The Nature of Small Birds Read online

  “That’s a bit overdramatic,” Mom said. “Don’t you think?”

  “My life is over,” I cried, collapsing onto the table in a fit of tears next to my bowl of Cracklin’ Oat Bran.

  I appreciated that she didn’t point out that I was only proving her point.

  “Honey,” she said, “you did nothing wrong. I want you to walk into the school with your head held high. All right? You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Sometimes I wondered if my mom remembered what it was like to be a teenager.

  Mindy didn’t rush me, but somehow we still managed to leave the house on time. The El Camino started on the first turn of the key, which hardly ever happened. There was no traffic and we didn’t get stuck behind the bus of little kids that stopped a hundred times in one block.

  We were, by some miracle, early to school.

  And on the one day that I’d rather not be there at all.

  “It really stinks,” Mindy said as I pulled the car into a parking spot. “But you know what?”

  I sighed after I wrestled the gearshift into park. “What?”

  “Sonny.”

  “What?” I didn’t even try to tame my annoyance.

  “Kevin Woods used you and that was so uncool,” she said. “And everybody knows it.”

  “Yeah, and I’m the dweeb who fell for it.” I turned off the engine, leaving the key in the ignition, knowing that nobody would steal that hunk of junk.

  “You’re not a dweeb. You’re the girl that he thought would make his ex insane with jealousy,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “But don’t let it go to your head.” Mindy pushed her door open and stepped out. Ducking down, she looked in at me. “Are you coming?”

  When we walked into school, I tried to hold my head high like Mom had said to, even if breakfast sat heavy in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when nobody stopped to stare at me or make fun of me, I was kind of surprised.

  “Sonny,” Amelia called. “Hold up.”

  I turned, and she gave me a sympathetic look. She was the only one I’d called to cry to. If there was anyone at that school I could trust not to spill my secrets, it was her.

  “Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand and dragging her to the girls’ bathroom. “Nobody’s talking about it?”

  She shrugged. “Well, I mean, Mike was talking about it a little bit.”

  “Figures.” I glanced in the mirror to check the height of my bangs, grabbing the comb from my bag to tease them up a little more. “I bet he’s the one that told everybody in the first place.”

  “Sonny, that’s not fair.”

  “He never misses a chance to make me look stupid,” I said.

  “Did you forget that he got dumped too?” She pushed up her sleeve to look at her swatch. “The bell’s about to ring.”

  “What’s he been saying?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, grabbing me by the wrist. “Nice things.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “It’s because he likes you, Sonny.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you can’t see that.”

  “He does not.”

  “You’re so blind,” Amelia said. “Come on.”

  It was her turn to drag me around the halls. On the way to first hour—whoever scheduled a physics class that started at eight in the morning was nothing short of a monster—a few underclassmen girls said my name.

  “We heard you looked really pretty at prom,” one of them said.

  “Who told you that?” I asked, turning and walking backward for a few steps.

  “Mike Huisman,” she answered with a giggle. “He’s telling everybody.”

  “See,” Amelia said, giving my arm a little tug. “Told you so.”

  During class Mike walked past my desk to sharpen his pencil. On his way, he dropped a note onto my textbook.

  “Hey, Sonny,” it started. “Want to hang out at the mall after school? I can pick you up at four. From, Mike.”

  I caught his eye as he made his way back to his seat. I shrugged and then nodded.

  I’d spent all of my babysitting money on my prom dress, so as soon as I got home from school, I scrounged around for spare change in every couch cushion and junk drawer.

  All I managed to come up with were two nickels and a handful of crusty pennies.

  It wasn’t even enough for a small at Orange Julius.

  I even tried under my bed, hoping a couple of quarters had rolled there, dropped from my jeans pockets. No such luck.

  I pulled Mike’s note from the back pocket of my stonewashed jeans and read it for the hundredth time. “Hang out” didn’t necessarily mean “date.” “Hang out” meant I needed to pay for my own stuff at the food court.

  “I need a job,” I muttered to myself, pulling a dust bunny from my bangs and then leaning back against my bed.

  That was when I remembered the envelope of cash that Mindy kept in her bedside table. At any given time, the girl had as much as a hundred dollars saved up from allowance or birthday money squirreled away. Every once in a while, she’d pull it out and count it to make sure it was all there like that miser we had to read about in English class.

  She didn’t like it when I called her Silas Marner for some reason.

  I sighed at the idea of going all the way downstairs to ask her if she could lend me five bucks. She’d give me the money. Of course she would. But asking was such a hassle.

  Crawling across the floor on hands and knees, I decided that I’d just borrow a few bucks and put it back next week after I babysat my cousins. I’d even add a little in interest.

  She’d never have to know.

  I reached her bedside table and inched the bottom drawer out, knowing it would creak if I pulled it too fast. I checked behind me to make sure she wasn’t coming before I reached in.

  Mindy had a little lockbox she’d gotten for Christmas one year where she kept her riches. What she didn’t know was that the lock on it was so cheap that all someone had to do was shove the end of a bobby pin in to pop it.

