Common Grackle
(Quiscalus quiscula)
The next day, Isabella and I stood silently in front of the burned-out hotel, like it was a grave. The shell of the building stood at odd angles, and inside the skeleton black and gray ashes, like feathers in disarray, lay ankle deep where chairs and beds and tables should have been. It reminded me of Father.
The winter after he came home from the war, Father hit a grackle with our new Model T Ford. We were going out for a drive after church, and I was excited because I didn’t get to ride in the car very often. I was sprawled in the backseat, enjoying the bump and jostle of the journey, when suddenly Father let out a curse and slammed on the brakes. I threw my arms out to steady myself against the lurch of the car, and winced at the crunch of bones beneath the tires. Father pulled over and we all got out. A light snow dusted our wool coats. The little broken pile of black feathers lay there in the road. I leaned back against the cold metal of the closed car door, looking at the small sleek creature that had become nothing but an ink stain on the white snow.
Then rage gripped me and I turned to Father, blame searing my tongue. But before I could speak, he stepped out into the road and bent over the dead bird. He scooped it up in his gloved hands and looked at it—at this common bird that most would consider a pest—with tenderness, respect, regret in his eyes.
“Garnet, get the trowel out of the glove box,” he told me. I went.
“The ground is frozen, Albert. We can’t bury it,” Mother said.
“We can try,” he told her. “We owe it that.”
Father dug the bird a shallow grave, wrenching chunks of frozen dirt out of the ground at the side of the road. He laid it inside, whispered something under his breath, and covered the blue-black body with bits of brittle earth. He heaped a little snow over the mound, and I set two sticks in a cross shape on the grave.
Father stood up and wiped the snow from the knees of his trousers. Large wet spots remained. In a dark, heavy voice, he said, “Never neglect the dead. The ones you’ve killed will haunt you, always.”
He wasn’t speaking to me.
Now, I stood with Isabella in front of the wrecked hotel, which was lying there in its rubble of soot and ash, and it looked just like Father’s grackle had, that snowy day. And I thought of him. I had memories of him cupping a frog in his huge rough hands, him kissing Mother full on the lips. I knew he had been a living man once. His sadness had made him seem dead for so long, but with Mother’s hopeful letters I’d almost started to believe he would come back to us. Now he was really gone, from me at least, and I found myself gazing up at the ruins of the hotel and saying good-bye to him. Wondering where he’d go. Wishing him luck.
Maybe he would find a new place to live, a new life, a new happiness. Or maybe he would wander, like the chimney swift who never perches anywhere for long.
Fly, Daddy, fly! I thought, imagining the dark shape of the swift darting through the sky. First the grackle, then the swift—my mind was full of dark birds as I took in the sight of the ruined building.
Isabella seemed pensive too. She shivered despite the heat and I stroked her hand.
“I tried to tell you that day, in the water . . .”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Mitch is sick.”
“Oh, no.”
“I got a letter from my mother. The boxing gloves arrived and so she finally had my address. She wrote to tell me Mitch has been ill for months now. They’re not sure he’ll make it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“And I have a sister. Sophia. She was born a little while after I left—she’s almost two now and my mother says she already likes to sing.”
She swallowed hard and sniffed and a tear inched down her cheek, leaving a little trail of mascara. I turned to her and put my arms around her, pressing her into me. I didn’t care an ounce if people saw.
“What if they break her of it? The singing?” she said into my shoulder. “Like they tried to keep me from dancing?”
“She’s your sister, Isabella. I’m sure she’ll be strong like you.”
“I can’t trust them to raise her right. And I have to see Mitch again before he—he—in case I can help make him better. I have to go home.” She pulled away and looked at me with fear in her eyes.
“You can do it, Isabella. You had the courage to leave. You’ll have the courage to go back.”
“The season’s almost up. My contract ends in September. I’ll go then, and plan to stay the winter, and see what happens.”
I smiled, wiped a tear from her cheek. It was possible that I’d never see her again, but even knowing that fact and letting its weight sit on my heart, I could never tell her not to go to her family.
“Do you want to go in?” I asked. “I think it’s safe.” She composed herself and nodded. We borrowed heavy shoes and thick gloves from two firemen who were just finishing the day’s cleanup work and ventured inside.
We picked our way to the northeast corner of the wreckage, where three floors’ worth of debris lay in one thick layer. The hem of my borrowed dress trailed in the deep ashes—I’d picked Isabella’s longest skirt and it was actually a little too long for me, but otherwise her clothes fit me pretty well. I liked having the smell of her close to me all day long.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, pawing through charred bits of unrecognizable furniture and the broken porcelain of bathroom fixtures. There was nothing left. I didn’t mind; it almost made it easier to start over, for me and Mother, and for the Harringtons too. For all of us, maybe. I saw a piece of a lantern, and a tune found its way into my head. I began to hum, and then to sing quietly under my breath:
But should the surges rise, and rest delay to come,
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm,
Which drives us nearer home,
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm,
Which drives us nearer home.
After awhile I called to Isabella, “We can go now. Are you ready?” She nodded solemnly. I looked around me one last time. Then I led Isabella out, not the quick way straight through the gap in the crumbled wall, but through the front door and down the broken staircase that had once been so grand. A proper good-bye.
“We have one stop to make on our way home,” she said as we emerged. “You need a new pair of scissors.”
When we reached the stairs to Isabella’s apartment half an hour later, she took them with decisive steps: up, up, and up.
I scrambled after her and grabbed her before she reached the top. From one step below her, I held her close, pressed her against me, buried my face in her shoulder. My injuries had mostly healed but mother was not walking on her ankle yet, and I did not fear discovery. Isabella lifted my chin with one hand, the other gripping the railing so we wouldn’t fall, and kissed me, hard. Once, twice, three times, again and again.
I lost count of kisses and minutes and up and down and pain and joy and fear and loss and happiness and risk. I’d say that there was nothing in the world except her right then, but that would be a lie. There was everything, and it filled me up to bursting.
