Migratory Animals

by Mary Helen Specht

  Steven turned to her. “Snow White, why are you wearing a jacket? It’s scorching,” he said. Hair black as ebony, skin white as snow, lips red as blood. Barely five feet tall, Alyce kept her black hair tied in a ponytail these days; she hated the way blue veins had begun to show, a vampiric map, betrayed by her translucent skin.

  Alyce looked down at the worn leather blazer she wore over a T-shirt and mismatched cotton pants. “It’s part of my ensemble.” But really she imagined the sting of the sun like a whip.

  “My woman runs cold,” said Harry, coming to her rescue as usual. “Her internal thermometer is one of our age’s great scientific mysteries.”

  Beers were wrenched out of ice. Silverware clattered. People hugged Flannery and complimented Alyce and Harry on the food, though Harry had done it all—prepping the house, manning the grill, breaking up fights between the kids—because she was so exhausted. Flannery leaned into Alyce’s ear at one point, asking, “Everything okay?” Flannery’s homecoming was the only reason Alyce didn’t feign illness and just disappear back inside the house.

  Alyce tensed, willing herself to act normal and say something, anything. “Steven, aren’t you going to tell everyone the real news?” she asked, because she’d been surprised when Lou called her out of the blue two weeks ago, wondering if she had time to make a wedding shawl (“Silk?” “No,” Lou had said, “White chenille with eyelash lace. You know. Like yours. Well, not exactly like yours.”).

  Now Alyce sat still, the attention of her friends successfully deflected.

  “Yeah, sure,” said Steven, looking at Lou, who absentmindedly picked globs of paint from her cutoff jeans. “I’m in the market for some groomsmen and was wondering if you all knew any good ones.”

  Soon, everyone huddled around the table, giving their congratulations, jockeying for information. “When? Why now? Is Maya excited?” Steven and Lou had been living together for years. Their daughter, Maya, was almost four years old.

  “Instead of groomsmen,” said Lou, turning her head so that one long feather earring brushed her right shoulder, “I was thinking of having y’all come down the aisle with Steven in a dancing procession. You know, like the Baraat in Indian weddings?”

  “With the Cherokee Nation smoke-signaling Pachelbel’s Canon,” said Santiago, grinning. Alyce watched late-afternoon light dapple his arm as he reached for one of the napkins stacked beneath a rock. Thin and fine-boned, Santiago had begun shaving his head three years ago when he could no longer disguise his sharply receding hairline.

  Some people laughed at Santi, others turned to chat again in pairs and threesomes. They passed around plates of shish kebabs and German potato salad and chunks of crusty bread. They refilled their drinks. Alyce tried to remember what it had felt like when she’d loved these people more than anything.

  Watermelon was the only perfect fruit.

  Cool and wet. Sweet but not so sweet one felt sick after eating it. The Christmas contrast of the green of the skin and the red of the flesh. In grade school, Alyce and her best friend, Jessica, carried a small watermelon as “provisions” when exploring the back alleys of their Phoenix suburb. Afterward, they would each hold a piece daintily by the rind while red juice dripped stickily down their mouths and chins, pushing tiny black seeds around with their tongues.

  But chopping a whole watermelon was a bitch, and there in the kitchen that afternoon, during Flannery’s homecoming party at Roadrunner Ranch, she had to press the dullish blade from both ends before the bulging middle finally cracked open. She held up the knife and imagined bringing it down, carving herself into pieces instead. Releasing the pressure to coordinate her limbs as one cohesive body.

  Slicing the fruit into smaller and smaller chunks, she watched a pair of finches through the refractive bottles lining the windowsill. The birds at the feeder had recently exchanged their winter camo for summertime, yellow-feathered bellies, and the color caught her eye, jarring and garish. (Her brain automatically calculated the dye combination it would take to re-create.) The feeder was already there when they’d moved in, and Harry kept it filled it with seeds from the feed store off the highway. Now, one pair had built a nest beneath the overhang of the porch, balancing their home precariously atop a rafter.

