As we were eating, my father said, “What we’ll do is run three miles a day this week, then four next week and five the week after and so on. On the Saturday run of each week, I’d like to go a mile or two more than what we’ve been doing all week. I’ll take Sundays off to rest.”
He had eaten his meal fast and stood up to get seconds. He dished us each another plateful. His training plan made sense to me, but what I was really thinking about was what Mom had told me, and how I was going to tell him what I’d done. I’d like to forget about it, pretend it never happened, but he’d eventually discover it missing.
“What would you need to start doing pottery again?”
He looked at me sort of strange, as if trying to figure out what I was up to or why I’d suddenly taken such a big interest in his past. “A place to work and a potter’s wheel for starters. Hell, I’m not even sure I could do it anymore.”
“Maybe you could use the shed,” I said. The only things in there were the lawnmower, a couple of old doors, and a few other gardening tools and fertilizers. If we cleaned it out, he would probably have enough room to work.
“I don’t know, Julian,” he said. But I could tell by the far away look in his eyes that he was imagining what it would be like to work on his pottery again. He sort of laughed, like he’d just heard some private joke, and then smiled: “I did like it. Time slips away. You have a little something on the stereo. People talk about being in the zone. The rest of the world slips away and you become this thing you’re working on. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”
I knew what my father was talking about. Sometimes when I was cooking, I would lose track of time, of everything around me. I’d have three or four pots or pans going at once. The house would smell of garlic or onions or hot, searing meat. I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t imagine having a conversation with someone. It just felt right, then serving the food, arranging it on the plate, a sprinkle of this or that, maybe some parsley, some sauce. It was the kind of thing, a trance almost, I didn’t come out of until I sat down to eat. I assumed that was what he meant by being in the zone. I’d have to somehow get him back into doing what he’d once loved.
18
I woke the next morning at 5:14 and walked out onto the back porch. It wasn’t light yet, but not quite middle-of-the-night pitch black either. I’d left the cracked sparrow’s egg and the pot on the table yesterday. I picked the egg up now and let it roll around in my palm like a soft stone.
I wanted to go on over and check on the baby sparrows, see if I could find another egg shell. But it was too early to go over there, so I decided to go for a walk.
I didn’t normally go for walks in the morning. It seemed different than at night, being out here so early when most of my neighbors were sleeping. It made me feel like I was part of some select group of people who got to experience these precious, quiet moments before first light.
I spotted Lucy’s father sitting out on his front porch steps, in his pajamas, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. He waved and I waved back. A man jogged by, wearing bright orange running shorts.
When I looked up, I was surprised to see Old Lady Peters walking straight toward me. She was wearing her usual outfit of overalls and that big hat. She had Lucky on a red leash.
“Good morning, young man.”
“Hello,” I said. “Out walking?”
“Everyday at 5:30 sharp. You following me?”
“No.”
“Lighten up. I’m just kidding,” she said and smiled.
I had no idea she went for walks in the mornings.
“Let’s go if you’re coming with us.”
I followed her. Surprisingly, Lucky didn’t pull against the red leash, but was walking at a steady even pace, staring forward as if training for some kind of cat road race. I had never seen a cat walked with a leash before.
Once I was beside her, I noticed she kept reaching into the pocket of her overalls and pulling something out. It took me a few seconds to realize she was dropping a steady, thin line of birdseed along the sidewalk. I turned around and saw a few birds, cardinals and sparrows hopping around the sidewalk, eating the breakfast she offered them.
I didn’t quite know what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all. She seemed fine with this because she didn’t talk either. As we made it back to my street, I saw my father’s white truck backing out of the driveway and driving away. He was probably twenty-thirty yards away and heading in the opposite direction, so I didn’t think he could see us. I hoped he’d have a good day at work.
“You coming over for morning milk and cookies?”
“Sounds good.”
While she went inside to get the tea and milk and cookies, I changed the feeders and bath water. The sun was just starting to come up, that sweet moment between night and day. In a matter of minutes, birdsong doubled, triple, as if the rest of the birds were waking up.
Old Lady Peters walked out and set the tray on the table. “Hear that?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Most of the time I didn’t know what she was talking about.
“That owl.”
I listened closer and was able to block out the other sounds and heard an owl out there somewhere. It’s steady, whoo-whoo.
We sat at the table and listened to the owl, as if both of us knew by saying anything it would ruin the moment. And then as quickly as it had began, it stopped.
When I turned to Old Lady Peters, her eyes were closed. I assumed she’d fallen asleep. As it got lighter, I began to hear more and more birds, their songs bouncing off each other. I heard what I thought was a cardinal, its quick, clicking sound, like some kind of uneven Morse code. I looked up and found the cardinal above us in the dogwood.
A sparrow landed in the center of the table, followed by another. I held out two pieces of cookie and the birds walked over, seemed to look at each at the same time, as if to say I’m not so sure about this, then flew away.
