When you were in the hospital, you called me to your bed.
You’re taking care of the fish, right? You meant the betta fish that we’d brought home a few months earlier. I had dumped him in a vase on our kitchen counter and I named him something generic. Fred or Frank. He was blue-black with purpled fins.
Yes, I told you, I’m taking care of the fish. In truth, I couldn’t tell if Fred or Frank had moved in days—if he’d died and his body hadn’t yet reached the point where it had become buoyant. You were talking in present tense, about the right now, as if the pets would be around for you to take care of when you came home from the hospital.
And the birds, too?
Yes, and the birds.
And Moo Cow?
Your face was wan, and I clutched your hand. I wondered then if you thought you would never see the cat again, would not say goodbye to him, would never again stand at our back door, thrusting your face up and back and giggling hysterically to yourself as you belted out his name. Yes, and Moo Cow.
You squeezed my fingers and shut your eyes.
Days later, you would be dead. Months later, the fish would be dead. A year or two later, one winter morning, I would not be dead, though I sometimes wished I were. I would instead wake late for school. I could hear the van’s engine roaring outside, the driver laying on her horn every few minutes, annoyed that I was late again. Downstairs nearly all of our parakeets except one lay limp, three bursts of neon greens and blues carpeting the bottom of their cage. The surviving parakeet, Blueberry, squawked and fluttered nervously. I’d had him since I was in kindergarten. The birds had been riddled by some disease or the cold, or both, and I hadn’t noticed. I rushed back and forth to the cage, distraught and peering in while I tossed notebooks into my bag for school. I was stunned at these circumstances, mortified that I caused them, and terrified that all of this, no matter what, was now beyond my control. There was no getting the parakeets back. I ran to my father’s bedroom and flung open his door.
All the birds are dead except Blueberry! I shouted, rushing from the house, not waiting for my father’s response.
Because it was winter and the yard was frozen, my father would not be able to bury the birds in our backyard, like I’d hoped. His shovel would meet ice. So instead, he laid them in a shoe box, their little feathered bodies resting in the garage. We’d have to wait until the ground thawed before the parakeets could have their proper burial.