never be a boy like Mickey was. May he never meet a girl the girl Bird was.
She draws the baby close against her. She can net her whole back with one hand. I will keep you from anything doomed , Bird thinks, and her heart picks upâwith wanting, she thinks, and fear.
Appetite and revulsion.
Your life swings around, and you survive it. You make something other of itâlife from lifeâkeeping what you can. Even when you canât keep much.
She would never in her life again see him.
But she keeps cuttings of Mickeyâs hair balled up in a drawer somewhere. She keeps the peel of the first orange they shared and a cruddy bloody tissue. Not much. He haddemolished everything else: the little clay pot he had made for her, the painting of a silver-lined cloud. He rode her bicycle into the river. Mickey burned every letter he had written to her and the box he had made to hold them.
The note he left said, Forgive me. I talked to your mother while I wrecked that stuff. I donât know why I did.
Of course Bird kept it.
The photograph of the dog in the ragtop, Mickey kept. He kept the photograph Bird took of her mother, newly dead, she had shared with him from shame: Birdâs mother in her bed before the coroner came. She looked terrified. She looked to be screaming, still bleeding from her ears.
Of all the things Mickey might have kept, he kept snapshots of the dead. Think of that, Bird thinksâand count your stars. Count yourself lucky you survived him.
Or not. Because wasnât surviving the worst part? The dreadful onset of the cure? There was nothing you couldnât get over. You could sorrow all your life, but still you lived, you lived. You hoarded. You flew your mother on a string like a kite.
Of course it pulled. The kite was enormous. Her mother called down: it was lonely, dying alone.
But there was always more string to let out, Bird found, to keep from being lifted, to keep her mother lifting away. And Bird was heavy. She felt stuffed with sand when her mother died, the anchor and solace of grief. She couldnâtmove; she couldnât want to. Should she move, Bird moved against a current and the current wore her away. Even sleep wore her away: the dream that her mother still lived. Bird would turn a corner and find her still dying in some darkened room. Bird had forgotten her. She needed peanuts. She smelled of shit. She needed her ears to be cleaned. Daisies, she needed. Tchaikovsky. A nice bowl of kittens and peas.
I will never die , her mother insisted.
And died. And died again.
It would be years before Bird dreamed of her living, the months Bird carried her first child.
Second child , her mother reminded her, and came to Bird nursing the baby that Mickey and Bird had lost.
Donât suffer in silence, her mother insisted.
Donât ask is it a boy or a girl.
Donât eat around the thing you want most, her mother warned. If itâs pork chop you want, donât start with peas.
Her mother sat in a chair and spoke softly. Not until Bird asked to hold the baby did her mother fly up on her string and grow small.
The spool for the string for the kite was red and shaped to hold as when riding a bike. The dream changed but the spool did not. Bird wore chartreuse or a bra and flip flops. They were seaside, or among the chalky cliffs of the desert, oron the rooftop of Furrâs cafeteria, where Bird has never been. Bird could work that kite, no matterâreel it near to hear her mother whisper, let it out to let her scream.
Who will die when I die?
What am I to you?
Bird carried a rock in her pocket to remember she meant to live: at least she meant to want to.
I will be your age soon enough, Mother. I want to stay right here.
Where in the world, her mother asked her, is here?
She lifted Bird into the blue by the spool.
I want to stay with Mickey.
Thatâs your Mickey down there, watching.
Birdâs mother flew a loop above him and broke her daughter open
She draws the baby close against her. She can net her whole back with one hand. I will keep you from anything doomed , Bird thinks, and her heart picks upâwith wanting, she thinks, and fear.
Appetite and revulsion.
Your life swings around, and you survive it. You make something other of itâlife from lifeâkeeping what you can. Even when you canât keep much.
She would never in her life again see him.
But she keeps cuttings of Mickeyâs hair balled up in a drawer somewhere. She keeps the peel of the first orange they shared and a cruddy bloody tissue. Not much. He haddemolished everything else: the little clay pot he had made for her, the painting of a silver-lined cloud. He rode her bicycle into the river. Mickey burned every letter he had written to her and the box he had made to hold them.
The note he left said, Forgive me. I talked to your mother while I wrecked that stuff. I donât know why I did.
Of course Bird kept it.
The photograph of the dog in the ragtop, Mickey kept. He kept the photograph Bird took of her mother, newly dead, she had shared with him from shame: Birdâs mother in her bed before the coroner came. She looked terrified. She looked to be screaming, still bleeding from her ears.
Of all the things Mickey might have kept, he kept snapshots of the dead. Think of that, Bird thinksâand count your stars. Count yourself lucky you survived him.
Or not. Because wasnât surviving the worst part? The dreadful onset of the cure? There was nothing you couldnât get over. You could sorrow all your life, but still you lived, you lived. You hoarded. You flew your mother on a string like a kite.
Of course it pulled. The kite was enormous. Her mother called down: it was lonely, dying alone.
But there was always more string to let out, Bird found, to keep from being lifted, to keep her mother lifting away. And Bird was heavy. She felt stuffed with sand when her mother died, the anchor and solace of grief. She couldnâtmove; she couldnât want to. Should she move, Bird moved against a current and the current wore her away. Even sleep wore her away: the dream that her mother still lived. Bird would turn a corner and find her still dying in some darkened room. Bird had forgotten her. She needed peanuts. She smelled of shit. She needed her ears to be cleaned. Daisies, she needed. Tchaikovsky. A nice bowl of kittens and peas.
I will never die , her mother insisted.
And died. And died again.
It would be years before Bird dreamed of her living, the months Bird carried her first child.
Second child , her mother reminded her, and came to Bird nursing the baby that Mickey and Bird had lost.
Donât suffer in silence, her mother insisted.
Donât ask is it a boy or a girl.
Donât eat around the thing you want most, her mother warned. If itâs pork chop you want, donât start with peas.
Her mother sat in a chair and spoke softly. Not until Bird asked to hold the baby did her mother fly up on her string and grow small.
The spool for the string for the kite was red and shaped to hold as when riding a bike. The dream changed but the spool did not. Bird wore chartreuse or a bra and flip flops. They were seaside, or among the chalky cliffs of the desert, oron the rooftop of Furrâs cafeteria, where Bird has never been. Bird could work that kite, no matterâreel it near to hear her mother whisper, let it out to let her scream.
Who will die when I die?
What am I to you?
Bird carried a rock in her pocket to remember she meant to live: at least she meant to want to.
I will be your age soon enough, Mother. I want to stay right here.
Where in the world, her mother asked her, is here?
She lifted Bird into the blue by the spool.
I want to stay with Mickey.
Thatâs your Mickey down there, watching.
Birdâs mother flew a loop above him and broke her daughter open
Similar Books
Forty Leap
Ivan Turner
You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town
Zoë Wicomb
Up From the Depths
J. R. Jackson
The Last Place You'd Look
Carole Moore
The Rift War
Michelle L. Levigne
Player in Paradise
Rebecca Lewis
The Untamed Earl
Valerie Bowman
Zandor
Mj Fields
A Kind of Grace
Jackie Joyner-Kersee