  When Alyce was growing up, her whole family had been so obsessed with birds that being sent into the wild with a pair of binoculars and a laminated identification guide was a rite of passage for every twelve-year-old in the Buckle clan. Letters and, later, e-mails always began with a list of recent sightings (“WOW: A pair of painted buntings made three appearances at the pecan tree feeder last week!!! We’re also happy to announce that Ruth is pregnant.”); vacations were planned around at least one reported nest of a rare or striking species. Alyce almost fell to her death at age ten when her father encouraged her to climb “higher, sweetie, higher” up a rock embankment where a great blue heron had supposedly laid eggs.

  Out the window, the ranch finches were uncharacteristically calm considering all the activity: Steven and Lou trying to dance the tango in the grass, three steps in one direction, dramatic head turns, three steps back; the clank of metal echoing across the yard indicating Brandon and Molly were in the process of losing a game of horseshoes to Harry’s cousin and his boyfriend; and the kids, her own two boys and Steven and Lou’s little girl, crushing and crowding into the oversized blue-and-green hammock Alyce’s parents had brought from Mexico a few years ago as a Christmas present for Harry, who, along with the other guests, was not in immediate view—perhaps off on a walk, she thought. Clouds hung bored in the sky.

  Alyce used to adore parties, with this group of friends in particular, but really any sort of party. At one time she thought herself a natural hostess who crackled to life when there were other people drinking, pairing off to gossip, sneaking cigarettes out of view of their partners. Unlike marriage or parenthood, hosting allowed her to dip in and out of various currents, no obligation—the spotlight of attention dispersed through the group like light through a prism. But in time Alyce saw this for what it was, too. Just a party. As transitory and insubstantial as bird-watching. A way to pass the time. Drinks emptied and refilled. Dishes dirtied and then cleaned, dirtied again. Stories told, retold, forgotten. Did you hear the Flaming Lips are playing at Stubb’s? Have you read the story in the latest New Yorker? How about them Cowboys? Nothing that she’d hoped would fix her—love, motherhood, art—ever had. It was enough to make you want to curl up in bed and go to sleep and never wake up.

  But Alyce couldn’t hide in the kitchen forever. Sliding the perfectly sliced pieces of the paragon fruit onto a platter, Alyce noticed a walking stick insect lying still along the white door frame, trying unsuccessfully to blend in with the wall. For the creature’s sake, Alyce looked away and, in the way all of them had learned to do in one way or another, pretended not to see it.

  Just before sunset, Harry was corralling everyone in order to usher them to the small cliff that rose from the other side of the creek. Alyce took him aside, sitting him down gently on the porch next to their sons, who were eating more watermelon, faces a smear of pink. Their boys were both good eaters and Ian, the youngest, liked to give people names based on food. Usually, Harry was “strawberry pancakes” and Alyce “fried eggs.” At the moment, she felt her yolky goo leaking like an open wound.

  “Harry, do you mind if I stay here? I’m just not up to it. I’m sorry.”

  Her husband pursed his lips. She could see him trying not to snap at her.

  Taking a deep breath, Alyce shook her head to indicate that she was just being silly. She forced herself to stand. “If we’re quiet, we might see deer.”

  “You’ve been saying that since we moved here,” Jake whispered. Alyce reached out to feather his hair but instead let her hand just float there above his head like a halo.

  The group had to walk back up the road, traverse the low-water crossing over the creek, and then cut through a field to approach the cliff from the side where the c
edar was penetrable. Behind the house the mowed lawn devolved into wildflowers, big blooming prickly pears and waist-high grasses shimmying in the hot wind. In the meadow was a dried-up pond and oaks and cedars that didn’t quite obscure the view of a development springing up along the ridge.

  Alyce made a mental list of things on the ranch that could kill you: rattlesnakes, water moccasins, a fall from the cliff into a half-empty creek. These thoughts were shiny coins in her pocket.

