMurtry looked more amused than anything else. Nate kind of felt like wiping the smirk off his face. Screw the fact that they were friends.

  ‘What about the bar?’

  ‘I quit.’

  ‘You quit?’ The tone of the sheriff’s voice implied he knew the difference between quitting and getting fired, and he knew which one had happened to Nate.

  ‘Whatever. Yeah. I’m out of that place. I can’t work for her.’

  ‘Who?’ Colin was acting dumb, something Nate couldn’t stand anyone doing, let alone one of his best friends.

  ‘Shut it. Just tell me how I start.’

  Colin laughed and sat behind the big wooden desk which took up most of the small space. He pointed at the red plastic chair on the other side of it. ‘Sit down. I won’t bust your ass anymore. What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Nate bent his neck sideways in a stretch. He’d stayed on Dixie’s tiny couch last night, and there was no sleeping platform more uncomfortable in the whole wide world, he’d bet. He just hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of staying (hiding, really) on the Golden Spike property. Not for a minute longer. ‘It’s just, I’ve got – I guess I’ve got basically nothing left.’ The admission surprised him as much as it hurt.

  Kindness flickered in Colin’s eyes. ‘The bar?’

  ‘Is hers. Theirs. Definitely not mine.’

  ‘So you quit.’

  It was kind of him to say that. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Are you even listening to me? That’s why I’m here. I need a job.’

  ‘Nate –’

  ‘Don’t tell me I’m not qualified. I have a bachelor’s degree in social work, which is about four more years’ education than any of your other deputies have.’

  ‘You want to be a deputy? I thought you meant, like, a clerk or something.’

  Nate settled his feet firmly on the floor. ‘Why the surprise?’

  ‘It’s just –’

  ‘It’s a good job. Probably pays a lot more than bartending, if John Sinclair’s new house means anything.’

  ‘His mother owns the lumber mill.’

  ‘Still.’

  ‘Nate.’

  Nate closed his eyes and drew air in through his nose. Soon this part would be over and he could just move forward with his life.

  His Adele-free life.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is not the job for you.’

  ‘How would you know that?’

  ‘I know.’ Colin leaned forward and picked up a pen. Without looking down, he doodled small, perfect squares on his calendar blotter. ‘Look, you think you want to help people.’

  Nate felt his cheeks heat as he watched the small squares, as if hypnotised.

  He wouldn’t have said it out loud, not just like that, not to Colin, but yeah. If he couldn’t take care of people at the bar, he’d damn well take care of them some other way. Being a police officer would let him do it, right? Helping old ladies cross the street (and there were a lot of old ladies in Darling Bay), occasionally saving a woman’s life from a shithead who wanted to hurt her. That would be just fine. He imagined a scowling scumbag towering over Adele in the bar, and anger lit the fuse that seemed to be perma-curled at the base of his neck. Adele should take a self-defence class if she was going to be at the bar late. Samantha Rowe taught some ass-kicking ones. Nate had never had a gun behind the bar, but maybe he should get her one. Tell her it was Hugh’s. Make her learn to use it.

  As if she would even talk to him.

  ‘I do want to help people.’ Yeah, it sounded cheesy said aloud, too.

  ‘Definitely not the right job for you, then.’

  ‘Damn it, man, stop messing with me.’ Nate’s temper was frayed and getting thinner by the second. The knot in his throat wasn’t helping anything.

  Colin drew a circle and then another one, connecting them with an arrow before he responded. ‘You want my job, then?’

  ‘Okay, any job. Put me on the desk. How about meter maid? Put me in one of those three-wheeled car things, I’ll write tickets all day until you promote me to officer.’

  ‘Go be a firefighter.’

  Nate gave a hollow laugh. ‘And run into burning buildings? I may want to help people but I’m not crazy.’

  ‘Police don’t help people.’

  ‘Come off it. I’m serious.’ Nate’s annoyance meter crept into the red again.

  And so, it seemed, did Colin’s. He flung the pen to the right, not even blinking when it hit the wall. ‘You know how much I hate this job sometimes?’

  Nate folded his arms over his chest. ‘You can’t tell me you don’t help people.’

  ‘Sure I do. Sometimes. Most of the time, though, I’m just reacting to something that I can’t do a damn thing about. I’m trying to protect a little boy from his grandma who verbally abuses him so bad he’s going to need therapy by eighteen. Old people, living in filth, refusing all offers of help.’ His knuckles went white on the pen. ‘Or I’m going out yet again to the home of a woman who keeps bringing the guy who beats her back inside. Those guys kill their women eventually, or they smother their spirits forever. And the women don’t listen.’ Colin gave a heavy sigh that made him sound older than his mid-thirties.

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘You can what?’

  ‘Make them listen. Keep them from going back to the bad guys.’

  Colin snorted. ‘You don’t actually believe that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘How did talking your mom out of drinking go?’

  Nate narrowed his eyes. ‘Low blow, you ass. Alcoholism is a disease.’