“Be patient. They’ll do it eventually,” she said. “I got you this.” She was sitting up, holding a small book in her hand. She slid it across the table. Birds of North America by Roger Tory Peterson. It wasn’t a new book by any means—it was weathered and the top corner of the cover was ripped off. On the cover, there was a drawing of seven birds on a fence.
“I thought you might like a book on birds. Here is one of my first ones. You’ll be able to recognize many of the birds in the garden.”
Thumbing through it, I spotted a cardinal, a dove and a blue jay. Next to each drawing there was information on what the bird ate, where it was usually found and the average size. In the last few pages of the book someone had written in tiny black script, dates and places and bird names: 8-16-68 Lexington, KY (Warbling Vireo). I figured the dates must be from the first time she’d seen a particular type of bird.
I read a little about the northern cardinal, a bird I saw every day. I was tired now and would have liked to go back to bed, forget about school, and sleep the day away.
“Can we see the nest?” I asked.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
I carried the bucket over. “Ladies first,” she said.
After she looked, I climbed up on the bucket. The four babies looked about the same, little pink mouths. But they were starting to get a little fur. One of them lifted its bright yellow beak to me, stretched it wide and then lowered it. I wished I had something to give it, but what did I have to offer something as precious as a baby bird?
19
There was a letter for me in the mailbox when I got home from school the next day. My mother had sent me a couple postcards after she’d first moved to Florida and my grandparents sent me a Christmas card, but that was the sum total of mail addressed to me in the last six months.
But this time as I was about to drop the mail on the counter, I spotted my name in my mother’s sloppy script. She had the worst handwriting of anyone I’d ever met. I shook the envelope, not sure what
to expect. I tore it open. There was a picture of my mother and father sitting on a couch, holding a baby, which I assumed was me.
The picture was old and square and slightly discolored. My father had a thick beard and was wearing a pair of jeans and a paint-splattered T-shirt. His hair was longer than I ever remember it being. Mom was wearing shorts and a yellow shirt. They were sitting on an old brown couch I didn’t recognize. She had her head resting on my father’s shoulder and he was holding me in his arms. My father’s bare feet were on the coffee table in front of them. And there, in the center of the coffee table, was that damn pot I’d destroyed, like a reminder that I needed to tell him what I’d done.
When my father came home from work, I was finishing up dinner, lemon herb-crusted chicken with yellow rice. I looked over at my Rachael Ray cookbook. I’d left the photo Mom sent me on top of the book. I grabbed it and slid it in the cookbook before he made it to the kitchen. That was close.
Later, after we did his run and ate our dinner, my mother called. I answered on the first ring. “So did you like the picture?” she asked.
“Yes, Mom. Thanks.”
“What did he say?” she asked.
“That you were beautiful.”
She didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“Anything else new?”
“I saw a couple baby birds in their nest.”
“Oh yeah, where?”
I couldn’t tell her the truth. “One of my teachers found a nest and showed it to all of us.”
“Cool.”
“At first they were just these little pink things with dots for eyes. But they’re getting more feathers. Their eyes are open.”
“Well it’s getting late,” she said. “You’ve got school.”
“Is the writing going okay?” I was willing to talk about anything to keep her on the line. While I knew the picture she’d sent was to show me my father’s pottery, to me it had also showed us as a family, maybe from a time I couldn’t remember, but still it offered hope.
“Oh, Julian. I love writing but sometimes it’s about the hardest thing in the world. It’s like I need to do it even when I don’t want to, like my mind is constantly taking me back to this story I’m so damn sick of.”
And I knew writing wasn’t always easy for Mom. Most of the time when I came home from school and found her pounding away on her typewriter, she’d have a fire in her eyes, sometimes even a smile. But other times, I’d find her staring at the typewriter with something that could only be described as hate. I’d even seen her cussing at the empty white pages in front of her.
“I know it’s not easy but keep working. You’ll get it,” I said.
“Thank you, Julian. I love you. Have a good night.”
“Love you, Mom.” Then I heard the waves, the wind and imagined sand flying through the air. I wondered how birds could fly through all of that, wondered how my mother went back to the typewriter everyday, even on those days when it offered nothing in return.
20
While I hadn’t made it over early enough to walk with Old Lady Peters for a couple days, on Thursday I set my alarm so I could. At 5:30, I was sitting out on my front steps when Old Lady Peters walked out her front door.
She looked over to me. “You have your walking shoes on?”
“I believe so.”
“Let’s go.”
We walked without speaking for a good ten or fifteen minutes. As before, she pulled seed from her pocket and dropped it on the ground. When I looked behind us, birds were lining up to eat.
Two blocks from the house, we walked by Lindley Elementary. “You know I taught at that school for forty-two years. That’s why we bought the house, so I could walk to work.”
“Do you miss teaching?”
“Not really. Look up there.” She was pointing up at a tree. “A baby blue jay in the elm.”
I looked where she was pointing but saw nothing but limbs and leaves and the sun beginning to crack through it all. I looked again, harder, until I spotted the little spray of blue-purple in the branches. “Yeah, I see it.”
“Let’s play a game. Let’s count birds, or rather, we’ll have you count birds.”
