A Redbird Christmas (14 page)

After another moment, Julian growled. “Well . . . I do it for the little gull, not you, you understand?” Roy nodded. “Come on then,” Julian said roughly.

As Roy stepped in the room, someone said, “Hello, Roy,” and as his eyes adjusted to the light he saw the woman, looking more beautiful than she had the last time he had seen her years ago. It was Marie.

Time had not changed the way he felt about her, and from the look in Marie’s eyes, it seemed she felt the same.

As the sun was coming up Julian came in the kitchen and handed Jack’s body back to Roy. He had worked all night and done a skillful job. All of Jack’s feathers had been carefully cleaned and fluffed up, and his eyes were bright and shiny. Somehow Julian had managed to take the poor dead bird he had been handed the night before and make it look alive again. Even the way the head was cocked to one side and the expression was Jack’s. Roy looked at Julian and shook his head. “It’s better than I could have hoped for. I don’t know what to say, Julian, except thank you.” Roy stood up and reached for his wallet in his back pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

Julian’s eyes flashed with anger. “I tell you, I do it for the little gull. Now go.” Roy looked at Marie and nodded goodbye and then rowed back across the river with his friend.

What Roy didn’t know was that the Creoles already knew about the little crippled girl named Patsy and the redbird who lived on the other side of the river. Their parish priest had been in the audience at one of the shows with Jack that he and Patsy had done for the Catholic Church over in Lillian. When he had talked about it in his sermon the following Sunday, all the Creole children who were not allowed to go across the river longed to see the redbird and the girl. And later, when the priest heard about the Patsy Fund, he had taken up a collection for her in church and sent it over as an anonymous gift. Julian, who had grown even more coldhearted over the years and hated everybody on the other side, had not donated a dime to the fund and resented those who did. Why should they care about those people? He wouldn’t lift a finger to help any of them. But last night, seeing Patsy’s face in the photograph smiling at him through the screen door, something happened that made him change his mind. He really had done it for the little girl.

Leaving Home

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, from the moment Patsy awakened all she did was ask when she could see Jack. Frances didn’t know what to tell her until she heard from Roy. Roy had gotten back to the store at around eight and Oswald was there waiting for him with his painting kit. It was around eight-thirty when Oswald finished painting red spots all over Roy’s face to back up the measles story. Roy finally called a nervous Frances. When the phone rang she picked it up on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Roy. Frances, pretending the call was from a boyfriend she had dated thirty-seven years ago who had been dead for six years, said, “Oh, hello, Herbert, what a surprise to hear from you after all these years!” She was not sure if Patsy could hear her conversation but she did not want to take any chances. “Well. So everything is OK with you?”

Roy had no idea who Herbert was and said, “Yes, we’re ready to go here. Come on anytime. Drive her up to the window, keep the motor running, slow down and stop for just a few seconds, then take off.”

“Oh, dear,” said Frances, in a high-pitched voice. “That will be mighty hard to do.”

“I know, but I think a few seconds is all we can chance it. Jack looks good, but if she gets too long a look she’s liable to figure it out.”

“I understand completely. I’ll try my very best,” she said, to the imaginary man. “And Herbert, I’m so glad you are feeling better. Well, goodbye, and thanks for calling.”

The second she put the phone down, it rang again and she almost jumped out of her skin.

“Hello!” It was Mildred. “Did you get the message? Roy said to drive by but don’t stop for long.”

“Yes, I got the message,” she said. “Don’t be calling me now, Mildred. I’ve got to go!”