  As they walked along with the group, Harry handed Alyce a bota full of wine, and she slugged from it, a red trickle running down her chin. It tasted a little like watermelon, she thought. As she handed it back, their hands brushed, and he smiled in the intimate way that made his cheeks crinkle, a smile that said: Here, this is my gift to you. This party, this artistic fellowship we didn’t really need. He seemed to be smiling the words: I’m here because I love you. She tried to remember what it felt like to be in love with him, but she couldn’t even recall how long they’d been married. Ten years? Eleven? Her mind felt fuzzy. An image flashed: of Harry, in college, too self-conscious to dance at parties usually, and Alyce plying him with shots and beers, saying, “Bottoms up, baby. Bottoms up,” until he allowed himself to be dragged to the makeshift dance floor, Harry grooving slowly like an uncoordinated facsimile of an underground jazzman as he twirled Alyce in circles, she dancing fast and frenetic, tossing her hair, releasing everything into the music.

  When the group of partygoers reached the edge of the cliff, choked as it was with trees and shrubbery, they pushed through until arriving at a rock shelf with a view of the falling sun and the house in the distance and the creek trickling below. In front of her, Santiago sat on the furthermost crag, legs dangling off the ledge, prompting Brandon to say, “That’s a long way to tumble.”

  Santiago didn’t turn around, and Brandon seemed to realize his mistake, grimacing in self-reproach. Nobody said anything, but Alyce immediately thought of the day two years ago when Santiago’s father drove off a highway bridge and into a gorge after stopping by his son’s house for a cup of coffee. Father and son had talked about the Rangers’ collapse and scooped sugar into their mugs. Alyce was still trying to wrap her mind around it. One moment you’re drinking a cup of coffee with your son like it’s nothing and the next you roar out of life. She felt an enticing warmth spread through her torso just thinking about it. She walked forward to sit beside Santi along the ledge.

  Behind them, Molly stumbled. “Mexican jumping rocks.” Her voice slurred a little.

  “Molly is traaaashed,” Alyce said under her breath to Santi.

  The bright laughing chatter of the group behind them meant there wouldn’t be much chance of seeing deer or even the turkey vultures that nested along the cliff.

  “She’s only had one beer, I’ve been watching,” said Santiago, staring straight ahead into the ravine. The skin on his face looked tight, and his eyes—were they watering? “She’s her mother’s daughter.”

  Alyce didn’t understand what he was talking about at first. Santiago shrugged. “Think, Alyce. Her movements . . .”

  Stumbling, slurred speech, hands fluttering like paper birds. Maybe. But Molly was young. So much younger than Molly and Flan’s mother had been. The odd warmth Alyce felt grew stronger until her face burned red, her pulse quickening. She looked at Flannery, hunching in front of a small cedar, silent, contained, distant.

  Alyce stood and left Santiago on his ledge perch, not yet consciously wondering why he, of all people, was the source of this information but sensing it had something to do with her best friend. She walked behind Flan, encircling her in a loose embrace; they leaned against each other like two poles of a teepee. Alyce shielded her face from the sun as it shone directly parallel to them, stalled on the horizon. Years ago, when Flan’s mother was dying, Alyce used to drive Flan, and later Flan and Molly, to Abilene on the weekends, but they’d be so hungover that they’d sleep in and not leave until late in the day, Alyce forced to drive west for hours into the setting sun, squinting hard as Flannery popped cassettes into the tape deck with her foot, long straight hair whipping out the window.

  Alyce could learn this news about Molly, and yet her own limbs still moved in the same way, her own breath still traveled in and out of her lungs, air molecules trembling invisibly. Alyce did feel something new, though. Curiosity? She felt legitimately interested in what was going on around her for the first time all day, all month.

  “There it goes,” said Molly loudly, the sun finally disappearing below the tree line, leaving a spray of lavender clouds behind. It was a nice sunset, though not particularly spectacular, not especially noteworthy as far as sunsets go. Alyce’s chest surged with a rare crest of feeling anyway. It was the cliff and the wine and the sunset, but mostly it was the thought of endings glittering strangely in her mind’s eye: Santiago’s father’s, Molly’s. Part of the feeling was sadness, a feeling her depression had made as rare as all the other emotions.

