19.The cardinal was back today. That was the third day in a row.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any type of bird three straight days in a row before, Iris Below thought. Maybe a robin or a sparrow. But not a cardinal. Definitely not a cardinal.
What did a cardinal want with her house? There were plenty of other houses in her neighborhood more suited to birds. Houses with bird feeders and fruit trees. Iris had stopped putting out a bird feeder years ago. There were no seeds or fruit trees to be found. But then again, the cardinal didn’t seem to be that interested in eating. All the bird would do was perch on the branch outside Iris’s kitchen window. Iris sat at her kitchen table a lot. Not just for eating. She’d drink her coffee there in the morning. And a lot of times, Iris just liked to sit there. There were lots of other windows in her house. Windows she could easily stare out of. Windows she could easily sit at. But she didn’t. She was committed to sitting at the kitchen table and looking out of the kitchen window. That’s just how it had always been. It was the best view of the yard, really. A very peaceful view. And it was outside this very window this cardinal had been choosing to sit.
The cardinal was the most beautiful one she had ever seen. And what’s more, Iris swore the cardinal was looking right at her. She could feel his gaze. He looked upon her in a way she’d never been looked at by a bird before. As he puffed his feathers it seemed like a show for her. Iris looked up the meaning of this feather puffing, and, sure enough, found it was a sign of mating. She felt an all-too-intense energy coming from him. An energy that Iris knew only too well.
Iris then had a thought. Not just a thought. Also a feeling. A thought and feeling that she probably wouldn’t tell anyone about. Especially her son, Sam. If she told Sam he’d say she was crazy. She wouldn’t tell Sam. She wouldn’t tell anyone, but Iris thought and felt that this bird, this beautiful cardinal, was actually her late husband, Menachem. She was certain. I mean, if anyone could tell, she could tell. The cardinal looked at her the very way Menachem had looked at her from the first day to the last. The look he had given her before he said his first hello, to the last look he gave Iris right before the light left his eyes forever. Right before her honey boy left her for good. When he left to end his suffering. To end his pain. To end her pain.
She knew Menachem knew how much she hated seeing him like that. He probably would have stuck around longer if it didn’t hurt her seeing him like that so much. Sometimes she wondered if she should have put on more of a face.
“I definitely shouldn’t have cried so much around him. That was a dead giveaway.”
It made her so mad at herself. She could have smiled more for him. She could have hidden it all. But then again, Menachem could see through anything. That was the thing about him. No fooling Menachem. So he left. In his mind (what was left of it) he probably thought he was giving Iris a break. And maybe he did. It was hard caring for him. Even harder knowing things hadn’t always been perfect with them and certain wrongs could never be made right. But maybe that was better. Maybe making wrongs right was too complicated and it was just better to blindly forgive. What was forgiveness but a moving on? Maybe all forgiveness was just an exhaustion. And Iris was tired. So tired.
But these visits from the cardinal had awakened her. Had rejuvenated her. Iris could feel the cardinal wanting her. Not sexually, but something much deeper. A deep need to be with her, to hold her in the warmth of his gaze. Was it really Menachem? Coming to check on her. Making sure she was all right. Making sure that Iris still loved him.
“Well, I do, my honey boy. I do and I always will. How could I not? You were the best. Or maybe you are the best.”
Iris giggled. If this cardinal was Menachem, it was quite funny. Funny that he turned into his favorite bird. Oh yeah. That’s right. Iris had forgotten. Forgotten that until now. The cardinal was Menachem’s favorite bird. Made sense. Made sense as he lay on his deathbed, his mind disappearing in front of his wife’s very own eyes. Iris crying and making it all even worse. And Menachem, the protector he was, having to do something. He saw all of this, and then maybe an angel came to him. Or a ghost. Maybe his mother, even. And whoever it was told him that he didn’t need to worry. He didn’t need to hang on anymore. Iris would be fine. Iris would be fine and he’d still be able to see his beloved every day, and to make the whole death deal even sweeter, he’d get to come back as his favorite bird.
That’s what Iris hoped had happened. Then again, she didn’t know. If he was this cardinal, he probably didn’t know that he was going to be a cardinal before he went. If Iris really thought truthfully about Menachem’s last moment, she would admit that his face was filled with nothing but fear. Eyes wide. So wide. But then again, his face didn’t really move much toward the end. He couldn’t really smile or anything. So maybe his eyes all wide like that weren’t fearful eyes but the wide eyes of laughter. Maybe he found it funny. So funny. How funny it would be when he would turn into his favorite bird and visit Iris every day.
One day Iris saw the cardinal masturbating. She had seen a bird masturbate before. She knew what it looked like. When he was young, her son had a cockatiel, and it would put one of its feet higher than the other on the bar of its cage and then it would squat on its perch and move its pelvis back and forth. And the cardinal was doing the same exact motion as that cockatiel, and the whole time he didn’t stop looking at her. Well, every time the cardinal visited it would never stop looking at Iris. But this time he really didn’t stop looking at Iris. And Iris could have sworn the cardinal had the same exact expression that Menachem got when they made love. Like the eyes of a satyr.
She knew that look from anywhere. She wanted to kiss him. But she wouldn’t. Even if it was him, what if looking was all he was allowed to do? What if Iris kissed him and he was punished for it? Maybe the pact he had made with God was to just look. And if that pact was broken he’d be taken away. Brought back to heaven. Never allowed to see her ever again.
And if he didn’t change. That would surely destroy her. The knowing that he might be nowhere. The knowing he just might be totally gone. Just a memory. The knowing that her loss of him had driven her insane.
But maybe it was worth a try. And as she walked into her backyard, she prayed that if she was able to kiss him and he didn’t change, it wouldn’t mean that it wasn’t him. That it would just mean that’s what he was now. Just like she was what she was. And one day maybe she’d be a bird, too.