The Bird's Nest

by Shirley Jackson

  “But then why did Robin run away?” he asked.

  “Because I said I’d tell my mother what we did.” She looked up, dumfounded, fork in hand; “no,” she whispered, staring fearfully, “no,” she said, and then, just like Elizabeth, “why?” looking from him to her plate to her fork to the pastries, “why are you talking to me?” she said.

  “Please,” he said, half-rising, “please, it’s all right, Bess, really—”

  “Bess?” she said. “Bess?”

  • • •

  Now she knew concretely that she had almost no time; she had wasted so many minutes, looking out of windows and gloating over cakes, and they were close behind her now, the doctor in the dining room and Aunt Morgen and perhaps even the betraying bus driver, and the whole city still to search for her mother. Perhaps, she thought, stopping in her flight to stand for a minute in the half darkness apart from the hotel entrance, perhaps if I just stand here she might come. Mother, she said silently at the people going past, mother, come and find me; I’m lost and I’m tired and I’m afraid, come and find your baby, please?

  “My dear child,” he said, coming silently up behind her, “do come back inside; I promise you I only want—”

  “It’s Robin,” she said, and ran again, going in and out between people, not wondering if they saw her or thought she was strange, listening only to hear if he was following her. She came to a corner and turned, and went into a lighted doorway into an endless bright store; “Too late, closing,” a girl said to her, just inside, and she turned without speaking and ran out another doorway into another street and down the street and on until she saw a crowd ahead and thought, “He’s in there, waiting,” and turned and ran back down the street and turned at the corner and stopped.

  “How can he find me?” she thought, reasonably at last. “He doesn’t even know my name.” She breathed deeply, standing against the wall of a building. This corner was darker and there were fewer people passing, going always toward the lights beyond; for a few minutes she watched the street light turn red and green and red and green, and then she thought no sense wasting any more time, no one could ever find me here, and she laughed that she still had her pocketbook, because all the time the strap had been firmly hooked over her elbow.

  “Where is a bus?” she asked a man passing by, and the man stopped, and thought, and then said, “Bus to where, miss?”

  “I don’t care,” she said.

  “Well,” the man said, “if you don’t care, why take a bus? Why not walk?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going over across town about three blocks,” he said. “I’m going to get my wife a birthday present, a necklace.”

  “Can I come? My mother likes necklaces and things like that.”

  “Come along,” he said. “You can help me pick it out. She likes,” he went on, as Betsy walked along beside him, “she likes jewelry, but not ordinary jewelry. Not the kind you get just anywhere. Unusual stuff.”

  “That’s the best kind,” Betsy said. “Of course, almost anything is unusual if you’re not used to it.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean,” the man said. “There’s this little shop I know about, and of course she doesn’t. So it’s got to be a surprise.”

  “I’m sure she’ll like it very much,” Betsy said. “Coming from you, that is.”

  “Well, I guess she will,” the man said. “She likes just about everything I pick out, because of course I always look for unusual things.”

  “Of course I do too,” Betsy said. “Right now, I’m looking for my mother and being new here I don’t know what’s unusual or not, but my mother will know. She lives here somewhere.”

  “It’s a pretty good town,” the man said, consideringly. “Of course you have to live here to appreciate it.”

  “I’m going to live with my mother when I find her,” Betsy said.

  “She live in Brooklyn?”

  “Probably,” Betsy said doubtfully.

  “How’re you going to find her?” the man asked.

  “Well,” Betsy said, “you’re looking for something, and I’m looking for my mother, and so if I go along with you maybe I’ll find my mother.”

  “My mother now,” the man said, “you could find her any time.”

  “Well, you see, I came here to meet my mother and I just haven’t gotten to her yet. It just takes looking. Does your wife live in Brooklyn?”

  “No,” the man said, surprised. “She lives with me.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Uptown.” He stopped, and looked at her searchingly. “You all right, kid?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Betsy said. “Why?”

  “Thinking I lived in Brooklyn,” the man said, going on. “At this time of night.”

  “Does your wife,” Betsy asked, hurrying to catch up with him again, “know you’re getting her a birthday present?”

  “Sure,” the man said. “Only she doesn’t know where, you see.”

  “How about a cake?” Betsy asked. “She ought to have a cake, with ‘Happy Birthday’ and candles.”

  “Golly,” the man said, stopping again. “Golly. Let’s see,” he said. “You figure a cake costs—what? Say, sixty cents?”

  “Just about that, I guess,” Betsy said.

  “And then you got to have candles,” the man said. “Now, let’s think this over. You say candles cost maybe a dime? And the cake sixty? Because then you got to get a thing says ‘Happy Birthday’ and that’s maybe twenty-nine cents, you find a five and ten open if you can. So there goes another buck. So the necklace costs—”

  “I know,” Betsy said. “I get the cake and all. You get the necklace. Then it’s all right. Cake from me, necklace from you.”

  “Right,” the man said. “Cake from you, necklace from me. You say chocolate, maybe? Mocha?”

