The Hummingbirds

by Ross McMeekin

  She nodded. “I’m realizing that. And you’re not alone, by the way. I have a past.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I feel like I should apologize.”

  “Don’t.” She squeezed his hand back and pulled away, smiling slightly, without showing teeth. Her skin was smooth and her eyebrows were just the tiniest bit bushy. Hair in a ponytail. They were silent and he began to feel that he’d shared too much. That she’d leave the room, her eyes would grow big, and she’d hope she’d never see him again.

  “What about Sybil?” he asked. The moment he asked, he felt the desire to preface the comment by saying how he felt about Sybil’s betrayal, how they were over, how he didn’t want her back.

  There was a knock at the door and a nurse entered the room. She nodded at Maria and smiled at Ezra. “You’re awake!”

  Maria was staring at him as if she was deciding whether to tell him something important. But she got up to leave.

  “Wait,” he said.

  “You’ve got a lot of resting up to do,” Maria said. “I’ll make sure they take good care of you.” She turned to go, but stopped, not quite facing him, but not quite facing away, either. “I’m back on at midnight. I can come back a little early to visit.”

  Yes, he thought. Please do. Was it possible to miss someone’s presence while they were still in the room? Please do. But at the same time there were dozens of phrases on his tongue, ones he’d picked up from who knew how many stories because they’d mimed the fear he’d felt so many times before. His entire life, really. Phrases that would create distance, ones he’d used so often that he didn’t even think about them: I’ll be okay. No, I’ll be fine. You’re too kind, but it’s really all right. Thanks, that’s okay. No worries. I’ll let you know.

  “Thanks,” he said. “It would mean a lot.”

  She smiled and left as the nurse began her examination.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Two afternoons before, in the patio outside the mansion, Grant Hudson was basting a mix of molasses, mango, and peppers onto a curved rack of ribs. The sun filtered through the palms and yellow jackets were already pestering the meat and the sauce. Grant licked his fingers and felt the bite of the habanero blot out the sweetness. The party was due to begin in a few hours but the suck-ups would arrive early, as they always did. He could see their smiles now. They would inquire about the absence of his lovely wife and he would direct them to read the papers, as if they hadn’t already.

  The barbecue would be a show of strength, a chance for him to dismiss their condolences and whispered pity. This was a critical moment, because pity could be beneficial only if a person could show how little they needed it. Linger too long in it, people began to see you and the pity as the same thing. A lesser man might have rented out a ballroom, paid for the best bands, and dropped six figures to save face. The guests would enjoy it, but those with sway would say that he was trying too hard, and speculate as to why—and for good reason. They knew how quickly pity could turn to condescension, and how delightful that turn could be, to those who might benefit.

  But an intimate gathering for a barbecue and drinks at the house? Just the right amount of personal touch. It would help everyone feel that they were part of an inner circle, rather than a statement, a staged event, or worse, a cry for help.

  It took both of Grant’s hands to flip the enormous rack of ribs over on the aluminum foil. He felt a slight pain in his shoulder. Soreness from clocking Ezra. The bite mark on his chest hadn’t healed, either. But those were small payments. He felt sated. Ezra’s payment was a private near-drowning that dovetailed perfectly with Sybil’s public one, which was happening at that very moment, through every news outlet in the free world. It made a wonderful pattern, as the first act of his life years ago had closed with a kind of drowning, as well.

  He entertained that memory while ladling gobs of the sauce onto the rack. It had been an unseasonably warm fall day in the breadbasket of the inland Pacific Northwest, those endless, rolling seas of agriculture, each field nearly the size of a sea. It was sunny and cold, and this far north darkness fell early. He was twenty, still went by Frederick, and was traveling in the back seat of a shiny yellow coupe that belonged to his future namesake, who was at the wheel.

  His mother sat in the passenger seat, wearing tan leather boots and a matching leather jacket, beneath which a marbled silk shirt flared. Tight jeans and an absurdly large belt buckle with turquoise stones. Hair feathered. The elder Grant Hudson had ditched his Big Apple attire and was now wearing designer bell-bottom jeans, boots made from an unknown species, and a large coat lined with fur.

