All the Dancing Birds (11 page)

We held each other tightly through every crashing thing and every joyful thing. We held each other when Ivan’s job fell out from under his feet and it took three months of painful doubt before he landed every man’s dream job as Chief Financial Officer at Clive and Ulster. Gosh, they took good care of your father.

Then, we clinked glasses together when my job as a simple high school English teacher thrust me upward to serve in the English Department at American River College. We whooped through the house like wild hooligans and got drunk on wine and possibilities when
The New Yorker
bought one of my poems.

Your father was the skin on my body and the sense in my days. And so, when his heart suddenly stopped and refused to come back, I was ill-prepared for the force of death that causes a woman to suddenly breathe alone. Twenty-eight years of standing with him arm-to-arm made me notice his abrupt withdrawal along every inch of my skin and deep within my lungs. There is nothing of me that doesn’t miss him.

There is everything in me that will miss him as long as I breathe.

You children may think of your father with different thoughts, different memories. Maybe you think of your own little hands caught up in his, or maybe you concentrate on those rare fatherly scowls when you were in trouble and only his withering look could straighten it all out. But he was as good to you as he was to me. He was good to everyone around him and it is nothing but cruelty to us all that he let go of our hands and took hold of heaven’s grasp when he did.

I’ve gone on much too long, so I’ll end here.

With gentle love,

Mom

I’m suddenly tossed. Shifted. Turned inside-out and shaken loose from whatever goodness there had been throughout the day. The usual comfort of standing in the center of my closet, of unfolding and refolding my little letters and poems, of recalling the history that has kept my feet like roots in nourishing soil, now twists along the length of my bones. The years it took to reconfigure my life without Ivan are vanished, and the grief of his loss is as present and palpable as if it were just today he died in my arms, out in the yard, under the pecan tree. I remember the grass was flattened and scorched under him as if he had tried to put out a fire with his body.

The letter flutters from my hand; losing my memory altogether might not be such a bad thing after all.

I decide I would be happy if there might be starfish in my brain, sticky-footed creatures frolicking under the surface of all these saltwater tides of tears. Yes, that should be it. Starfish, slowly feeding on my darkest memories, especially those of my Ivan’s terrible death, on the grass, under the pecan tree. Sticky, sticky starfish, eating up my words, my thoughts. I imagine them growing larger, more plentiful.

Stickier.

Chapter Eleven

A
spider has made a messy web in the corner of my bathtub. Somehow, in the privacy of my mind, I know this spider has something important to tell me. No one else would know about the gravity of a spider in one’s bathtub. But I know. I know.

I clap my hands for joy. I run to the kitchen where I take hold of a chair and drag it to the bathroom. I place it across from the spider and sit carefully, like a lady. Her legs tremble as I scrape the feet of the chair a bit closer.

I don’t know what to do about her and her serious eyes. She is quick, busy with her web, until she sees me. Then she stands tall, waving her front legs like a joyful hello to a long lost friend. Her mouth is a wide declaration, a smile, perhaps. Her shiny black body, like patent leather, seems sturdy, impressive.

I’d like to take her up into my hand, bring her to my lips, but I decide against the gesture.

After all, what kind of a fool converses with a spider? She should be killed and then swirled with the hottest of water quickly down the drain. She might bite. Everyone knows there is certain destruction when a spider takes over the corners and crevices of one’s house, leaving webs with flies, stuck and sucked dry. But I can’t destroy her. Not with her legs trembling like this, or her mouth opening in surprise at my approach, or the hopefulness that takes up the entire length of her body and spreads out across the expanse of the web she has crafted.

She is magnificent and we are making friends.

“Well, hello,” I say in my loveliest lilt. “You shouldn’t be afraid of me. I wouldn’t hurt a fly, although I’m sure you’d be delighted if I were to serve you a nice large fly specimen for your dinner.” I laugh and settle in for a morning’s conversation with my new friend.

She tells me secrets.

