2016
“Hey, Eileen,” the parakeet said. “It’s been a while.”
Eileen jumped up from the couch, turned and stared. Perched on the curtain rod over the living room window, looking serenely down at her, was a little green and yellow parakeet. It scratched its head with a tiny claw, picked for a moment at the nubby beige curtain and then stared back at her, its black eyes calm and unblinking.
Her first thought was that somebody’s pet had become lost and had found its way into her apartment. Her second was: Wait, what did it say?
“You have a tear in the window screen in your bedroom. You ought to fix that.”
Eileen came closer. Yes, there was the slightly off-color beak and the small lump at the top of the head that she had not seen since she was, what? Twelve?
“You’re…”
“You called me ParaClete. That wasn’t really my name, of course, but there was no way at the time I could tell you what my true name was—and no way that you could pronounce it, anyway. But yeah, that’s who I am.”
For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. She’d lost it. Finally and forever lost it.
It didn’t surprise her. Eileen had been feeling like shit for the last few months, ever since she hit the dreadful age of 60. On the downward slope to retirement and death.
Six decades of living, and what did she have to show for it? An ex-husband who had lived the cliché and gone off with a younger woman. A grown daughter who remembered to call her mother perhaps once a month. A small apartment, a few casual friends…That was it. A life wasted.
And to cap it all off, today was the anniversary of her mother’s death, a mother who, in her last years, had turned quiet, sad and distant. So Eileen knew it was going to be a bad night. She stopped off on her way home from work (as a paralegal in a stable but boring real-estate law firm) for a slice of take-out pizza and a bottle of bourbon, intending to become good and drunk.
But she hadn’t even opened the bourbon yet, so she couldn’t blame alcohol on this sudden visitation by an intelligent talking parakeet.
“What are you?” she demanded of the bird. “An hallucination? A brain tumor? An early sign of dementia? Oh, please don’t do that!”
The parakeet, ignoring her, lifted its tail and dropped a small green-and-white package that landed on a fold of her curtain.
“You never minded when I did this to your mother’s curtains,” it said thoughtfully.
“I was 12,” Eileen said. “You don’t mind those things when you’re 12.”
“And now you’re 60,” said the bird.
Eileen took a breath, turned, and marched into her kitchen. She opened a cabinet and took out a juice glass. Then she returned to the living room, sat back down on the couch, opened the bourbon and poured a generous helping into the glass. She swallowed half of it, waited for the warmth to hit her stomach, and then finally looked back up at the curtain rod.
ParaClete was still there.
“I understand,” he said, his voice soprano and whisper-light, “that you’ve been wondering whether your life could have been different.”
Eileen sat back and stared up at him. “How can you know that?” she asked.
“Never mind that for now,” he said. “What do you think you could have changed?”
She took another deep swallow of the bourbon. “Lots of things,” she said, pouring more into her glass. The liquor was having its desired effect; she was feeling a bit more reckless about everything around her. With any luck, she thought, I’ll be totally soused in a few more minutes and a talking parakeet will seem completely normal.
She thought for a moment. “Here’s an example,” she said. “When I was 13, a friend called to see if I wanted to go with them to a concert in Woodstock, NY. Yeah, that concert. I asked my mother, and she said no. If I had gone anyway, had the guts to disobey my mother, what would have happened? Would I have been allowed into the cool hippy crowd at school? Would I have experimented with drugs and sex and politics instead of being a good little girl? Would I have been arrested? Had a more adventurous past?”
“None of the above,” said the parakeet. “You would have spent your first night in a field several miles from the main grounds crying your eyes out and the rest of the concert hiding in one of the medical tents, sorting medical supplies, until one of the nurses bought you a bus ticket home. And you still would have been ignored by the cool kids.”
Eileen was starting to feel a little fuzzy. Which was good. She could carry on this conversation without thinking too much about it. “Well, then, how about how I acted with my mother? After my father died, she wanted her friend Lydia to move in with us. But I didn’t want somebody else in our house, and my friends told me that if it happened, it would prove that my mother was a dyke. I threw a tantrum and she stopped asking. By the time I moved out, Lydia was dying of Alzheimer’s. I’m not sure that my mother ever really forgave me.”
“Yeah,” the parakeet said, “that was pretty bratty of you. But you still would have married the same guy and taken the same job.”
“Who the hell are you?” Eileen demanded “And don’t try to tell me you’re my old parakeet. He died when I was nine. We put him in a shoebox and buried him in a nearby park.”
The bird turned its head and ran its beak through its tail feathers, admired the effect, and then cocked its head at her. “You’ve got me. Okay, here’s the deal: I’m here as a representative of Time.”
“You mean, like a time traveler?” asked Eileen, trying to remember some of the science fiction films she’d watched.
“No,” said the parakeet. “More like a sales agent, if you want to look at it like that. I’m giving you a chance to change one of those what-ifs you’ve been brooding about.”
