Sunday morning, I can barely eat my pancakes, even though Aunt Bea went all out and made the amazing ones with raspberries and buckwheat. Rufus is already hooting out in the yard, and every cell in my body wants to run out there and snuggle him and fly together. To have him soar to me and hit my fist, a part of me stretched far and brought near.
But that’s for me. Those are things I need. And what I really have to do now is think about what Rufus needs. What’s best for him.
“Did I make a bad batch?” Aunt Bea asks, sitting beside me with her plate.
“No,” I say, shoving my forkful through the puddle of syrup.
“Well, eat, then.” She shoves a big bite into her mouth. “We have work to do.”
I force myself to eat.
Aunt Bea takes breakfast out to Rufus and Red, while I stay inside to do dishes. She found a rat in a Havahart trap in the basement, and every inch of me wants to watch Rufus hunt it, but that’s rule number one going forward: no more human contact. As I scrub each dish, I wonder if he’s looking for me. I worry he’s sad I’m not there, cheering him on. And then I force myself to remember he’s a wild bird, and even if he does wish I was there, he needs to get over me. He needs to move on.
Each time I tell myself this, I feel like I’m running my heart over a cheese grater.
After the dishes are done, I throw on work clothes and head for the empty aviaries. Aunt Bea has opened the sides of two that stand near each other. Inside, she’s arranging sections of wall. She explains that they can be set together to make a larger flight pen.
“There are preset holes in the grass,” she says, lifting a section.
We work together in silence, our only accompaniment Red’s and Rufus’s screeching and twittering and the bang-bang-bang of Aunt Bea’s mallet as she pounds down the sections and fastens them together. It takes us until the sun is high over the trees to get the walls up.
Aunt Bea wipes her forehead with her sleeve. “Next, we have to lay these sections across the roof and tie them down, but I need a break before lugging those up there.”
Inside, over lemonade, Aunt Bea tells me her plans. “We’ll move him to the flight pen this evening,” she explains. “I’ll do the moving. You prepare the food for their dinner. I’m going to get some live rats in town for Rufus to hunt. He’s getting hungrier by the day. If we don’t get him rehabilitated, he’ll eat all the rodents for a mile in any direction!”
“Can’t I release one rat?” I ask.
“We have to break the bond he’s formed with you,” she says, and then, glancing at me, she softens her voice. “You have to help him find his own way.”
I like that idea: that I’m still helping, only different helping. That my giving him the space to trust himself is a job.
I nod, and she nods back, smiling.
After lemonade, Aunt Bea and I get in the truck. We head to the pet store and pick out four rats. As we drive home, I peer into their box.
“Don’t get friendly with the food,” Aunt Bea warns.
I put the box between my feet, forgetting the shiny eyes, the twitching whiskers. “I won’t.”
“Sometimes you have to make hard choices,” Aunt Bea says, negotiating the truck out of Rutland. “These rats didn’t start out this morning thinking they were dinner for a hungry owl. They have as much right to their lives as any creature. But now here they are, because I made a choice, not one I’m particularly happy about, but a choice that had to be made. We made a promise to that owl, and these rats are part of that promise.”
“I know,” I say, not listening to the little squeaks coming from between my feet.
When we get home, we find Jaxon and his dad parked in our driveway. Jaxon slides out of his seat as we pull in and park. Aunt Bea rolls the window down.
“I recalled you mentioning needing to set up the flight pen,” says Warden Doucet, now not in his uniform but jeans and a T-shirt. “My son here thought you might like some help.”
Aunt Bea nods. “We could use it.”
I get out of the truck and hug the box of rats to my chest.
Jaxon comes over to me. “Reenie, I . . . ”
A part of me wants to scream at him. To throw the rats in his face and have them scratch him to ribbons.
Then I notice his eyes are red and shiny with tears.
“I was worried about . . . the owl, about Rufus.” He kicks a rock at his dad’s truck. “I didn’t mean to get your aunt in trouble.”
I remember what Aunt Bea said, that it was how upset Jaxon was that made his dad decide not to cite her. That he really was worried about me and about Rufus. Maybe this is another part of being friends: Stopping a friend from doing something dangerous, even if they are set on it. Caring enough not to want them to get hurt. I guess Jaxon made a hard choice too.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I smile. “Want to help me find a place for Rufus’s dinner?” I hold out the box.
He half smiles back. “Sure.”
It takes the four of us all afternoon to fasten on the roof of the flight pen. Jaxon and his dad leave—their visitation ends at 5:00 p.m. Aunt Bea and I finish tying everything off around sunset and are just climbing down when Rufus starts screeching for dinner.
