20

The next morning the sky was clear and the air was still. The pond sparkled in the bright morning sun. When I arrived, Theo was waiting.

“I note all my bird sightings in my notebook,” I said. When we reached the boulder, I took out my bird journal. “You write down time and place, describe the bird, and then make a drawing.” I showed him a few sample pages. “My drawings are bad.”

“This one’s good.” He pointed to a great blue heron that Dad had drawn for me.

“My dad did that one.”

“He’s a good drawer.”

“Mm-hmm,” I said, hoping he didn’t take it any further.

“Is your dad a bird-watcher too?”

I was quiet for a moment. “He was. He’s dead.”

Now he knew. It was out there, and there was no taking it back.

“When did he die?” Theo asked.

“Last February,” I replied. Please don’t ask how he died.

Thankfully all Theo said was, “That’s not a very long time ago.”

Suddenly, the crow, Joseph, was back and drawing attention to himself. Caw, caw, caw!

Theo got out his camera. “He’s looking at us,” he said.

“I know,” I replied.

Just then Theo noticed the drawing I’d done of Joseph. “That’s not a bad drawing of that crow,” he said. “Good job with its head.” He pointed to the page and the word written there. “You gave the bird a name?”

“I did,” I said, waiting for a snide comment.

“Was your dad’s name Joseph?” he asked.

“No,” I said. Please, don’t ask any more questions about Dad.

“Did you know that in India people believe you can get reborn as an animal?” Theo asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“Hmm,” I said, keeping my eyes on my journal.

“After my mom died, my dad bought all these books about grieving,” he continued. “I tried to read them, and he wanted to talk about them with me. But I didn’t understand all of it. I used to wonder what kind of animal my mother would come back as. In church, they tell you dead people are angels, but I’d rather think of her as a bird or butterfly.”

I knew Theo probably only wanted to give me an opportunity to talk about Dad, but I didn’t want to hear about death anymore. “Let’s walk around the pond,” I suggested, taking off.

Walking felt good, pushing the cloud away from me, leaving enough room to breathe. I relaxed.

“I don’t know if I believe people come back as animals,” I said after several minutes. “I miss my dad the way he was.”

“I know,” Theo said. “I got kind of angry at my dad for talking about this stuff. I even yelled at him that it was all garbage, made up by people who don’t know how much it hurts.”

“Have you heard of those stages of grieving?” I asked.

Theo nodded. “I have. But I don’t believe in them. I never denied that my mother died. And I wasn’t angry either. I can’t remember the other stages, but I think counselors just make this stuff up.”

The cloud lifted further, and I took a deep breath. We kept walking. It was good to be silent with Theo.

Along the way, we heard a familiar caw.

“Look, there’s Joseph,” Theo said, pointing ahead to where the crow stood in front of what looked like an animal’s burrow under a tree. He was picking at something.

“He must have found some dead animal,” I said, focusing my binoculars on it.

Theo turned his camera toward Joseph and zoomed in. “It looks like he’s trying to get a turtle out of its shell.”

Joseph kept pecking at the turtle for a while before he gave up and flew away. I walked over to pick it up.

“It’s just a shell,” I said. “No turtle in it anymore.”

“But the shell is complete. Look at these holes, though,” I said, pointing to two small round holes on the top and two on the bottom that perforated the shell.

“I think this is a box turtle shell. I have a book about turtles at home. But the holes don’t look like they were made by Joseph’s beak,” Theo said.

“I’ll keep it,” I said, picking the shell up and sticking it in my backpack. As we walked away, we saw a killdeer limping.

“Oh no,” Theo said. “It must be injured.”

I shook my head. “That’s called the broken-wing impression. She pretends to be injured so a possible predator will come after her instead of her nest. We must’ve come close to her nest, and she’s trying to protect her eggs.”

“It’s cool that you know all this stuff about birds,” Theo said.

I looked away. It felt too weird to hear a compliment from him.

“It’s time for us to go,” I said.

We headed back to our bikes in silence, but as we pedaled toward the school, I glanced over at him. I was really glad that Theo wanted to watch birds with me.