“What?”
“We’re going to allow you to change your timeline,” it said patiently, as if talking to a rather slow student. “A switch in a decision you made somewhere along the way.”
“This is crazy,” Eileen declared. There was a light flutter and the parakeet flew down from the curtain rod to the arm of her sofa. It hopped onto her hand and wrapped its claws comfortably around one finger. Eileen lifted the bird so she could look directly at it, remembering how much she loved the feel of the fragile, trusting animal.
“It may be crazy,” ParaClete said. “But it’s true. Occasionally Time likes to play games with itself and chooses a few humans to play with. Turns out Time likes your family, so you’ve won the lottery this time around.”
“Okay,” Eileen said. “How does it work?”
“Here’s what happens: You get to pick a single moment in your life where you made a decision and change it. Any point of decision anywhere in your life. Big or small.”
It was an interesting proposition. Obviously not true, of course, but interesting to think about. Eileen thought about all the possibilities in her life she had missed. The boys she had never dated, the Master’s Degree she had never gone for, all the things that she should or shouldn’t have done…
But she wasn’t excited. She was scared. Very scared. And she knew why.
“What if the change doesn’t affect my life at all?” Eileen looked around the room, as if she could find a clue somewhere there. “Or what if it changes things for the worse? How do I decide something like that?”
“That’s the chance you take,” the parakeet said, without any sympathy in its voice.
“But what if I don’t like it and want to go back to the way it was…I mean, is?”
“You can’t,” said the bird. “That’s the deal. Time can occasionally tweak things but can’t be constantly shifting them back and forth. Better or worse, that will be your life. You won’t even know this happened.”
Eileen stared back at it. “Wait,” she finally said. “Give me a minute.”
She lowered her hand to the armrest of the couch and let the parakeet hop off her finger. She poured herself another generous helping and thought while she sipped. She looked at the parakeet, which was patiently grooming itself. She was too nervous to change her own life, she thought. But if she could change someone else’s…
“Can I choose not to stop Lydia and my mom from moving in together?”
The bird cocked its head for a moment as if listening. “No,” it finally said. “I’m afraid that now that you know the consequences of the action, it would no longer be a gamble. So that one—and the one where you go to Woodstock—is now off the table. Unless,” it added, “it’s a byproduct of a different change.”
“That’s not fair!” The parakeet didn’t seem to care whether it was fair or not, it just shrugged—a weird effect, considering it was a bird—and waited. Marion thought again.
“How about if I don’t specify? If I simply ask Time to change a single decision that would make my life better?”
The parakeet scratched its chest with its beak, considering. “That’s an option,” it finally admitted. “You can just spin the wheel and see what happens. But we can’t promise ‘better.’ Just ‘different.’ After all, we’re not doing this as a favor to you—it’s to give Time something to play with.”
“Then forget it,” said Eileen decidedly. “I don’t want to end up dead or homeless. How do I know that Time won’t think watching me scrounge for quarters will be hysterically funny? How do I know,” and her breath caught in her throat, “that you won’t make my daughter go away?”
It picked at a loose thread in the couch for a moment. “Okay,” it finally said. “How’s this? We’ll spin the wheel and if the results are that your daughter is never born, we’ll throw you back here. But that’s all I can promise.”
The bird raised its head. “Decide. Now. You’ve been moaning about your life for the past two months. Give it a shot—take a chance. For once in your life.”
Eileen took a breath for a moment. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe it was simply that she was tired and bored and unhappy. She said, quickly, “Yes. Go ahead.”
“Okay, then. Hold on.”
“To what?” Eileen asked, feeling a bit silly. She watched as the parakeet jumped up from the couch and began to fly around the room counterclockwise, first slowly, and then so quickly that it became a light green blur. That, combined with the alcohol, made her feel dizzy. She closed her eyes.
* * *
Eileen had done pretty well in her junior high Spanish classes, to the point where she could read a story or write an essay with reasonable fluency, if slowly. But she had trouble speaking—the words simply didn’t come quick enough—and so when she started high school, she decided to sign up for Conversational Spanish.
When she walked into the classroom, however, she saw she had made a mistake. The classroom was full of kids chatting fluently in Spanish; the school had a large population of students whose parents had moved to New York from Puerto Rico, and many of them obviously saw this class as an easy A.
Eileen sat at an empty desk and watched uneasily as the teacher, a tall, elegant woman with dark, carefully coiffed hair, walked into the classroom. “Silencio!” she said sharply, and the class quieted.
“First,” she said, in carefully enunciated Spanish, “I would like you to introduce yourself to the class. Tell us about yourself, and what you expect to get from the class. You first,” and she pointed at Eileen.
Eileen froze in panic. It felt like everyone in the room was staring at her. A couple of girls whom she knew from her other classes whispered together and grinned. Eileen knew she was about to make a complete fool of herself. Her language skills weren’t good; her pronunciation was probably worse. They would laugh at her. They would make fun of her.