  ‘It’s exactly the same. It’s you wanting a different outcome for someone else.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ Colin sounded honestly shocked. ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’

  Nate felt his neck get hotter. ‘I can be talked down to at most other places in this town, you know.’

  Colin leaned forward. ‘You can’t change anyone.’

  Nate took off his ball cap. He punched into it, as if it were a baseball mitt he was breaking in. ‘I know.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You really thought you could save your mom, I knew that. I thought she was your blind spot. But seems like she was just a symptom, huh? For a greater problem.’ Colin nodded in what seemed like satisfaction. ‘And that’s why you stay at the bar. I finally get it. But you have to listen to me: you can’t change one damn person. Ever. All you can do is be there to help pick up the pieces sometimes. That’s about the best we get in this life. It turns out I like picking up those pieces, and I like tossing assholes who break things – and people – into jail and watching them wish they could change what they did. Occasionally I hear an apology that matters, that means something. But besides that, we just have to let people do what they want to do.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ Nate resisted the urge to kick the waste basket next to the door. He shoved his hat back onto his head.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘If you believe that, then why would you try to change my mind on the topic?’

  Colin had the grace to look surprised. ‘Guess you’re right. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ lied Nate. ‘I’ll see you around.’ He turned, hitting his elbow on the doorframe in his haste. From the front office he heard Sweetie Swensen say something to someone about a warrant. Somewhere a window slammed shut.

  �
��Hey, Nate.’ The sheriff’s voice rose behind him. ‘Your degree. Go see Peggy at APS.’

  Nate just wanted out. ‘What?’

  ‘Peggy Simon. She works for the city. Runs our Adult Protective Services.’

  Surprise was a dull thud. ‘We have that? In Darling Bay? We need that?’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  Nate took a moment and mentally collated the elderly he personally kept an eye on. There had to be ten of them. Maybe eleven.

  Colin shook his head. ‘You’re not taking care of all of them, buddy. It might feel like you are, but you’re not. You’re barely scraping the surface. There are plenty of elderly who can’t get out of their houses even to get into their gardens, let alone make it to the bar to socialise. Go talk to Peggy. Tell her I sent you.’

  ‘Fine.’ If moods could be seen, his would be blacker than sin, with dark red anger radiating at the edges. But Colin was trying, Nate could tell. ‘Thanks. I guess.’

  ‘And remember. You can’t save anyone. Not even her.’

  Everyone. He could at least try to save everyone. And he refused to admit that he knew who Colin was talking about. Because he wasn’t thinking about Adele. Not for one second.

  ‘No one,’ reiterated Colin. ‘No matter how pretty she is or how blue her eyes are. You can help ’em, sure. If they want it, and if they’re willing to accept your help. But that’s it.’

  The starkness of it was terrifying, and Nate hated it. Hell if he’d show Colin that, though. ‘You’re a pain in the ass. And you’re wrong.’

  ‘Just think about it.’

  ‘Screw you.’

  Colin laughed. ‘Yeah. Well. What are friends for?’

  Nate, walking out into the sunshine in front of the police department, was so irritated it felt like he could pull his own skin off. The saloon had been the only place he’d ever imagined himself helping people. He’d found his way there, and he hadn’t planned on leaving it. He hadn’t ever thought about where he would go, what he would do without the bar, without the patrons he took care of.

  But maybe Colin was right, maybe there was a place in the world he could do more. A place he could do better.

  The image of Adele’s face, bright with laughter and hope, filled his mind.

  Maybe he’d hidden behind that swinging half-door for too long.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Adele spent the morning fixing the porch swing in front of room one. It was a minor job, handled by an hour’s worth of work, the use of Uncle Hugh’s toolbox, and thirty bucks spent at the hardware store. When the swing’s chains were rehung into a beam that looked ten times more solid that the one it had thunked out of, she was covered in sweat and had regained the smallest feeling of control.

  She sat, dialled her sister, and promptly lost that feeling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t hang up.’

  Adele could hear the groan that Molly stifled. ‘I don’t have time for this.’

  ‘You’re on a cruise ship. You have time.’

  ‘They have time. The customers have time. I have a job. Something you forget, constantly.’

  She did. Nerves swam in the pit of her stomach, and her mouth went dry. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know. You always say that.’

  ‘And it’s not enough.’

  ‘Seriously, Adele, I do not have the bandwidth for this today.’

  Adele kicked her legs too hard and the swing gave a massive groan. Wind riffled the edges of the rose petals, stripping some into the air. Fall was almost here. ‘You were right. You were always right.’

  Molly’s voice was guarded. ‘What?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have made us go up onstage that night. I shouldn’t have finished singing. I shouldn’t have apologised to the crowd.’

  ‘Adele –’

  ‘Your reaction was the right one.’

  ‘I fainted. I hit my head and came up bleeding. It was not a good reaction.’

  ‘And I kept singing.’

  ‘You’ve apologised before. I know you’re sorry.’

  ‘I was sorry for the wrong thing. I said I was sorry it happened. I was sorry that we didn’t finish the tour. That you hit your head. But I never said you were right. And that I was wrong, and I’m sorry that I thought I knew better than both of you. I can’t imagine how painful that was.’