  They’d both ditched their names, twice over, and it took a couple of years, but he’d found them. So he smuggled them, at gunpoint, from the parking lot of a hotel named after a piece of furniture. During the hour-and-a-half ride south along empty roads bordering resting soil, he’d learned little about both of their lives. Hudson had told his wife not to speak, and she hadn’t, which in some regard made sense, considering the way they lived their lives. But this was Frederick’s mother, there in the front seat, in the flesh, and he hadn’t seen her for years. Of all things, he hadn’t expected this. Back in the parking lot, when he first confronted them, she appraised him once and that was it. What mother didn’t care to know—yearn to know, even—about the doings of her own child? Couldn’t fear even stoke her maternal instinct?

  It had taken a while—years—but eventually, Frederick had come to understand what she’d done, or at least believed he had. She’d come upon a chance for a new name and life, with no connections to the mistakes she’d made before. The fresh start was one of privilege and affluence far beyond what she could have ever dreamed. So she took it, without Frederick, for fear his coming might eventually change Hudson’s mind.

  Still, Frederick had always harbored hope that she had a larger plan. She’d someday come back, asking for him, and they’d embrace, and she’d apologize, and she’d reveal what she’d been through to make certain his future was better than hers. Believing that helped him sleep at night.

  But there in the yellow coupe, as more miles of fallow fields passed in silence, that hope began to fade, and he began to feel foolish. He’d built a statue to his mother in his mind, like those in the church he was made to go to as a child, of Mary doting over young Jesus. There was little else solid in his world, but he’d always banked on this being true: mothers loved their children, to a fault. They couldn’t help it. It was a mysterious, strange virtue. A truth that even his pain couldn’t spoil.

  In his fantasies, throughout the years of toil and disappointment, he’d often imagined her taking a step outside the window onto the deck of a posh suite at the top of some high rise in a huge metropolis. There she looked into the moon and stars dimmed by the lights of the city, and thought of her son. He imagined prayers from her lips and regret in her heart—how many times had he borne the brunt of his father’s rage, so that it might be spent on him instead of her?

  Any hint of feeling for anyone else had long since been beaten out of Frederick. But for her, his heart still cracked. And over time, that crack had expanded to crevasse, and the crevasse to a canyon, and the canyon to a gulf, until he could stand it no more.

  So here he was. Ready to rid his mother of Grant Hudson. Expecting her joy and embrace.

  But here she was, feet from him, and silent.

  The only way he could bear what was unfolding in Hudson’s coupe was to hound them with stories of what had been happening in town since they’d disappeared with everyone’s money and trust. How a good portion of the population moved away. How a desperate few—bankrupt, foreclosed, too old to start over—had taken their lives to spare themselves and their loved ones the cost of the wait. There were those who’d found solace in vices. And then there were those like him who’d forged documents so they could sign on, far too young, to brave the nor’easters fishing and line up outside the one cannery left in town.

  Once he finished telling them all t
hat their actions had hastened, Frederick said, from the back seat, “This is one hell of a car. I would have expected some sort of thank you.”

  Hudson, steering around yet another bare road straddling the empty hills, finally spoke. “How do you figure that?”

  “I paid for it. We paid for it. My father and I and everyone else you screwed.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Hudson said. “If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else. And from what I saw of you and your father and the rest of that town, I was only helping you along toward the inevitable.”

  His mother said nothing. Didn’t even turn around. Frederick couldn’t believe it.

  “Turn left up here,” he said, tapping the pistol against his namesake’s head.

  Hudson complied. “Where are we going?”

  Frederick said nothing.

  “I’ll stop unless you answer me.”

  Frederick bashed the butt of the pistol into Hudson’s skull. Hudson yelled and the car swerved before continuing on.

  “Keep driving,” Frederick said. “I’d just as soon kill you. But your life is in her hands.”

