An Ornithologist's Guide to Life Read Free Page B

something begins to take shape. It is the blurry face of a stranger in a bar, promising her vodka if she will go home with him. It is the back of his New England Patriots sweatshirt as she stumbles across the parking lot toward his car, gagging on the smell of fresh sea air. She remembers peeling paint, sour sheets, a stranger’s body. She remembers that for three days last spring she did anything for her next drink.
    Without warning, the lights come back on. They all squint at each other in the brightness. Martha sees the Reverend looking at her.
    â€œOr maybe you like the darkness better?” Stuart asks, grinning. He snaps off the lights again.
    Someone behind Martha gasps. But instead of panicking her, the darkness wraps itself around Martha and soothes her. It is as if she is falling, like the game she played as a child where you fall backward, hoping someone will be there to catch you.

THE RIGHTNESS OF THINGS

    E VERY TIME R ACHEL sees Mary, she is struck by how alike the two of them are—the same strawberry blond hair, the same parade of freckles across their arms and cheeks, even the same old wire-rimmed glasses, round ones that have bent over time and look slightly outdated; people often mistake them for sisters. Chasing Sofia up the steps to Mary’s house, Rachel considers this, the way they seem so alike, so close, but after five years of friendship, Rachel still feels slightly awkward coming here, to Mary’s house.
    The house is a large Victorian, perfectly restored. It is a pleasant shade of pink, with a darker pink gingerbread trim. Inside, the rooms are dark and cool, the floors covered with Oriental rugs, the kitchen cupboards filled with the things one accumulates in married life—wedding gift soup tureens and espresso cups and parfait glasses, crystal vases that will be filled on Valentine’s Day and anniversaries, good china.
    Perhaps that is what causes the feeling, Rachel thinks.Ever since her divorce three years ago, she and Sofia have lived on the top floor of a three family house in the iffier part of the city. In summer, now, the apartment is too hot and stuffy and Rachel imagines she can smell the remnants of every meal she has ever cooked there. They have no yard. Sofia’s room is too small to contain all the things a five-year-old needs, so that her dollhouse and play stove and drawing easel crowd the living room and kitchen.
    Rachel hears Mary approaching; it always takes her a long time to answer the door. She will have been in the basement folding clothes, or upstairs braiding her daughter’s hair, or elbow deep in bread dough.
    â€œLook at me, Sofia,” Rachel whispers.
    Sofia looks up at her with red Kool-Aid rimmed lips. Her sweaty round face, dark eyes, tangled curls, break Rachel’s heart. She finds herself still angry at Peter for doing something as foolish and cliché as falling in love with his assistant. She finds herself angry at herself too. Three years later and she still has not found the right job, a better home, a new love.
    The door creaks open, and there stands Mary—yes, it was bread she was making; there is flour on her shirt and in her hair—and her Sophia. It was what had brought them together in the first place: their daughters had the same name, though spelled differently, they later discovered. But that day in the supermarket—a day as hot as this one; Rachel had gone simply to cool off—when Mary had cooed to her daughter, Sophia, Sophia, you’re so good today , Rachel had blurted, Why, I have a Sofia too ! and she’d pointed at her daughter, who was crushing a pint of strawberries, one by one. That was the summer Peter had moved out, the summer Sofia had meningitis and was in the hospital for two weeks,the summer that Rachel thought of as the time when everything changed.
    But Mary is ushering them into the house, and stands in the foyer calling, “Sophia! They’re here!”
    There is the