  “I like chocolate,” Betsy said. “Get a nice card, too, and tell her it’s from me.” She stopped under a street light and gave him a handful of change from her pocketbook. “Because,” she pointed out, “if you’re going uptown or to Brooklyn it’s no help to me anyway, because my mother’s the other direction. But thank you very much anyway.”

  “Right,” the man said. “Cake from you,” he went on, worried, “necklace from me. But listen—” he called, as Betsy turned to go the other way, “who’ll I say? On the card and all?”

  “Tell her it’s from Betsy, with my love.”

  “Right,” the man said. And as Betsy hurried down a side-street she heard him calling, “Hey—thanks.”

  “Many happy returns,” she called back, and went on her way. Although she had very little hope of finding her mother so soon, she was glad she had remembered the cake anyway. We always have cakes on birthdays, she thought; my mother would be disappointed if I forgot; my name is Betsy Richmond and my mother’s name is . . . She stopped short and laughed aloud; things were good again at last.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said, stepping out among the people passing; she took hold of the arm of a woman going by alone and said “I beg your pardon” again.

  “Well,” said the woman good-humoredly, “if you’re not a cop, you can beg my pardon and get away with it. Something you want?”

  “Do you know someone named Elizabeth Richmond? Where she lives, I mean?”

  “Richmond? No. Why,” the woman asked, peering at Betsy, “you looking for her?”

  “It’s my mother. I’m to meet her, and I’ve forgotten where she lives.”

  “Whyn’t you look in a phone book? Under R, for instance?”

  “I didn’t think of that,” said Betsy blankly.

  The woman laughed. “You kids,” she said, and went on.

  It was so easy Betsy was almost afraid. She walked down to the corner to a lighted drugstore, went inside a
nd directly back to a rack where the phone books were piled; it was too easy, she thought dubiously, not willing to touch the pages, it was a trap; but how could she ever look at her mother and say she had taken so long because she thought it was a trap? Could people afford to be afraid if they were going to their mothers? Why would her mother want to make a trap for her Betsy who was her darling?

  RICHMOND, ELIZABETH. It stood out from the page, blackly, and then, below it, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH, and below that, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH, and, again, RICHMOND, ELIZABETH. Who, Betsy thought, staring, who? My mother’s name. . .

  She turned hastily away from the telephone books and then told herself sternly no, no traps, and turned back again, and put her finger down on the page. Silly, she thought, lots of people have the same name. I have the same name. And anyway it’s the place I want, I already know my mother’s name. So find an address, and it’s somewhere near Sixteenth, she said, and anyway how many people are having birthdays tonight? It’s west of the bus, I know that, and you can see the river, and I’ll just be careful not to tell anyone where I’m going because of traps.

  One of the addresses said West Eighteenth, and that seemed good, and so did West Twelfth, and the others were East, and one of them was a hundred and something, which seemed fairly uptown, so that narrowed it down to two, and now, Betsy thought triumphantly, things are getting very very good, because now I’ve got the best clue of all, and I can go right there and maybe even be in time for the candles.

  When she came out of the bright drugstore into the darker street she realized that it had really gotten quite late, and she did not dare look for a bus, with so little time; she got, instead, into a taxi, and told him West Eighteenth Street. Her time was growing shorter; she felt the minutes pulling at her, and when she looked out of the taxi window at the lights outside she felt them surge sickeningly against her, and had to hold tight to keep her eyes from blurring and she wanted acutely not to breathe. Just a little while more, she whispered, just a little while more, Betsy is my darling. The taxi let her off at the corner of Fifth and Eighteenth, and the driver showed her which way to start. She hurried, because it was better, walking, and the streets were almost empty. I said I’d do it and I will, she whispered, I said I’d do it and I will, my mother is waiting for me and the rest of you will die.

  She could not remember at all whether the first address had been twelve or a hundred and twelve or twelve squared or a hundred and twenty-one; twelve seemed to be a shop and as she looked into the darkened windows, going by, she saw that it might be a dress shop and, although she could not read the name darkly on the window, she knew that it must be Abigail’s and she knew she was right, at last; here I come, she whispered, I am coming and my name is Betsy . . . It must be a hundred and twelve or a hundred and twenty-one; they were almost across the street from one another and she stopped and looked at the lights of a hundred and twelve and thought, here it is, this is it.

  No fish here, she thought, entering, and wondered with surprise why it should seem important not to have fish painted on the walls. “Excuse me,” she said, putting her face close to the little barred window which seemed so absurdly small for her mother to get through, “I’d like to find Mrs. Richmond. Elizabeth Richmond.”

  “Not here.”

  “But I’m sure this was the address. Do your rooms have a view of the river?”

  “Naturally, miss. All our rooms—”

  “Then she might be using her other name. Try under Jones.”

  “Not here.”

  “But I’m sure—”

  “Try over across the way.”