  It took me no time to click that sucker open and lift the lid. Turning to look over my shoulder, I reached into the box.

  My fingertips landed on something glossy. A picture. Without thinking, I picked it up.

  It had been torn out of a magazine. Probably some dusty National Geographic. It looked like a painting of a baby holding a really big, totally whacked-out looking chicken.

  Mindy was always collecting the weirdest things. Most of the time I wrote it off as her being a geek, but that picture was something different. For one, it didn’t have anything to do with Star Trek, at least not that I could tell. And for another, she’d put it in her lockbox and I wondered why she would hide something like that.

  The caption at the bottom of the page didn’t help at all.

  Dong Ho folk woodcut painting, Bac Ninh Province.

  I turned the page over to see if the other side might help me understand. But it was just an ad for Polaroid cameras.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped at the sound of Mindy’s voice and sprang to my feet so fast I got stars in my eyes.

  “Can I borrow some money?” I asked, putting my hands behind my back, the picture pinched between finger and thumb. “I can pay you back later.”

  She rushed across the room, eyes narrowed at me. “Why?”

  “I’m going to the mall.” I cleared my throat. “I’d only need a few dollars. Five dollars max.”

  “No. I mean, why are you digging through my stuff?”

  The look in her eyes made me feel like the worst person in the world. She glanced at the drawer and the lockbox with its open lid, and I didn’t resist her when she pulled on my arm and snatched the picture from my hands. I watched her eyes blink fast. It was what she always did when she was annoyed or upset.

  She laid the magazine picture back in the lockbox with all the care in the world, and I felt so guilty for violating her pr
ivacy. I closed my eyes, trying to think of a way to apologize.

  “What’s the picture from?” I asked instead.

  “Nothing,” she said under her breath.

  “Is it from . . .” I was going to say Vietnam, but she cut me off.

  “I said it’s nothing.” She stood up and put a ten-dollar bill in my hand. “Have fun.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Nudging me aside, she pulled out her desk chair and sat down, pulling the cover off her typewriter and rolling a fresh piece of paper in through the top.

  “Mins,” I said.

  She didn’t acknowledge me.

  I walked away as soon as she started her clicky-clacky on the keys—harder and faster than usual.

  Mike dropped me off around eight o’clock and even walked me to the door. He didn’t kiss me, though, which was both a relief and a disappointment at the same time.

  Dad was in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and wearing his “Best Dad” apron we’d gotten him the year before for Father’s Day.

  “How was the mall?” he asked, running a plate under the water.

  “Good,” I answered. “Is Mom home?”

  “Yeah.” His eyebrows lowered. “She’s in bed already.”

  “This early?”

  “Being pregnant’s exhausting, I guess.” He dropped a handful of silverware into the basket of the dishwasher.

  “You’re doing that wrong,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “Mom always puts the forks and knives pointy side down.”

  “Well, my mom taught me to put them pointing up,” he said. “You want to call your grammy and tell her she’s wrong?”

  “No way.” I reached down and flipped all the silverware so they’d be the right way. “She’d probably disown me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. She might write you out of the will, though.” Dad scrubbed at the bottom of a pan with a Brillo pad. “You and Mike have a good time?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “He’s fun.”

  He nodded, keeping his eyes on whatever gunk was stuck to the pan.

  “Does this mean that the two of you are . . .”

  “You know what, I think I’ll go see what Mindy’s doing,” I cut him off and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter.

  “Aren’t you hungry? I mean for real food?” He turned off the water. “You need me to warm something up for you?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I had some pizza at the food court.”

  Mike had ended up paying after all. When I tried to protest, he told me that the guy always pays on a date. So, that settled it.

  When I left the kitchen, Dad called after me not to leave my apple core in my room.

  “Okay,” I yelled, headed upstairs.

  Mindy was sitting on her bed, reading some forever-long Stephen King book that she’d checked out of the public library. If the Bible teacher at school knew that she read such things, he would probably fail her.

  Then again, if he knew I listened to Madonna, he might pass out.

  “What’s that one about?” I asked, flopping down at the foot of her bed.

  “Um. There’s this, like, really bad flu or something that kills almost everybody on earth,” she said, putting her finger in between the pages to keep her spot. “The people who survive have this war to decide who gets to take over what’s left of the world.”

  “Huh.”

  “You probably wouldn’t like it.”

  “Maybe I would.”

  She tilted her head to one side and frowned at me. “I don’t think so.”

  “Is it creepy?”

  She pointed to Stephen King’s name on the cover. “Yup.”

  I reached into the coin pocket of my jeans and pulled out the money she’d given me, dropping it on her bedspread.

  “I didn’t spend it,” I said.

  Mindy shrugged and opened her book again.

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” I went on. “I shouldn’t have been snooping.”

  “With an intent to steal.” She didn’t lift her eyes from the page.

  “Yeah. I know.” I rolled my eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that either.”

  “I forgive you.”

  When she smiled, I knew she was over it.