I hear her. It surprises me because of the constant buzzing that has recently taken over my ears. Sometimes I nearly cry out because of its horrid annoyance. Buzzing, buzzing always. But it doesn’t seem such a bother, now that I hear the high, tremulous voice of this spider. There it is, in a pitch just slightly above the night-and-day radio wave of sound that fluxes deep within my ears.

I hear the voice of a spider and I am enchanted!

We soon exchange names and the pleasantries of the day. She prefers her married name, Mrs. Bird, which I find amusing since any bird would snatch her up if given the chance. I mention that she is lucky to have found a spot where she is safe. She measures the distance between us and says she could very well say the same for me. We laugh and laugh over that one.

She dips her head as she mentions she is a widow. I brighten with our common state. As it turns out, we are both widows, with children, but without any close lady friends.

We talk and visit until morning turns itself over to the sensitivity of afternoon and its changing shadows. Reluctantly, I leave Mrs. Bird to her churning business while I drag my chair back to its place in the kitchen. I busy myself with pushing a sponge across an array of dirty dishes. It’s a difficult task these days to keep ahead of my own messes. I sweep toast crumbs toward my hand, only to miss and watch them flutter to the floor.

There was a time when I would have rushed for a broom and dustpan. I would have been immaculate. Now, I’m lucky to notice anything amiss. Some might say I’ve become relaxed, focused instead on things more worthy of my mature status. I know otherwise. I’m, instead, simply incapable of anything more than the most rudimentary tasks. Sweeping fallen crumbs into a dustpan requires a coordinated effort of body and arms I find no longer possible.

I finish the dishes as best I can and move to the living room. There are books and magazines to straighten, although I rarely hold them, much less read them, anymore. It’s not that reading has become a trial of wills between words on a page and a mind that is as unruly as that spider web now hanging in the corner of my bathtub. No. I can still read just fine. Rather, I just don’t seem to have the interest. I keep reading materials on display for appearances. A woman who reads is, after all, a woman worth engaging in topical conversation.

I want to at least
seem
topical.

I’m nearly done when the doorbell rings. It is Bryan. He holds a pizza box and a six-pack of beer in his hands, a wide grin blazing on his face. “Hey, Mom!” he says, bounding into the living room. “Whatever you’re doing has just been cancelled in favor of the most fabulous artichoke and black olive pizza ever made. And beer… I brought beer too.”

I clap my hands. “Oh goody,” I say. “Pizza and beer with my boy. Life is good to me today. First I meet Mrs. Bird and now here
you
are!”

Bryan’s face scrambles into brief puzzlement, before widening back into a grin. “Here, let’s get some plates. We can eat in front of the television because if pizza and beer isn’t good enough news, there’s a game starting in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll get the plates,” I offer. “You go wash up and I’ll meet you back here.”

Bryan leaves the pizza and beer on the living room table and heads for the bathroom, while I pull plates and glasses from shelves and carry them into the living room. I’m nearly beside myself with my joyful day.

I’m struggling to figure out how to unfold the TV trays when Bryan comes into the living room. He fills his plate with pizza and pours two beers with a practiced hand.

“Here, let me help you,” he says. In no time, he has the two trays flipped to their correct positions and snapped into place. “Did you know you had a black widow spider in your bathtub? Not to worry, though. I took care of it.”

“What do you mean you took care of it?”

“I killed it, of course. I whacked it with my shoe and washed it down the drain.”

“You what?” I ask, my eyes widening.

“I killed it.” Bryan shrugs his shoulders as if what he has just done is part of one’s every day activities.

“You killed Mrs. Bird?” My voice trembles. “You just killed my only friend in the
world
.”

“Mother, you can’t be serious. It could have hurt you.”

YOUR VOICE. Your voice becomes a siren. It is a guttural utterance that starts low and then continues up the tonal register until you are nothing but a wide open shrieking mouth, screaming one word over and over. Murderer, you yell. Murderer! You sweep the two full glasses of beer from your table so that they crash to the floor and form great wet puddles on your carpet that will forevermore smell of beer and malevolence. Then you snatch up triangles of pizza and throw them at your wide-eyed son. You hit him squarely with globs of cheese and the force of words. That was Mrs. Bird, you scream into his face. You have made your son afraid of you and you are now insane with grief for a spider.