Frances was so nervous about the upcoming surgery, and now the bird situation, that she went to the bathroom and nearly plucked every one of her eyebrows out. She had to quickly pencil them back in with a black eyebrow pencil, but when she did they were shaped like upside down half moons. When she saw what she had done, she muttered to herself, “Dear God, I look like a cartoon, but that just can’t be helped. I’m late as it is.” She powdered her nose and fluffed her hair a few times and called out, “Patsy, honey, it’s time to go.” She put Patsy in the backseat of the car with a pillow so she could lie down along the way. Patsy looked worried and asked again, “Can we go by and see Jack now?” Frances pretended not to hear her and reached in and honked her horn for Oswald. He walked over and put his suitcase in the trunk and got in the car. “Good morning, Patsy,” he said, trying to sound casual, but Frances could tell he was as anxious as she was. When Frances came around the other side of the car and got in, she said, “I hope I have everything, I can’t trust myself to remember anything. If I’ve left something, so be it. We have to leave right now or we will never get there on time.” She looked down and checked the gas. “Good, we have a full tank.” Butch had filled it for her last night and thank goodness, because with everything that was going on she would have forgotten to do it. “Well,” she said, “for better or worse, here we go.”

As she pulled out of the driveway a worried Patsy said, “Can’t I go and say goodbye to Jack?”

Frances looked at her in the rearview mirror and said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. In all this rush I almost forgot you wanted to go by and see Jack, didn’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, all right, I’ll whip you by there, but for just a second.”

Oswald sat completely still, afraid to move a muscle, but he could not help but be impressed by the way Frances managed the sharp turn perfectly and pulled up on the other side of the gas tanks not more than fifteen feet from the front window, and stopped the car on a dime. Roy stood waiting with Jack perched upon his finger, looking as bright and alive as he ever had.

“Can’t I go in?” asked Patsy.

“Oh, no, honey. Roy still has the measles. Look at him! You can’t get near him. Not with you just about to be operated on. Just wave, honey,” she said as she stepped on the gas and took off. Patsy turned around and waved at Jack bobbing up and down on Roy’s finger until the store and the little redbird were out of sight. As they turned onto the highway, safely headed to Atlanta, Frances was happy she had worn her dress shields. At one point after they drove off she half expected Patsy to say something, but at the moment she seemed content to at least have seen Jack, even if it had only been for a moment.

After they had been on the road awhile, Patsy took out her birthday picture with Jack and whispered to it, “I’ll be back . . . you be good now.”

The Big City

W
HEN THEY ARRIVED
in Atlanta and checked Patsy into the hospital, Oswald went to a pay phone. He called Roy and told him that Patsy had been fooled completely and had talked to the picture of Jack all the way. “Honest to God, Roy,” he said, “I know Jack is dead and it even fooled me, when you were standing there. I half expected him to fly!”

It was true. Julian had done an incredible job that night and Jack had never looked better. Roy picked him up and said, “You pulled off your best trick ever this morning, buddy, and you didn’t even know it.”

After the phone call, he carefully wrapped Jack in a soft white cloth and placed him inside something he knew Jack would appreciate being buried in. It was to be their last little joke together. Then Roy walked him way back up in the woods and dug a grave and placed the bird in the ground and covered him up. As he stood at the spot, looking down where his friend now slept in a Cracker Jack box, an old song his father used to sing ran through his head.

Nights are long, since you went away,
I think about you all through the day,
My buddy, my buddy, your buddy misses you.

Roy wondered why a six-foot-two man would cry over something no bigger than a pinecone. Damn you, Jack, he thought to himself as he walked back through the woods, if you were here I’d ring your scrawny little neck.

Roy was not a religious man, but that day he hoped if there was such a thing as a spirit, a small part of Jack’s had somehow managed to escape and maybe he was up there right now, flying around looking down and laughing at all the poor earthbound creatures below. That would be just like him, Roy thought, and looked up half expecting to see him.

Frances and Oswald met at the hospital at six the next morning and sat with Patsy as nurses came in and out of the room preparing for the first operation. Oswald was busy drawing pictures for her, trying to distract her and make her laugh, while Frances tried to explain what was going to happen next. Patsy sat up in bed, wearing a hospital gown and her beanie, and seemed to be a little frightened by all the activity, but soon another nurse came in and gave her a shot to relax her and she started to get sleepy. Dr. Glickman opened the door. “Well, good morning, young lady,” he said, as he walked over to the bed. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she said, slightly groggy.