  As everyone began to switch on the flashlights Harry had handed out before they left, Alyce looked down at her sons lying on the ground, a pin cactus inches from their heads. She saw their spiky elbows and chins; she willed herself to say what a mother would say: “Time to go.”

  Jake, her firstborn, her lovely little dark-eyed Jake, stared back at her from his position splayed on the ground. Then he said, “I don’t think I’m up to it. I’m sorry.”

  The others laughed at the serious, melodramatic little boy, but Alyce’s heart melted into the hammock of her belly. He was mimicking her. Getting attention for being drained and useless and spent. Jake’s eyes were muddy pools into which Alyce could not see. Brown, watery pits. And their defiance frightened her.

  As everyone else turned to leave, panic rose in the back of Alyce’s throat and she rummaged in her bag, hands shaking, for the bottle of Xanax she stashed there for emergencies. The world was making it clearer and clearer: Alyce was bringing her family down.

  The old friends walked back to the house in silence, flashlights leading the way, the crunch of footsteps on gravel. At the low-water crossing, droves of fireflies blinked along the creek banks like the pinpricks of light you see after staring too long at the sun.

  “Name the speaker,” said Brandon as he lugged Alyce’s youngest son on his shoulders. “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

  “Andre the Giant,” said Lou, sarcastically.

  “Mark Twain,” three people corrected in unison. Alyce imagined Lou rolling her eyes in the dark, annoyed by this game in which her fiancé and his friends flexed their collected, trivial knowledge.

  As everyone dropped into their cars, which then began to trek back down the road toward the gate and the highway and the city, Alyce had a fleeting thought that the line of vehicles looked like a funeral procession following a hearse. Headlights twinkled and dipped.

  He washed; she dried. Out the window, the moon shone a circle onto the lawn. The boys were asleep on bunk beds in the room they shared.

  Alyce didn’t tell her husband about Molly. Not because of any conscious decision to keep it from him, but because it no longer crossed her mind to include him in her inner life. But Alyce did have the sick urge to humiliate Harry by asking him the big questions. Are you happy? Do you think we’re decent parents? Are you still in love with me? Instead, she asked, “Remember when Steven said getting married while gay marriage is illegal in Texas was like joining a country club that excludes blacks?”

  “People change.” Harry kissed her on the shoulder. He was never critical of their friends, never critical of their marriage. He was able to say: Maybe you need help. But never, if you don’t get help, I’m leaving. Never, this isn’t working. Or let’s separate for a while. Because Harry seemed to think you didn’t change your life or make dramatic choices so much as, like an infielder, react to what came at you and make the best of it.

  And by now he and Alyce we
re so immersed in the chill he probably no longer noticed it. No longer expected her to respond to his touch like she had before. To fling her arms around his neck and say, “Wear me.” To Harry, they weren’t unhappy; they were just busy. They had settled down.

  “The boys behaved themselves,” he said. “Didn’t nag for attention.” The ceramic plates he was stacking banged on the shelf, and the noise grated.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have had them when we did. They’ll be so much older than everyone else’s kids. Who will they have to play with?”

  “Maya. All the other children in the world.” Harry hung the dish towel on the handle of the stove, stretching and running his hands through brown hair streaked with white. His T-shirt read LA CRIATURA GORE BAR and was faded and tight around the stomach because he rarely bought new clothes. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Alyce didn’t watch him leave but listened to his steps, his hand on the bathroom door, the sound of the electric toothbrush. She swallowed the word she wanted to say: good-bye.

  With the light on above the kitchen sink, Alyce could barely see past her reflection in the window to the yard outside. She imagined walking out the door and sinking into the hammock from Mexico, rocking back and forth in the blue-and-green threads, like waves, like the sea. She imagined floating off, maybe toward her expat parents, who lived in a cold stone house in Guanajuato now and almost never came to visit. She remembered, as a girl, wrapping herself in the long strands of her mother’s nearly waist-length hair, and her mother’s voice, rarely aimed at her, Alyce, but rather at her parents’ many friends, always coming and going, her mother’s laugh tinkling in response to things Alyce only partly understood.