Letting Go (2 page)

That hint of strain gave Zoe’s impish curiosity the push it needed to break free of the social straight jacket her mother and her disease kept her cloaked in.

She checked her watch. Eleven o’clock. There was plenty of time to eat lunch and get to the conference before Mother’s presentation at four.
No worries
, as the Aussies said.

Zoe smiled and escaped the protective custody prison of Mother’s scowl. It’d be better to ask for forgiveness later than permission now.

She walked over to the man. She’d never met an Aboriginal before. His dark skin glittered like a halo, which didn’t make any sense. And the contrast of the pure white hair lent him an otherworldly quality. The deep crinkles around his eyes seemed to say, “Welcome.”

Zoe wanted to touch him, to see if he was as warm as he looked, but that would be rude. She kept her mitts at her sides. “Hello.”

The old man met her eye for eye and grinned. He lifted his arm between them. A wooden bird roosted in the tanned nest of his palm.

“
This bird choose you.” He stretched his hand wide. “Take it.”

A shiver tiptoed up the rungs of her spine.

Zoe’s fingers hovered over the tiny falcon. A pull like the moon to the tides drew them closer until they landed on the porous surface. Still grinning, the man nodded. It had to be a trick of the sun, but the halo surrounding him almost looked like a million tightly packed tendrils of light stretching from him into the distance. She blinked. Time to get her vision checked again.

Zoe gently scooped up the precious figure, brushing the man’s wrinkled skin in the process. Warmth pulsed through her fingers. Zoe met his gaze. Rainbows seemed to swirl through his irises.

This bird your destiny
, the man said inside her head.

She tilted her head.
Destiny?
That was a pretty heavy word to be tossing around, especially since telepathy wasn’t real, people didn’t have rainbow eyes, and Zoe could have
sworn
the little bird was vibrating.

What the hell? Had the combination of triple X and her dad’s crazy genes finally caught up to her?

The man shook his head slightly. Must have noticed something on the sidewalk behind her.

The heat of Mother’s ire flamed Zoe’s back through the thick jacket. The distinctive snap of the clasp on Candace’s purse tainted the cool air and broke the spell. An arm with a five-dollar bill tucked between the perfectly manicured fingers on the end swept around Zoe’s shoulder and flapped impatiently at the man.

He shooed her off.
“No, this a gift. The bird go where it like, and it like her.”

Lips pursed, Candace fanned the money at him again.

His bushy white brows squeezed together. Another head shake.

God, please, Mother.

“
We can’t accept that and must be going. Give it back and come along, Zoe.” She grabbed Zoe’s elbow and pulled.

Zoe dug in her heels and wriggled out of her grasp. “Just a minute, Mother.”

The man looked back and forth between them, his expression a little sad. All that beautiful magic—or whatever it was her rotten brain thought it saw—evaporated. Great. Candace had totally offended the poor guy.

“
You keep bird. It bring you happily ever after.” The man turned and ambled down the street without another word.

“
Thank you, sir,” Zoe called after him as he blended into a throng of tourists.

She suddenly felt hollow inside, as if the man had taken a part of her soul with him. That guy had been someone special. Not like the rock stars whose pictures lined the walls of her bedroom, but a guardian angel who could have
taught
her things. Life lessons. Deep secrets. How to unlock dreams and transform them into reality.

Zoe faced his way once more. Gone.

Mother sighed. “We’ve missed the light. You shouldn’t have taken that thing. That man was a hawker. He could have mugged us.” She tapped her foot loudly on the pavement.

Ears hot with anger over her mother’s rude behavior and the public scolding, Zoe cooled her jets with a deep breath and raised her palm. The falcon seemed to look up at her through the black beads of its eyes. “You can’t possibly believe that old guy would have hurt us. He didn’t want your money. He was just being nice. Kind people
do
exist, you know.”

After a long silence, the traffic pattern shifted, and the cars nearby halted. Mother
harrumph
ed and started across the street.