“He’s going to love it,” I say, sitting on the grass and admiring our new construction. The flight pen is almost as long as the whole yard. Its walls are made of offset boards, which allow a little air through but don’t let the bird see outside the pen. Only the roof is open between the two aviaries at the ends, the plastic-coated wire mesh allowing the bird a clear view of the sky. Aunt Bea is setting perches at different places inside, and there are branches and ropes strung between the walls.
“Hopefully, he won’t love it too much,” Aunt Bea says, coming out the door of the far aviary. “Hopefully, that view of the stars will make him hungry for freedom.”
I sit in the kitchen, allegedly working on my hunting project—I posted my section this morning; Jamie added extensive comments—but actually squinting out into the darkness to catch a glimpse of Rufus moving into the aviary, of Aunt Bea releasing the rats.
I’m having trouble with my new job: helping Rufus find his own way. I mean, there’s just so much we don’t know. What if he’s imprinted on humans? What if he tries to nest on someone’s porch and they hit him with a broom? What if . . . what if . . .
When Aunt Bea comes inside, I’ve worried myself into knots.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask her the second she’s in the door.
Aunt Bea slides off her work boots. “He’s going to be fine.”
“But why not keep him?” I ask, reminding her that this is an option. “That way he’s guaranteed to be safe.”
Aunt Bea quirks her face like I’m blubbering gibberish. “That’s no life for an owl. An owl needs adventure, needs to stretch his wings. And what about having his own family? Shouldn’t he have a chance at that?”
I nod my head, but everything in my body is screaming, No! “It’s too risky. I mean, what if he gets too friendly with people?”
Aunt Bea nods. “It’s a risk,” she says. “But isn’t it a risk worth taking for the chance to live free?” She lays the remains of Rufus’s anklets and jesses on the pages of my book. Then she places a piece of paper with a phone number beside them. “Your mother called. The apartment is ready. She’s planning on moving in tomorrow.”
It’s too much. Losing Rufus, and now this? The tears drop down and smear the ink.
“Call her,” Aunt Bea says gently. “Take the risk. Tell her how you feel. I’ll be here when you’re done.” She squeezes my shoulder and places the phone next to the book.
I stare at the paper. Calling isn’t the risk. Speaking is. To say what I want—what if it causes Mom to relapse? What if . . . what if . . .
No. I have to do this. Look at Jamie and her parents—living apart in the same house. I don’t want that. I want what Jaxon has—I want honesty. I want to have a voice.
Mom answers on the second ring. “Reenie? Hi!”
“Mom?” My voice cracks and then it just rushes out of me. “I don’t want to live in Rutland.”
“What?” Her tone changes. “Honey, this place is great. And you can go to your old school.”
“I don’t want to go to my old school. I want to stay at Otter Creek.”
I hear Mom breathing on the other end of the line. “Reens, I know it’s been hard this past month—”
“But it hasn’t,” I interrupt. “Mom, I like it here. I have friends.”
Mom is silent. Did I push too far? No—I had to say it. She has to know. I don’t want to keep hiding myself from her.
“Please, Mom,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
“Okay?” I echo, surprised.
“Yes, okay,” she says. She’s not crying. She sounds . . . like a mom.
“Really?” I ask.
“Yes, really. I want this to be our home. I guess I should have checked with you before, but I got so excited, Randi’s been so nice—I want you to be as excited as I am about our home. We’re partners, right? The two musketeers?”
Inside, this wire coiled around my heart loosens. I hadn’t even known it was there. “The two somethings,” I manage.
“But two, together,” she says. “I’ll call Randi. We’ll start searching.”
“Thank you,” I say. My smile shines through my words.
“Don’t thank me yet. I have no idea if there’re any available apartments in that district.”
“Thanks for trying,” I say.
“I’ll try anything for you, Reens.”
We chat for a little longer, and when we hang up, I say, “I love you,” and it’s different. It doesn’t feel like a burden, my loving her, but a gift.
Aunt Bea and I eat dinner, Aunt Bea reading some magazine and me working on a math work sheet. After, we do the dishes and sit in the living room, reading, the silence interrupted every once in a while by a car rumbling past on the road. And then, as if telling me it’s time for bed, Rufus hoots his good-night greeting.
Then far off, like an echo, only not, another owl answers.
“Did you hear that?” I ask.
Aunt Bea nods without looking up. “That’s what I’m talking about,” she says. “Rufus deserves to live with friends of his own kind.”
We both sit, silent, waiting to hear if the two owls get their hoot on, but the night remains quiet. Another car rolls by. I decide to head to bed. But just as my eyes are closing, I swear I hear the owls hoot again, first Rufus, then the other.