  Still his mother didn’t move. A thought occurred to him, one he’d entertained before and dismissed as folly. Maybe she was so demoralized that she was afraid to even speak. Perhaps he, Frederick, was now in the same position that Hudson had been in all those years ago. History repeated itself. That crack in his heart stayed open.

  This was the plan, one Frederick had deliberated on for months. He would kidnap them both, take them out to someplace quiet and reserved, and threaten them with their lives, until they both told the truth. He needed to know what had happened all of these years. And most importantly, why she hadn’t come back for him.

  He’d hoped it wouldn’t come anywhere near that far—the driving, the threatening. That when his mother saw him and felt him near, she’d be grateful.

  But there in the car, God, it was shameful, he realized. It took a kidnapping and a gun to get the truth? Fuck, who was he? Some sort of demon child? What had he done, except exist—and whose choice was that? Hers and his father’s.

  All he wanted was for someone on this planet to care.

  She didn’t move.

  They drove, up and down the hills, into the belly of a field, gravel skittering beneath the wheels. The sun had nearly set. They were miles from anything, but he saw a small pond there in the distance.

  “Take a right at that break in the road,” Frederick said. “Isn’t this fun? It’s like we’re on a road trip together. One big happy family.”

  “You don’t know nothing about the world,” Hudson said. “You haven’t a clue how it works.”

  “Whatever you say. But we love games, don’t we, Mom? It’s in our name.”

  She said nothing.

  Back in the patio, a yellow jacket landed on the meat and Hudson bashed it with the handle of the brush until only its tiny legs quaked in death throes. He pinched its head between his fingers and tossed it into the heart of the grill, where the insect sizzled and popped.

  Frederick stopped the car next to the pond and ordered them to get out. They complied and stood there, cold breath clouding their faces.

  “Explain yourself,” he told his mother. “Now.”

  “Explain what?”

  “You know what.”

  “I’ve made my decisions and stuck by them. You’ve a right to call me selfish, but I can live with that. I’ve lived with far more—far more than you ever saw. Your father couldn’t understand that the world didn’t exist to give him favors.”

  “I don’t give a shit about my father.”

  “Then what the hell do you want?”

  He could feel the emotions stirring inside; he hated them. “What about me? Fuck. I was young.”

  “Oh, please. I could see it in you from the day you came flailing out of me. You’ve always been your father’s son. Crying. Pouting. Always trying to be like him. Then trying to take his place. Thinking you could protect me. You want the truth, here it is: I lived my life around people going nowhere, and I was tired of it. You were a boy but I already knew what kind of man you’d make. This here only proves it.”

  She continued talking, in a fury, shaming him for even questioning her freedom to do whatever she pleased with her life. As she kept talking he felt himself cool down to the point where he didn’t feel anything about her, anything at all, unless you could call disdain a feeling—but to him, it was more like a thought. That this woman in front of him was no longer worth his time. But by the look in Grant Hudson’s eyes, he knew she’d served a purpose.

  “—So fine, big Mr. Chance,” his mother said. “You want a fucking game?” she said.

  “Sure, whenever you’re done whining,” Frederick said.

  “Name the fucking rules,” she said.

  It came to Frederick there, in an instant, an epiphany of sorts. He looked back and forth between his mother and Grant Hudson and no longer found any reason not to entertain it.

  “Hudson,” Frederick said. “If you kill my mother, you can go free.”

  There was a moment of silence. But then Hudson did, with his bare hands. Frederick didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, so matter-of-fact. It was awful. But less so than he thought it would be. And to watch it happen at his request sparked something inside of him.

  After it was done, Frederick shot Hudson and buried them both in the soft shore of the pond. It took him nearly eight hours to do it right, but he was fit and not a soul came anywhere near. He left, and soon the pond froze, and with it, that last crack in his heart. The bodies were never found and nothing was made of their disappearance, as they’d been disappearing their entire lives.