“Mom, I didn’t know,” Bryan says.

I squint at him, my eyes filled with mistrust and tears.

Bryan softens his voice. “Look.” He sighs. “Okay, let’s fix this. Really.” He looks around at the mess I’ve made. “Let me clean up the carpet and then let’s go out for dinner. Okay, mom?”

“All right. But I’ll not forget this. No I won’t. And from now on, mister, I won’t let you in my bathroom. Not for anything.” I narrow my eyes to slits. “You can’t be trusted anymore. There is blood on your hands now.”

I go into the kitchen and grab the sponge. I walk back into the living room. Bryan is on his knees, picking remnants of pizza from the carpet. I throw the sponge at him. “Next, you’ll probably tell me you helped Mrs. Spencer move away.”

Brian looks up at me.

“You remember Mrs. Spencer from down the street. She gave you a box of sidewalk chalk for your second birthday and you tried to eat it… made you very sick. I should have killed her for that.”

“Mom‌—‌”

“My goodness,” I say, brightly. “We’ve turned out to be a murderous lot. Do you suppose they have red wine at the restaurant? I could use a glass of wine now.”

Bryan holds his brow as if he’s not certain it will stay in place any longer. “Sure, Mom. They have wine. They have anything you want,” he says.

Bryan finishes cleaning while I go pay my final respects to poor Mrs. Bird. Poor, poor smacked and flushed Mrs. Bird. She might be the lucky one after all.

Suddenly, I feel the shame of a mother who has deeply wounded her child because of a ridiculous misunderstanding. Of course it’s illogical to reach for friendship tucked into the poisonous folds of a spider. I know this truthful thing deep within the center of my chest. Nevertheless, she was all the morning had to offer.

Bryan must have cleaned her web from the corner of the tub because there is no evidence that anything was ever there. The only thing left is the regret of a screeching mother who misinterpreted her son’s tender deeds.

I go to my dresser where I keep a stack of cards for various occasions in one of the drawers. I select an appropriate card, sign it, and take it to Bryan who is finishing the last of the clean-up. I hand him the envelope with his name carefully printed on its front.

He opens the envelope and pulls out the card. On the front is a lovely pastel drawing of a small outdoor table set with a vase of white lilies and a single empty place setting, all under a sky filled with puffy white clouds. He opens the card to see the inscription printed in flowery lettering.
I’m so sorry for your tragic loss
, it reads. I have signed it,
With deep misery and regret, your mother.

Chapter Twelve

I
’ve turned inconsolably sad for no good or apparent reason, and I find my mouth puckering, my chin wavering over the smallest things.

And thus, without any particular cause or specific worrisome event, I begin a glorious crying phase with uncommon gusto. I outdo my former notebook stage by splashing grand and plentiful tears over everything and everyone.

Ma would have tsked her tongue and called me a woman of sackcloth and ashes. She would have said I had no better sense than to beat at my own chest. Pa would have told me to stop my caterwauling and go help Ma with the dishes.

Allison‌—‌who still seems barely halfway done with forgiving me for ruining our trip to Hawaii‌—‌continues to skirt me with countless excuses and repeated
sorries,
while skipping our weekly dinners, our daily phone calls. She punctuates her words with pursed lips and little squinchy lines pulled like drawstrings at the corners of her eyes.

Still, Allison checks on me now and then with quick, pithy phone calls. My beautiful La La La Girl. My sweet pony. My tender friend.

It is Bryan, however, with his little-boy-blue eyes, wide with concern upon his thirty (is it five- or six- now?) year-old face, who calls me daily and brings me boxes of tissues and little French chocolates to make me all better. He hands me his offerings and I break into fresh tears for the tenderness of it.

“I’m sorry,” I always say. “I don’t know what’s
wrong
with me. Why is this happening to me?”

“You’re good, Mom,” he always says. “No worries.” Then he kisses the top of my head because my constant tearfulness renders him incapable of doing anything else.