Wingspan

by Karis Walsh

  Just breakfast, just an hour or two away from home. Why stop there? Why not stay away a week or a month, since Ken and Dani seemed determined to convince her she wasn’t necessary? Bailey knew it wasn’t true. Young people like Dani were interested in saving the world, giving their unbounded time and energy to a cause like wildlife rehabilitation, but how many of them stuck around for the long term? Too damned few, as exhausted people like Bailey and Sue proved. Eventually, Dani would move on to a new project. Ken would finish her designs and move on to a new job. The raptors, with their injured wings and wounded spirits, would still be there, needing her.

  Bailey had been caught up in the temporary and insubstantial promise of the day. She liked Ken’s company, saw Ken’s interest in the world around her and her joy as she started to identify and recognize patterns in sound and shape. But Bailey wanted the stability and constancy of her solitary life. WSU’s interns and architects and researchers would come and go, but the core of her center—the birds of prey—would remain.

  She was agitated suddenly, as anxious to get home as she had been before the phone call. Maybe more so. She was sure the cages were securely locked and the birds were fed, but she needed to be back in her world. She increased her pace just as Ken stopped to stare at a broken tree trunk. Bailey squinted at the ordinary-looking sight as she tried to figure out why Ken seemed so entranced. The deep crevices in the Douglas fir’s trunk were filled with moss and tiers of flattish oyster mushrooms. The decaying log had broken in two places when it fell against the hillside, giving it a step effect as its three sections followed the contour of the ground. Interesting, and useful in an ecological sense, but hardly noteworthy. Ken must be looking at something Bailey couldn’t see.

  The morning drizzle had turned into a light rain. Bailey heard the drops falling, but the dense canopy above them kept the moisture from reaching the ground, and it remained dry under the cathedral ceiling of the forest. She heard the guttural cry of a raven in the distance.

  “What is it? Do you see a bird?” Bailey asked. She shifted impatiently.

  Ken shook her head, looking at Bailey as if she’d forgotten she was there. “No, just…do you have a pencil and paper?”

  “In the car,” Bailey said. Ken started walking toward the parking lot with more purpose now, and Bailey hurried to keep up with her long strides. She wanted to ask more questions, to figure out what had changed Ken’s mood and made her seem so distant, but she remained silent. She thought about the time, earlier in the spring, when she had been struggling to come up with a way to help a hawk with a stubborn break in its leg. Her traditional splinting methods had failed, and she was about to accept the raptor’s life sentence with a crippled leg, when she had stood in the grocery store and looked at the corkscrew-shaped pasta. The vision of a twisted splint was so clear in her mind, she had needed to drop her basket of groceries and run out of the store, unable to talk to anyone in case her inspiration disappeared before she had a chance to capture her design on paper. Ken had the same single-minded, inward-looking focus Bailey had felt then. She didn’t want to interfere with Ken’s vision, so she kept quiet. Besides, at least they were speeding toward the car now.

  Once they reached the parking lot—where most of the spaces had filled with cars as tourists came to see the refuge and walk the spit—she hurried over to her car and dug a stubby pencil and piece of paper out of her glove compartment. Ken accepted them with a quick thank you before she sat on the Honda’s scratched-up bumper and started to draw. Bailey began loading the equipment Mike had left in a neat pile next to her trunk. No matter how many times she carried the exact same equipment, it always took her several tries to get everything arranged neatly enough so her trunk lid and car doors would close. She had just replaced the first-aid kit in her trunk when Ken stood up and stretched her back.

  “Thanks for this,” Ken said. She handed the pencil to Bailey and took the pole out of her hand, sliding it through the still-open window. Ken felt her previous sense of lightness fading away, as if the kingfisher’s release had given her a flash of inspiration on temporary loan. “Do you mind if I keep the scratch paper?”

  “Well, sort of,” Bailey said. “It’s my car’s registration.”

  Ken flipped over the green-tinted paper she had used for her sketch. Sure enough, Bailey’s signature was scrawled across the bottom. “Oh, sorry. I guess you’ll need this back, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not important.”