  Frederick had decided, driving back from the pond all those years ago, to be a conductor. One of those who never did the dirty work themselves. One of those who understood that once you could find out what someone really wanted—or even better, what they really loved—you could use that sentiment to win their trust, and turn them into an ally, which was only one step away from becoming a servant. And soon they’d bow, perhaps even thank you for the opportunity, because you’d helped give them what they wanted. Each of them not thinking for a moment of the shackles they’d put around their own wrists to get it.

  He wasn’t a Chance. No mere luck would ever again determine his fate. He was the man in the white Detroit bull that everyone wanted to be like. The one that mothers would choose over their sons. Someone able to remove anything or anyone from his life with a calm demeanor. One free to pursue his desires and dreams without hesitation or hindrance. He took the name Grant Hudson. Willing to do anything to secure his fate, only far smarter in his cunning. And the name had a certain ring to it.

  And today, it was time for Act Three of Grant Hudson’s life to begin. Once the hullabaloo about Sybil died down, he would return east, reveal his past, change his name back to Frederick Chance, and the truth of his pitiable upbringing would only add to his legend. A poor boy, abandoned by his mother, orphaned by his father, works his way up through blue-collar America and finds success and fame among the royalty of America. But betrayed by one of the elite—his wife, no less—he returns to his roots and decides he’s had enough of the glitz and the glamour and wants to work to make the world better for that poor young orphan with forged papers who works long hours at a cannery, not just so he can eat but so he can retain what Americans value more than anything else: independence.

  None of the bureaucrats knew any of this. Not yet. They’d been busy trying to milk him for campaign finances. They wanted to be conductors themselves. Why let an outsider in on their nepotistic game? But he’d kept the papers and the records of his birth and travels. Spun right, his mother’s disappearance might even add to the miraculous nature of his story.

  He’d misled Ezra about memoirs. Only the final chapter of his was yet to be written. He’d have his choice of publishers. The powerful in the press junket already owed him favors. A year from now it would begi
n. He’d leap over the bureaucrats and into the arms of the people. What was wonderful about America was that people voted for the best story, if only to prove, once every couple of decades, that they weren’t beholden to the family legacies that all other nations were. They loved the outsider. Grant didn’t need a forecast. His governor’s term would be interrupted by a run for the presidency. They’d beg him to do it. He’d decline until he’d gathered enough of their warm loyalty to win and win again.

  The phone in his pocket buzzed. He ignored it. Then he wondered if maybe it was Sybil, so he checked it, but no, it was that ghoul of an accountant from the studio wanting an update on numbers. Sybil was probably gone, off to find herself; he’d seen the charges on their credit cards. Tickets home to Seattle purchased. Over the last decade, she’d become what she wanted, only to find out she didn’t like what she’d become. He’d get no thanks. But he’d also get no vitriol, because it was in their prenuptial agreement that she wouldn’t reveal anything—only he got that privilege. In time, she’d realize it hadn’t been as bad as her isolation and failures had led her to think. Once she’d experienced worse, and seen him experiencing so much better, perhaps she’d come crawling back. Then, more fun.

  Which reminded him: one of his tasks now was to find another mate in search of a husband in whom she could find self-worth. Bachelors had only been president twice, and each of their legacies was negligible. He needed another climber with the wit to rule others but the insecurity to need a father’s love and encouragement to succeed. They were everywhere, but few were like Sybil: smart enough to doubt herself to the point of distrust, tragic enough to imagine a golden heart within everyone, and hopeful enough to trust that with enough effort, everything would work out in the end. She’d been perfect for a guy of his sensibilities. Perfect for Act Two. But she lacked nobility.

  Everything went a shade darker. He looked up into the sky and noticed something he hadn’t seen since he’d left New York: dark clouds. A carpet of them, moving in from the coast, blocking the sun and nearly overhead. He hoped it wouldn’t rain. That might ruin the barbecue. But then again, it might make the party memorable, add significance to the occasion. The first rain in months, bringing the promise of new life.