“The nurses tell me you gained four pounds since the last time I saw you. That’s just terrific,” he said, and smiled at Frances and Oswald. Then he turned back to Patsy. “In just a little while we’re going to take you down the hall to another room and work on your leg a bit, but you won’t feel a thing and when you wake up everybody will be right here waiting for you.”

He picked up the photograph of Patsy and Jack from her bedside table. “Is this the bird you were telling me about?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling sleepily.

“Well, he’s a fine-looking fellow,” he said, patting her arm. “And we are going to get you fixed up as good as new and back home again as fast as we can, OK?”

“OK.”

When Frances went out with Dr. Glickman to ask a few last-minute questions a woman came in with papers to sign and asked Oswald if he were the father. “No,” he said.

“Grandfather?”

“No, just a friend. The lady you need to see is right down the hall.”

When Frances came back they went over the papers together and she signed on the line where it said
LEGAL GUARDIAN
, even though she was not legal. She had just perjured herself on an official document, but as she told Oswald, “If I go to jail, I go to jail. At least Patsy’s leg will be fixed.”

Oswald’s admiration for Frances grew even more during the long hours they waited. He was as jumpy as a cat and could not sit still for a minute, so he walked up and down the hall. He wanted a drink so badly he was about to jump out of his skin. But he could not leave Frances. He wondered why the nurses don’t give a shot to the people who are waiting for the operation to be over to calm them down?

While he paced, Frances sat quietly and prayed and waited.

Everybody in Lost River was waiting to hear as well.

That afternoon, around one-thirty, when Frances called from the hospital to report that the first operation was over, everybody was relieved to hear that Patsy, according to the doctor, came through it “just fine.”

That night as they were on the elevator leaving the hospital, tired but happy, Frances said to Oswald, “Thank heavens you were here with me. I don’t think I could have gone through this alone.”

Oswald had been lucky enough to find a room at a YMCA just two blocks from the hospital, and Frances was able to stay with a cousin who lived in Atlanta. They wanted to make sure that someone was with Patsy every day, at least through the next two operations.

Back in Lost River, everyone was coming to realize just how much a part of their lives Jack had become. They had all gotten used to seeing him flying around, hearing him sing, and ring the bells on his plastic wheel. Everybody missed the bird more than they could have guessed. But the one most struck by just how much she missed him was Mildred. Mildred found out that she had loved Jack as much as anyone, but she had not known how much until he died. She had loved him all along but did not know how to express herself in any way other than complaining.

A week after he died she went in the store with her head hanging and said, “Roy, I’m here to apologize and ask you to forgive me. I’m so ashamed of myself I just don’t know what to do.”

“What for?” asked Roy.

“For being so mean to that poor little crippled bird, always fussing at him, telling him I was going to cook him.” She looked at Roy with tears running down her face. “I don’t know why I did it. I really liked him.”

Roy said, “Oh, I know you did, Mildred, and so did he. He knew you didn’t mean all those things.”

“Really?”

“Sure he did. That’s why he was always pestering you.”

Mildred looked up. “Do you think so?” she asked hopefully.

“Oh, I know so. No question about it. You see, Mildred,” said Roy, handing her his handkerchief, “old Jack was a master at judging people, much better than me. One time these two girls I had never seen before came in, and I tried to get Jack to do a few tricks for them, but as hard as I tried he wouldn’t do anything. He just flew around, acting all agitated. And it really made me mad that he acted like that until later, when I found out that while I was busy talking to one girl, the other was back in the office robbing me blind.”

“Oh, no,” said Mildred.

“Yeah, they sure did, and Jack tried his best to warn me. He knew they were up to no good. You can fool me, but you couldn’t fool him. I tell you, Mildred, it sure seems empty in here without him. I guess I got so used to having him around I never figured he’d go and die on me, but that’s what life’s about, isn’t it; you get attached to something and then you lose it. Thank God Patsy is making it through those operations, or I don’t know what we would do around here.”

Mildred went home feeling at least a bit better, but somehow the loss of Jack made her realize that she never wanted to lose another living thing without them knowing how she really felt. From then on, after every phone conversation with Frances she would add, “Love you,” before she hung up.