  Bailey took the registration from her. Ken fought her urge to keep hold of the paper, not because she wanted to keep the drawing but because she didn’t want Bailey to do exactly what she did. Turn it over and look at Ken’s sketch.

  “Oh. What a beautiful home.”

  “I’m capable of doing more than drawing squares,” Ken said. She heard the defensive tone in her voice, brought out by the obvious surprise in Bailey’s. The house Ken had drawn was no more likely to be made real than her fanciful Muse houses, so she didn’t know why she felt the need to reaffirm her skills. She had sketched the design because it was in her head and needed to get out, not as a way to prove her worth to Bailey or anybody else.

  “I’m sorry for criticizing your work like I did the other day,” Bailey said. “You are obviously very talented.”

  Ken shook her head. She wasn’t being modest, but she didn’t want to hear Bailey’s compliments. For some reason they hurt more than the criticism had, but Ken wasn’t sure why.

  “Really, you are,” Bailey said. She waved the drawing toward Ken. “This looks like something you’d see in a magazine or a book on famous architects. It’s not for my annex since my property is flat. Is it for another one of your clients?”

  “No. I was picturing it on my property,” Ken admitted. Three levels, joined by interior staircases and draped over the contours of her land with a natural, low profile. A kitchen and living area on the lowest level, her master bedroom on the second. The third level—with the highest elevation and the best view and light—would be devoted to her drafting table and weight room. A private, grounding place.

  “I can picture you living here,” Bailey said. “Entertaining clients and guests. What a way to showcase your designs.”

  Exactly what Ken didn’t want. She’d file the image away in her mind, and maybe she’d be able to use it with an Impetus client someday. She’d build something more basic for herself. “About breakfast—”

  “I really should get home,” Bailey said before she could finish.

  Ken got in the car and fastened her seat belt, glad to be only a short drive from privacy. She needed time alone, to work out or jog until she was exhausted and had forgotten the thrill of her imagined walk through the staggered house she had designed. The distance between vision and reality was too great to overcome. The beauty of her design wasn’t strong enough to withstand the transition to wood and stone. Or maybe she was the one who wasn’t strong enough.

  “I know I said I was going to shadow you all day, but I’ve had plenty of chances to see you work. I should spend the afternoon developing some of my ideas for your annex.” She was lying. She still didn’t have anything besides a big square in her mind. Well, maybe a rectangle. But Bailey sounded as relieved as Ken to be heading their separate ways.

  “Will you do me one favor?” Bailey asked as she backed out of her parking place.

  “Of course,” Ken promised, surprised by her lack of hesitation when all she had wanted moments before was to be away from Bailey.

  “If you build the tree trunk house, will you add more panes to the windows? You’ll still get plenty of light, but birds will be less likely to fly into them than big picture windows.”

  Ken took the paper and pencil off the center console where Bailey had put them, and she drew crisscrossed panes on the windows.

  “Better?” she asked, holding up the revised sketch for Bailey’s approval.

  “Whew, yes. Thank you.”

  Ken had to laugh at the obvious relief in Bailey’s voice.
Even in the fantasy world, the welfare of the birds came first.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bailey tucked her hands under her thighs and rocked slightly as she sat on a stool next to the examination table and watched Dani clean the wounds on the hawk’s belly. She wanted to wrest the bird away from Dani and take care of it herself, but she increased the pressure on her hands in an effort to keep them still.

  The small sharp-shinned hawk had been dropped off at the clinic the day before—dumped unceremoniously out of a pet carrier and onto Bailey’s living-room floor. It had gotten mauled by a cat while hunting sparrows and chickadees in the woman’s backyard, and she warned Bailey not to release it anywhere near her home once it was healed. She had refused to fill out any forms and had sped away, leaving Bailey and Dani to chase after the hawk with long-handled nets while it swooped and shrieked through the house. Bailey was glad she didn’t have any close neighbors because the screaming sharp-shin gave an uncanny impression of someone being murdered in a slow and painful way. They eventually cornered the hawk, and Bailey had given Dani her first lesson in how to restrain a raptor and assess its injuries. She hadn’t let Dani actually touch the bird yesterday, but she had finally given in to Dani’s long-winded pleas and reasoning and was letting her treat it today.