As we circled the block I counted ten sparrows, three blue jays, a mockingbird, four doves, a pair of cardinals, and a pretty brown, orange and white bird she said was a towhee. She said it was part of the sparrow family but it looked bigger than any sparrow I’d ever seen. Walking with Old Lady Peters reminded me of walking with my mother. The way she didn’t seem rushed at all, just heading down the sidewalk, willing to talk or not talk.
Lucky’s pace was regular, steady, and he didn’t try to chase the birds that followed us, which surprised me because I’d seen him go after birds in her backyard. A couple days earlier, I’d seen him kill a tufted titmouse. Lucky was sitting on the back bench, under the butterfly bushes. As he stood up to stretch, with his paws on the back of the bench, the bird flew right at him. All Lucky had to do was lift his paws and catch the bird. He grabbed it and tossed it in his mouth. I ran after him but it did no good. By the time I caught him he’d already bit the bird’s head off.
When we made it back to our houses, my father was gone. There were at least twenty birds in her backyard: a red-bellied woodpecker, sparrows, doves, cardinals, nuthatches, titmouse, chickadees, and even a couple goldfinches.
When I mentioned how many new birds were showing up, she said, “It gets busier and busier as spring moves along and the weather warms up. The hummingbirds will be coming soon.”
“When do they show up?”
“Usually by May. If we’re lucky, maybe as early as next week.”
I’d seen pictures of hummingbirds, and some TV footage, but had never seen one in person. The bird book she’d given me said they were the smallest birds in the world and that their wings could beat fifty times a second. I could tell she was excited about the prospect of seeing a hummingbird because every time she mentioned them her eyes would light up and she’d smile.
“If I tell you something do you promise not to tell anyone?” I asked. I had to tell someone and she seemed about the safest person I could think of.
She turned to me. “Heavens, this sounds serious. Who would I tell?”
“I don’t know.”
After I told her the story about the fight with my father and what I’d done to his pot, she nodded and said, “Well, young man, you know you really only have one choice.”
“Let me guess. Tell him.”
“He’ll understand. You don’t have to tell him today but I wouldn’t wait too long. You’ll know when it’s time.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Peters.”
“No. Thank you, Julian Hale.”
“For what?”
She smiled. “For keeping an old lady company.”
21
After school, there was a message on my answering machine from Dennis saying he was throwing a party and I’d better be there. I knew it wouldn’t be much fun for me but also knew if I didn’t go he’d call me about ten times like he’d done the last time he had a party and I didn’t show up.
I headed to Dennis’ after Dad and I had finished our dinner of fish tacos. I had no idea who would be there, probably Anna and a bunch of her friends, other people from Greensboro Day that I didn’t know. Maybe that cashier girl, Tia, would be there.
But she wasn’t. There were about fifteen people, all strangers to me. Dennis had made a lot of friends at his new school. Some were on his tennis team and others were friends of his girlfriend. When Dennis walked in the room, people were instantly drawn to him.
I didn’t spot him right away, so I walked to the kitchen. Dennis’ mother, Joyce, was standing at the table, dishing out soft drinks and bowls of Chex Mix. Mrs. Kindl was a stay-at-home soccer mom. She carted Dennis’ two younger sisters around from sporting event to sporting event. And she was good-looking with her frosted blond hair and year-round tan.
“Hey, Julian,” she said as I walked toward
her.
“Hello, Mrs. Kindl.”
She reached over and hugged me like she always did when I came over to their house. “School going okay?”
“It’s almost over,” I said.
“Your mother doing okay?”
She knew about my mother going to Florida, and like Dennis, had told me once that if I needed to talk to someone she was available. My mother and her had never been close—their lives were so different—but they were friendly enough toward each other.
I nodded. “The motel keeps her busy.”
“I bet,” she said. “I think Dennis went up to his room to get something.”
“I’ll check,” I said.
I walked up the stairs to Dennis’ bedroom. His door was open, but he wasn’t in there. There was a dark-haired girl, cute and thin, standing by the closed bathroom door.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
“I’m Hailey,” she said. “I go to school with Dennis and Anna.”
I told her my name, that I went to Grimsley, but Dennis and I had been friends for years. I felt silly standing there, making small talk. She was nice enough, and friendly, but I felt so uncomfortable, as if what I said was being magnified throughout the house. I just wasn’t good with small talk, never had been. It always felt like I was pretending, saying what I was supposed to say, like an actor on a TV show, for that particular situation. I guess that’s a big part of why I liked hanging out with my mother and Old Lady Peters—I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.
This Hailey girl smiled at me. Her lips were wet with lip gloss.
“Do you know a girl named Tia who goes to Greensboro Day?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Can’t say as I do. Why?”
“She’s a friend.”
The bathroom door opened and Dennis and Anna walked out. His shirt was unbuttoned. “Hale, you made it,” Dennis said, hugging me in the hall. He smelled like perfume.
“How could I resist,” I said, trying to sound as sarcastic as possible.
Heart with Joy Page 6