“Comienza, por favor,” the teacher said impatiently.
Eileen sat there, unable to make a sound.
The teacher looked around at the class. “This is not a class where you can just sit like a lump and expect to pass,” she said in English. “This is a class where you are expected to participate. If you cannot do that, you might as well quit right now.”
The rest of the class went by in a blur. Once it was over, Eileen collected her things and walked, almost without thinking, to the assignment room. She would quit Spanish Conversation and take Typing instead. Typing would be useful, and nobody would laugh at her, or make her feel small or embarrassed. She put her hand on the door to go in.
Something changed.
Eileen was angry. What right had that teacher to make fun of her like that? After all, it was a class to learn conversation, wasn’t it? Not one for kids who already know conversation! If she quit now, she’d only be giving that teacher even more satisfaction. She’d show her!
Eileen took her hand off the doorknob and ran to her English Lit class where, in a sudden burst of inspiration, she introduced herself to Camila, the shy girl who always sat next to her. Camila, it turned out, was happy to have somebody to talk to. She hadn’t been brought up in a city—her father back in Salinas had sent her to live with an aunt in Brooklyn so she could get a better education, and she felt lost among the street-smart kids in the school. She was also, it turned out, as terrified of English Lit as Eileen was of Conversational Spanish. They made a pact: Each day during lunch, the two girls would sit together. (This meant that Eileen wouldn’t sit with the almost-but-not-quite-popular crowd that she had been edging into, but she didn’t mind that much. They weren’t that nice anyway.) Eileen would help Camila get through Great Expectations and Camila would coach Eileen in conversational Spanish.
* * *
Eileen opened her eyes. She must have dozed off for a moment; she was more tired than she thought. The unopened bottle of bourbon she had brought home was still on the living room coffee table; she reached for it and then stopped—there was a scratching sound near the window. She got up and walked over: A small green-and-yellow parakeet was on the window sill, pushing at the screen of the open window with its head.
“How did you get in here?” she asked it. It chirped frantically and continued to batter its head against the screen. Eileen remembered the tear in her bedroom window screen and shook her head. “Gotta get that fixed.”
She slowly opened the window wider and then pushed up the screen. In a moment, the parakeet had flown out the window and was gone.
“Maybe I should have kept you,” she said, pulling down the screen. “You might have been somebody’s pet. But,” she considered, “you did look like you really wanted out.”
She decided to forget it and went back to the couch. She started opening the bourbon, thinking about how nice it would be to get really drunk and wondering if she should watch something on TV in the meantime. Something meaningless and funny. She could use funny.
Almost in answer, her phone rang. Eileen picked it up and looked at the display. It was her supervisor at work. Of course—why would they expect her to have a life?
She put it to her ear. “Hi, Camila,” she said, a little impatiently.
“Hola, Eileen,” Camila said, sounding contrite. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I know it’s after hours, and I wouldn’t have called, except that it’s an emergency. But if you’re busy…”
“No, it’s fine,” Eileen said, immediately contrite. “Just a little sad, that’s all. It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death.”
There was a short silence. “I’m so sorry,” said Camila. “Your mom was a wonderful lady. I still think about the stories she used to tell about her childhood in Paris. And her friend, who moved in with her later? She was very sweet as well.”
“Yes—Lydia,” Eileen said. “I probably wouldn’t have made it through my teen years without her. Or, at least, not as well as I did.”
“I’m sorry. I should have remembered.”
“Really, it’s fine.” Eileen shrugged, even though she knew Camila couldn’t see her. “What’s up?”
“There have been three more raids,” Camila said, anger leaking into her voice. “Three restaurants, and ICE has taken 17 people. Luckily, one of the restaurant owners called me; we need to get down to the station and make sure everything’s kosher and that we get as many out on bond as we can. I’m on my way, and Julio from the Pottstown office said he could come as well. It would really help if you and he could handle the intake interviews while I’m dealing with the authorities.”
“Oh, hell,” Eileen said. “The raids are becoming more frequent, aren’t they?”
“Not surprising, considering who’s in charge these days,” Camila said. “Can you come?”
“Of course. Just give me a minute to grab my things. I should be there within the hour.”
“Gracias, querida,” Camila said.
“De nada,” Eileen said. “It’s why they pay me the big bucks.”
Camila groaned and hung up.
Resigned, Eileen picked up her coat and shrugged it on. It’s too bad, she thought. It would have been nice to have had a real life, with a husband who stuck around, a kid who calls more than once a month, and enough savings to retire on.
She picked up the bag with the cold pizza in it. She could eat it while she drove to the police station. And the bourbon would still be waiting when she got back. If only I had done something about it when I was younger. Maybe made a different decision somewhere along the way…
She grabbed her car keys. “Just stop it,” she told herself sternly. “You don’t have time for a pity party. You have work to do.”
Time grinned.