  The cat seemed to have done little besides carry the hawk around like an undignified chew toy, and it had nasty gouges near the wrist on one wing and on the tender skin of the other armpit. It would require only a short stay at the clinic while they watched for any signs of infection and cleaned the wounds, so the hawk was an ideal first patient for Dani. It was small enough to immobilize easily, but feisty enough to provide a challenge. Still, Bailey thought she might need to sedate herself if she wanted to let Dani finish the job.

  Since her trip to Dungeness with Ken over the weekend, Bailey had been in a near-constant struggle with herself to give Dani more responsibilities. She had witnessed Ken’s open elation as she had released the kingfisher, and Bailey had felt a corresponding sense of gratitude as she shared what was usually a private experience. And a lonely one, as she usually trekked back home after a release with an empty carrier in her hands and a swirl of accompanying emotions in her heart. Dani had worked hard at every menial task Bailey had tossed her way, and she was eager to learn. Bailey’s fight was with Dean Carrington, not Dani, and Bailey had come to realize she not only had the responsibility to share her knowledge with Dani, but she—surprisingly—wanted to.

  But Bailey’s long-held desire to be self-sufficient and isolated at the clinic was proving difficult to change. She wavered between a frustrated urge to take over and do every job in her own way and a wave of sadness every time she saw Dani master a new skill. Bailey didn’t want to teach herself into redundancy. Sometimes, the only reason she didn’t send Dani away from the clinic for good was the vision of the new flight cages she wanted Ken to design for her.

  After Ken had left last Saturday, Bailey had slowly unpacked her car, making more trips than necessary as she went through the tiring ritual of returning every piece of equipment to its rightful place. She had been about to put her registration back into the glove compartment when she turned it over for another look at Ken’s design. She had sat in the driver’s seat for a long time while she marveled at the way Ken had taken a broken-down, decaying tree trunk and had transformed the image into this organic and inviting home. Bailey had thought about a meadow she had found several years earlier, deep in the Olympic rain forest. It was her idea of heaven, complete with birds and the fresh scent of the lush vegetation. What might Ken be able to create if she saw it? Bailey wasn’t able to describe the place in words or by drawing a picture, but she could take Ken straight to the actual spot and show her, as long as Bailey was confident in Dani’s ability to run the center for a whole day. The imagined vision of her new flight cages, replicas of her meadow, made it necessary for her to let Dani take on more responsibility in the clinic, but it wasn’t enough to keep Bailey from caring about her birds.

  “Be careful not to use too much pressure with the swab,” she said, leaning to one side as she tried to peer around Dani’s arm. “You don’t want to open the wound again.”

  “All right,” Dani said in her unperturbed voice. Bailey had given the same instruction at least twice already. She wasn’t sure if she was more impressed by Dani’s natural knack with the hawk, or by her admirable restraint.

  “Do you feel any heat on the skin around the cuts? Are you seeing any pus?”

  “No. No signs of infection.” Dani recapped the antibiotic cream and looked at Bailey. “Done. Do you want to look him over before I put him back?”

  “Yes. No, I’m sure you did fine,” Bailey said, taking her hands out from under her thighs and clasping them together between her legs. She had been watching Dani’s work from only two feet away, and she knew the hawk was in good hands. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to double-check, since it’s your first time doing this.”

  She got off the stool and went over to the table, stifling her sigh of relief when she finally was able to run her hand over the bird’s feathers and inspect his treated wounds.

  “Good job,” she said. She was about to pick up the hawk and carry him back to his temporary home in the recovery room, but she stopped herself. “He can go back now.” She stepped back and let Dani take him.