Zoe couldn’t stop staring at the bird as she lagged behind in the crosswalk. Carved from ultralight wood, it weighed no more than a few ounces, even with the seashell wings wired into its back. Filigree feathers, as detailed as some of the tattoo art she’d seen in rock star magazines, painted its body.

She inspected the bird closer. Holy crap. That wasn’t paint. The lines and shading were
burned
into the wood. Amazing. Like black and white watercolors—

“
Zoe! Come on. I have to pick up some souvenirs for my coworkers before we go to lunch.”

Zoe stretched her long legs faster and caught up. In front of her, high-heeled shoes tapped out an urgent but precise rhythm on the sidewalk. Always in a hurry to get somewhere, and never stopping to appreciate anything. Had Mother even noticed the brilliant blue Sydney sky or the fat white cumulus cloud shaped like a snowman? The sweetly tweeting birds? The cold but refreshing winter air?

Why couldn’t Mother be like the man who gave her the bird? He’d never even met Zoe, but in one short moment, he made her feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

Candace regarded Zoe the same way she did the pile of dirty laundry on the floor of their hotel room: an unsightly mess she couldn’t be bothered to clean up but would have to face sooner or later. Maybe if she ignored it long enough, it would go away.

Mother’s important life would have been so much easier without Zoe there, serving as a never-ending source of embarrassment and shame. Talk about irony. Brilliant evolutionary biologist cursed with a dyslexic, socially inept, biologically inferior daughter. Yep, triple X syndrome turned out to be a triple whammy. For both of them.

* * * *

“
Can they not shut that child up?” Mother mumbled under her breath. She sighed and shuffled her note cards around again.

Zoe propped her elbows on the table and hid a guilty smile with the back of her hand.

The cozy restaurant brimmed with activity. Waiters delivered spicy-smelling Asian cuisine, and diners chatted over their meals, their lilting Australian accents still unfamiliar to Zoe’s American ears. The backdrop should have been an ideal setting for Mother to relax and put her head together before the big presentation. But it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

The rising commotion from the next table over had to have been killing Mother, who’d never been one to tolerate loud noises or any kind of disorder. She preferred things neat and tidy, black and white, cold and clinical. And she’d specifically chosen this adult-themed restaurant because she thought there wouldn’t be any kids here during the day.

Weren’t student holidays a bitch?

Zoe glanced at the four-year-old scream grenade lying on the floor, kicking the table legs, ready to take the restaurant down with him. His older brother circled the red-faced parents like a demanding little shark begging for chum. The third kid, who looked about Zoe’s age—maybe twelve—sat quietly in a chair, frowning at the book in his hands.

“
Thank God you never acted like that as a child,” Mother whispered, leaning closer.

“
Never?” Zoe stifled a laugh. “No, you’re probably right. You would have abandoned me if I had.”

Mother shot the screamer a sideways look, her Super-Bitch-peacekeeping-scowl weapons at the ready. Zoe could almost hear the silent battle cry as Mother’s poison-tipped dagger of disdain hit the bellowing kid right between the eyes. She envisioned a made-for-TV movie, Candace in the starring role.
When Psycho Scientists Attack.
Zoe scolded Mother with a shake of her head.

“
Mum, make him stop crying,” the oldest kid whined over the little one’s howl. His awkward voice teetered on the edge of breaking, but the accent was cute. “I can’t concentrate with all that shouting.” He slammed his book shut, folded his arms across his chest, and pouted.

“
I know, darl. I’m trying.” The anxious woman fussed over the screaming kid, attempting to lure him back to his chair with crackers, a cup of juice, a toy—to no avail. The father pulled the middle boy into his lap and bounced him on his knee, perhaps as a preventive measure.

Ignoring the ruckus, Zoe reread the scrawl-covered sheet of paper in front of her. Before the loud family arrived, she’d been listening to humpback whale songs through her headphones, tallying the types of units—upsweeps, drags, grunts, or squeaks—in each phrase of music. Her system for transcribing the whales’ “music” used simple geometric symbols. Each one stood for a particular sound.