  She was done talking, that was obvious by the way she turned her body from me and went back to reading. I got up off her bed and changed into my pajamas, tossing my jeans and shirt on the back of my desk chair, if for no other reason than to see if she’d say anything about it. She really hated when I left my clothes all over the place.

  “So, are you and Mike going out now or what?” she asked.

  Her book was closed and she’d moved to the end of her bed.

  “I don’t know,” I answered, hopping onto my bed, glad that she wasn’t done talking after all.

  “I heard he told everybody at school that you were the prettiest girl at prom,” she said. “He definitely likes you.”

  “Maybe.” I grabbed my pillow and held it against my stomach. “I just don’t know. What if I get to college and realize I’m not good at long-distance relationships?”

  “You won’t know if you don’t try.”

  “Or what if I meet somebody else?”

  She just shrugged and pulled the scrunchie out of her hair, fitting it on her wrist.

  If we’d been in an after-school special we would have moved on to talk about the picture Mindy had hidden in her lockbox. She would have told me that she just wanted to know more about where she came from or that it was hard being adopted.

  She would have cried. I would have hugged her. Then we both would have gone downstairs for ice cream with our perfect little family, all of us smiling and happy and loved.

  And all of that with cheesy music playing in the background.

  Instead, she went back to reading about the end of the world and I took a shower.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  Bruce, 2013

  My three girls only lived under the same roof for a month before Sonny left for college. Aside from the times when she came home on a weekend to do laundry or for a holiday break, she missed the first few years of Holly’s life.

  Then, right after Holly turned two, it was Mindy’s turn to head out.

  Holly’s earliest memories are from life with just Linda and me in the house. It was almost like we were raising an only child in those days. Every once in a while I lament all she missed by not having her sisters closer when she was growing up.

  So tonight, with the family room set up for a sister sleepover—air mattresses inflated and sleeping bags rolled out—well, it’s giving me a nice, warm feeling.

  Earlier today Mindy had a phone conversation with Eric that didn’t go so well. I guess it was naive of me to think that once the ink was dry on the divorce papers that it would be the end of the struggles for them.

  Unfortunately, that’s just not so. Not yet, at least.

  Anyway, the call upset Mindy, and the minute Linda heard about it she sent a text message to Sonny and Holly, declaring a state of emergency and telling them their sister needed them.

  “BRING CHOCOLATE!” she tagged on to the end of it.

  We ordered pizzas, made sure the fridge was stocked with pop, and I ran to the store to get the fixings so I can make them a big breakfast tomorrow morning.

  I’m letting the ladies have some time to themselves while I noodle around a little on my guitar in the music room. There’s a song that I’ve been meaning to write. This seems like the perfect time.

  But I hardly get into tune before Holly peeks in at me. “Hey, Mom got out all the old photo albums. Wanna look at them with us?”

  Well, I’d be a fool to say no to something like that.

  The five of us sit around the dining room table, passing albums back and forth, taking our time over the old family pictures of birthdays and vacations and band concerts. Of course there are the shots from assorted church pageants in which our girls
played sheep or angels or slapped on a yarn beard to be a disciple.

  “Aw, look at this,” Sonny says, pointing at a square and yellowing picture. “Mindy’s kindergarten graduation.”

  “You were so tiny.” Holly looks over Sonny’s shoulder.

  “Can you believe I was a year older than everybody else?” Mindy says. “Mom wouldn’t let me start kindergarten until I learned enough English.”

  “Okay,” Holly said, completely uninterested in the timeline of Mindy’s early education. She points at the picture, finger resting on the bell-bottoms Mindy had on under her little robe. “But what’s with those pants?”

  “It was the seventies, honey.” Linda reaches across the table for a cookie. “Everybody had at least one pair of plaid pants.”

  “Even Dad.” Mindy flips through an album. “See?”

  “Hey now,” I say, squinting to see the picture she’s holding up. “Those pants were cool.”

  “I liked them,” Linda says, lifting her eyebrows at me.

  “Ew, Mom.” Holly cringes.

  “Well, this is an oldie,” I say, turning my album so they can see. “Your Uncle Chris and Aunt Dana’s wedding.”

  “Back when Uncle Chris still had hair,” Sonny says. “And check out that beard.”

  “Aunt Dana’s so pretty.” Mindy smiles.

  “Grammy and I made all the dresses,” Linda says.

  “Hol, aren’t you impressed that they made those bridesmaid dresses out of curtains?” Sonny asks.

  “They did?” Holly pushes her lips to one side of her face. “Why would they do that?”

  “We did not,” Linda says. “That was just the style back then. I think they’re pretty.”

  “The seventies were weird.” Holly grabs a different album, and a loose photo falls out.

  “What’s this one?” she asks, holding it up. “Is this Sonny?”

  “How about that,” I say. “I haven’t seen that in years.”

  “What is this monster?” Holly wrinkles up her nose. “And why does she have it in a choke hold?”

  “It’s a bullfrog, silly,” Sonny says, taking the picture. “I was hugging it. Can’t you see how it’s smiling?”

  “Hey, didn’t you used to have that on the wall above the sink?” Mindy asks Linda.