  Bailey didn’t follow her into the recovery room but instead occupied herself by cleaning up the examination table and stowing the few supplies Dani had used back on the closet shelf. Even without the prospect of a hiking trip with Ken, Bailey had to make better use of her intern, both for her own sake and for Dani’s. Logically, she knew the more experience Dani had with these easy cases, the more she’d learn. And the more she learned, the more help she’d be at the clinic. Dani was devoting too much time and energy to the raptor center to simply wash blankets and feeding bowls.

  She’d need to entrust Dani with every aspect of the birds’ care. Treating wounds, feeding, cleaning, providing emergency care if any new patients arrived. Bailey hadn’t been off the property for more than a few hours at a shot in over a year, and every time she thought about calling Ken to invite her on the hike to the meadow, she managed to find some reason to put it off another day. She wasn’t sure whether she was more nervous about leaving the clinic, or about being in close quarters with Ken on the long drive and in the secluded woods. She was too interested in Ken, wanting to know more about her and how she maintained such a calm demeanor when her eyes looked as wild as a bird soaring on an ocean breeze. Bailey didn’t want Ken to leave her alone, but her very desire to be around someone so enigmatic as Ken meant trouble.

  “I’ll get back to the papers I was filing,” Dani said when she returned to the room.

  “Later,” Bailey said. Her phone buzzed and she paused with her finger over the call button. Ken. “First, we need to catch the redtail for a checkup. I think one of the wounds from the BBs might have reopened. Be sure to bring the heavy gloves, and I’ll meet you outside.”

  “Hello?” Bailey left Dani in the examination room and walked down the hall and toward the kitchen as she answered her phone.

  “How’s my injured bird rescuer?” Ken asked.

  Bailey smiled as she rubbed the frayed edges of the butterfly bandage that covered her healing wound. Ken’s voice became a tangible thing, and Bailey inhaled at the remembered friction of Ken’s fingertips brushing against her palm.

  “I’m fine, thanks. You can barely see where I got cut.” There wouldn’t be a physical scar to remind her of their day together, but Bailey didn’t need one. Every detail—from the whisper of the released kingfisher’s wings to the synchronized crunch of shoes on pine needles as she and Ken had walked side-by-side—was clear in her mind.

  “I’m glad,” Ken said. “Don’t forget, I still owe you a breakfast.”

  “Yes, you do.” Bailey should be suggesting they combine her hiking idea with the breakfast, not hoping for two separ
ate outings with Ken. Somehow, though, Ken’s voice made her innocent sentence conjure up sensations of whispered words and tousled sheets, and Bailey was ready to trade her hike for breakfast in bed.

  “Any chance you’d accept lunch instead?” Ken asked. “Tomorrow afternoon?”

  Lunch in bed? Even better. “I’d love to. Dani can bird-sit.”

  Ken laughed, and Bailey felt herself smiling in response. They had left Dungeness with an air of tension between them, but it seemed to have dissipated.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at eleven and drive us to Poulsbo. My boss will meet us at Vonda’s house.”

  “Oh, well…” Bailey struggled to catch up with the conversation, but the jump from breakfast in bed with Ken to lunch with Vonda was too huge. “I, um…”

  “Does eleven work? I’m sure I can change the time if it’s inconvenient for you.”

  “Yes, I mean, no. Eleven is fine.”

  Ken disconnected after a breezy good-bye, and Bailey leaned against the kitchen counter and stared out the window to where Dani was pulling the catch-up nets out of a small shed. Bailey realized she hadn’t mentioned her idea of hiking to the meadow, but she’d bring it up tomorrow. Who knew, maybe Ken would invite Dean Carrington along for that excursion. Bailey exhaled and let go of her foolish thoughts of romance. Tomorrow’s lunch would be business. Yet another battle in the war for control over her sanctuary. She went out the back door and walked across the lawn toward the flight cages.

  *

  Ken tucked her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and picked up a mechanical pencil. The cold metal felt oddly unfamiliar in her hand although she had used the same brand for years. She stood at her upright drafting table with one ankle crossed over the other and stared out the tiny window of her second-story apartment at the uninspiring view of the back of a Safeway.