She played the songs whenever she had a free moment—and sometimes when she was supposed to be doing homework or reading. She couldn’t go to sleep without a whale lullaby. The songs haunted and fascinated her to the point of obsession. Like a word on the tip of her tongue, the meaning behind the music felt so close but always remained one step ahead of her. It was maddening, really. She’d figure it out one day.

Lying beside her messy pages, the wooden bird stared at her. Warmth flared in her gut, and a smile snuck out of her lips as she thought about the old man. She closed her eyes and traced the lines in the wood for the tenth time, memorizing every tiny notch in the grain, and “seeing” the swirling patterns through the pads of her fingers. She imagined the lines were liquid neon sigils, as magical as the man who’d given her the bird.

A loud shuffle of papers brought Zoe’s attention back to Mother. Her brow creased. The little tike’s godforsaken wailing seemed to have kidnapped her last functioning brain cell and demanded a ransom.

Eyebrows arched, the woman from the other table turned in her chair and leaned over a bulging round belly. Zoe swallowed hard. Good God.
Another
kid on the way? Wow.

“
I’m so sorry. We just can’t take them anywhere.” Her breathless voice barely made contact over the boy’s desperate shrieks. The woman’s face betrayed an air of exasperation laced with genuine apology.

Mother flashed a brusque, condescending smile. The all-too familiar gesture set Zoe’s teeth on edge.

Zoe switched her focus to the kid on the floor. He had black hair, bright but tear-drenched eyes, and a hefty set of lungs that had no qualms about sharing his displeasure with the world. What had set him off? Tired? Hungry? Sick? Just plain fed up? She could
so
relate.

“
When are you due?” A whiff of feigned politeness snuck into Mother’s voice.

“
Any time now. I hoped having a meal out with the family would get the process moving along. Considering how well lunch is going, I might have this baby by nightfall.” The woman faced the screamer and opened her arms for a hug. “Come and sit with Mummy.”

He stood up and stomped his feet. The little spitfire had an attitude. Zoe wished she could be so bold with her mother.

Candace laughed, her tone warming from icy cold irritation to tepid empathy, a testament to her Mother of the Year parenting style.

Zoe returned to the falcon in her hand. Marveling at the series of hidden pulleys connecting the separate parts of the bird, she tugged the string. Its delicate wings beat in response. So simple, yet so brilliantly executed. She smiled at the natural symbolism. The wood came from earth, the bird itself represented air, branded details for fire, and the shells came from water. Perfect.

It had only been a couple hours since the guy on the street had given it to her, but she felt an unexplainable connection to the bird.

She pulled the string several more times, picturing alternative ways to position the wires to achieve different movements. With a few tweaks, the legs and tail could easily be integrated into the larger system, creating multiple, synchronous movements—

A line of shimmery white caught her eye, like a spider web reflecting light. Zoe startled and brought the figure closer. Tiny luminescent threads of what she could only describe as “magic” stretched from the bird’s body in countless directions around the room and beyond. She reached for one, but her fingers met air.

The lines were somewhere
outside
of here. Like another dimension.

Excitement shimmied up and down her spine. She turned the falcon to get a better look and traced the extra-dimensional wires. Several of the bird’s threads were attached to
her
. And to something behind her.

The kid’s screams decreased to a series of sniffles.

The heat of a body warmed the back of her arm. A pair of dark blue eyes peered around her elbow, and two small hands clasped the table edge beside her.

Zoe pulled the figurine away. The falcon was connected to the little boy’s chest, just like hers.

Her heart skipped a beat. “Hi, there.”

He glanced at his parents. With raised brows, both of them grinned through clenched teeth.

“
Bad day, huh?” she asked.

He nodded. Tears streaked his chubby, pink cheeks.

She shot her gaze to Mother. “We all have them.”

“
Whassat?” He pointed to the bird.

She turned her chair and bent to meet him at eye level. “It’s a falcon.” The practical part of her fully expected an avian slaughter, but the shock of seeing this kid tethered to the bird by some kind of awesome Aboriginal magic gave her the strength to hold out the fragile animal with trembling fingers.