  There was a pause, full and heavy. Adele held her breath.

  ‘I – yeah, it was painful.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Adele again. She’d keep saying it. She’d keep meaning it.

  ‘I thought you’d never figure out why we were so hurt. We needed to be alone. Together, the three of us. Instead you put us in front of the whole world.’

  ‘I don’t know why it took me so long.’

  ‘Well. Damn.’ Molly sounded exhausted. ‘It was a long time ago. We’ve all moved on.’

  ‘That’s the problem.’ The words felt jagged. ‘Moving on is good. It’s what we needed to do. But I miss my sisters.’

  Another long pause. ‘Well …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I’m about to get fired.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The cruise line changed hands. Rumour is they’re letting everyone go and picking up new crew in Indonesia.’

  Hope beat frantically inside Adele’s chest. The biggest, yellowest rose nodded in the wind in front of her. ‘Fly home.’

  ‘Adele.’

  ‘Please.’

  Everything hung on the space between them, the line pulled so tight it almost felt like a cord. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Oh, God. Yes. Please think about it.’ It would do for now.

  ‘How’s the bartender?’

  The words tumbled out in a jumble, with small plastic clicks, like the Sorry! pieces made against each other on the game board. ‘I’m in love with him.’ She touched the blue piece, the broken one, that she put in her pocket every day.

  ‘Oh, honey.’

  ‘And I hurt him really badly.’ She’d taken his bar away.

  ‘Well, did he hurt you?’

  The question surprised her. ‘Yes.’ He’d thought so little of her that he’d hoped a roll in the hay would be part of a business transaction.

  ‘So apologise. Move on.’

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  Molly’s voice was so soft Adele could almost not hear her. ‘Sometimes it is. It can be. Just accept him.’ Like you should have done with us.

  Adele cleared her throat, suddenly thick with emotion. ‘Do you have Lana’s address?’

  ‘Um.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘She told me not to give it to you.’

  ‘I promise you I won’t hound her. I just found something here I want to send her.’ She touched the Sorry! piece. Dot Rillo would have wrapping paper at the post office.

  What was Nate doing? How had the man gotten so firmly into her blood that he felt like a need, as essential as water or air?

  She shook her head. First things first. She would take the photo she’d found to the art supply store, see if they could blow it up. Rush order. She’d buy a frame for the picture, and then she’d hang it where all could see.

  She’d buy wrapping paper for the Sorry! piece. She would focus on that. She’d only need a little bit of a paper, and an envelope.

  And a whole lot of hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Adele had been worried Dixie would be hard to find but it turned out there was only one mobile home park in Darling Bay. All she had to do was ask Dot Rillo at the post office, and she had her fill of not only directions, but a whole litany of what the postal worker thought about Dixie. ‘You know, she’s not a local. Not like you are, dear. But she’s just fine, in spite of that. In the Christmas town pageant last year, she played a sheep for all she was worth. She had the best baaaas of anyone.’

  Adele and her sisters had spent at least four or five Christmases in town when they were young. ‘Isn�
�t that a kid’s part?’

  Dot looked at her in surprise. ‘The children need a good role model, of course. How else would they know how to be a sheep?’

  ‘Okay then.’ Adele waved the map Dot had drawn on a change-of-address form. ‘Thank you for this.’

  ‘Any time. Tell her I have a box from Amazon here and I think it feels like candles.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And tell her to order the bayberry-scented ones next time. I’m allergic to vanilla. It’s been making me sneeze.’

  At the mobile home park, sure enough, there was only one pink-and-silver trailer in the whole place. And instead of appearing tawdry, the place looked adorable. Two tall plastic flamingos were stuck into a potted palm, and wind chimes danced. In every window, bits of colour shone. The postmaster had mentioned Dixie was a stained-glass artist, and here was the evidence of that.

  Dixie popped out the door at the knock. ‘Madge, I told you – oh, crap.’ She gave a puny cough. ‘Sorry. Excuse me.’ She rubbed her throat and pulled at the front of her yellow banana-printed pajamas. ‘This cold, you know.’

  ‘You’re not in trouble.’

  Dixie came all the way out and stood with Adele on the small circle of fake green grass. ‘Are you sure?’

  Adele nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Because it wasn’t really …’ Dixie clammed up.

  ‘Your idea? I know. It was his. He’s why I’m here.’ Adele couldn’t quite bring herself to say his name. Nate.

  ‘Coffee?’ Dixie looked up at the sky. ‘Look at that. I’m up before noon.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say no.’

  ‘Sit.’ Dixie gestured to a pink plastic table with matching chairs under a palm frond awning. ‘I’ll be right out.’

  The coffee Dixie made was hot and strong. It reminded Adele of the coffee Molly made. They used to tease her about her coffee being able to strip paint and clean silver. The back of Adele’s throat ached. Maybe she was catching Dixie’s nonexistent cold.

  ‘So. What do you need to know?’

  Adele took another sip. ‘Great coffee.’