  Of course, she thought; it was the place with the fish after all, they probably just pretend to see the river. She crossed the street, setting her back firmly to the useless apartment house, and came into another lobby; no fish here, she thought with satisfaction. “I’m looking for my mother,” she said, standing with her knees tight against the desk in the lobby; the lady behind the desk had a pink dress on and of course that was a very very good sign. “My mother,” she explained.

  “Name?”

  “Richmond. Elizabeth Richmond. Or maybe Elizabeth Jones.”

  “Make up your mind, which.”

  “She’d be up there now, getting ready; we were going to have a party because it’s her birthday.”

  “No noise allowed after ten P.M. No parties any time.”

  “Just for our birthday celebration. Just my mother and me and I’m going to buy her a necklace.”

  “No parties here. Try somewhere else.”

  “But my mother—”

  “Try over across the way.”

  She went out proudly, because she was ashamed at having been misled into talking to strangers about her mother and giving both these people her mother’s name; what would the man on the ledge think of her if he knew she was going around telling people where her mother lived? Here she was, so close to her mother, and she could have spoiled it all right then by telling the fish; “I beg your pardon,” she said, and took the arm of a lady passing by, “you’re not my mother, are you?”

  “Well, really,” said the lady, and then laughed. “Your error,” she said. “Excuse it, please.”

  “Richmond,” she said. “Elizabeth Richmond.”

  The woman turned, and scowled. “Her calls herself Lili?” she demanded. “Lili?”

  “Maybe.” Betsy tried to draw away, but the woman held her tight. “If that’s your mother, young lady,” she said, “and I’m not saying it isn’t, you’re the one to know, after all, but if that’s your mother, I’d be ashamed to say so, and that’s final.”

  “Richmond,” Betsy said.

  The woman nodded, keeping hold of Betsy’s arm. “And that’s the one,” she said, nodding, “and I’d be ashamed if it wasn’t that I had nothing to be ashamed of in all of it, and doing my share and pulling my weight and here all the time he was after her, see? And coming to me with a straight face, and me not even knowing, what I mean, unless you got a suspicious turn of mind you don’t think about that kind of thing.”

  “Robin,” Betsy said. “I already know about Robin.”

  “Another one, is it? But of course sooner or later they’re going to find out, what I mean. What I mean, something’s going to happen, you can’t stay a dope forever. So when he came to me there I was and he said hello same as usual and me—what I mean, I wasn’t letting on at first, see?—I said hello and then he says what’s wrong and I don’t answer and he says it again, like this, ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ and then, what I mean, I let him have it. You think I’m a dope, I said to him, you think I’m going to stand for this thing forever, you think I’m going to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and you after her all the time? It isn’t the money, I told him straight out, it isn’t the money—”

  “It was Robin,” Betsy cried out, pushing against the woman, “it wasn’t anybody except Robin, I know.”

  “Maybe you do know, too,” said the woman with hatred, holding Betsy off to look at her, “maybe you do know all about it, and I for one wouldn’t be surprised, being well aware that I was the last to know, so he says what are you talking about—innocent, see?—and I said how long you think I’m going to wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for you? People are talking already, I said, and I guess I’m the last to know. You think I’m crazy? I asked him right out. So then don’t you think he had the gall to admit it? And tell me? I was so mad I couldn’t even cry and me, I cry when I’m mad, whenever I’m real mad I can’t help it, you know what I mean? And so he says she’s nice. What do you mean, I ask him, nice? You mean nice? What’s a nice girl got to do with you? I asked him right out.”

  “Not Robin,” Betsy said forlornly. “I’m a nice girl, aren’t I?” She caught her breath and said tightly, “You wouldn’t let me go around Robin again?”

  “Carnal,” the woman said with satisfaction. “Carna
l desires, and that’s what you call nice! And, what I mean, can you take that kind of thing forever? So I came right out with it and I told him, either her or me, I said, and you can make up your mind while I stand right here waiting, either her or me. I mean I wasn’t going to make any kind of a fuss, if he wanted her, she was what he got, and if he wanted me, all he had to do was prove it. So I came right out with it, see, I never liked beating around the bush and I wasn’t going to give him any satisfaction, see, and any chance to say I tried to hold him when he wanted to go, you know, if he wanted to waste his carnal desires with her he could go ahead with my blessing. Because it had gotten to that point, see, where it was either her or me.”

  “Where is she?” said Betsy.

  “Halfway down the block. See that light, there? Likely,” said the woman, whom Betsy now perceived to be Aunt Morgen, “you’ll find them together.”

  • • •

  Now, she thought, striding greatly down the street, now I am really very angry with this mother of mine, hiding away with Robin and trying to keep me from finding Robin all this time, and all I ever wanted was to be happy and it was lucky Aunt Morgen happened to tell me, because otherwise they’d just keep on getting away with it, and pretending it was her birthday all the time. No fish here, she noticed, coming up the low step which compensated for itself by going immediately down again; lucky for them; “I want my mother, please,” she said to the man at the desk just inside. “They’ll be trying to hide.”