Sparrow Migrations (17 page)

Stealing a peripheral glance at Amanda, Brett could see her daughter’s expression changing again. Astonishment. Repulsion. And fear.

“This time, though, I couldn’t. She’s married, too, to a pastor. Maybe that’s why it seemed safer, at first. I knew she would understand why it was so hard for me . . . I thought at first we could just be . . . friends, maybe. Someone who would understand, not judge. But once we got to New York, it was clear that wasn’t going to be all it was.”

“What was it?” Amanda was biting her lip.

Brett took one more deep breath. “Lovers.”

With a final clank, the word wedged itself into the gears that had turned Amanda’s life so smoothly for sixteen years.

“Oh, my God,” Amanda sat down on the bed, elbows propped on her knees, hands over her eyes. “You’re a . . . a . . .you’re a . . ?” Her voice shook.

Brett nodded.

“Say it.” Amanda dropped her hands from her face and looked straight at her mother. “Tell me you’re—you’re—that word.”

Guilt, sorrow, and fear churned in Brett. But washing over it all, incredibly, was a tide of pride. The worst part of all of this had been lying to Amanda.
“I don’t want my daughter to think I’m a hypocrite,”
she’d told Jackie. Well, the truth was out now. The giant, elephant-in-the-living-room truth. Freed from the anchor of her secret, Brett felt weightless, almost like she was floating.

“I am a lesbian, Amanda.”

“Oh, my God.” Amanda hugged her knees to her chest. “Are you leaving? Are you going away with—with her?”

“No!” Alarm spread through Brett. “That’s over now. I haven’t talked to Jackie since February.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“I want to be honest with you. I don’t want to pretend anymore.”

“You were pretending to be my mom?”

“Of course not.” Again, Brett’s heartbeat accelerated. “This doesn’t change anything between you and me. I love you. You’re the best part of my marriage to your father.”

“And what about him?”

“Who?”

“Dad!”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you getting divorced?” Amanda spoke abruptly, angrily.

“I—ah, well, we haven’t discussed details. But this move”—Brett gestured around the room—“is a first step.”

“Are you going to tell other people? People at church?”

Brett hesitated. “Well, not right away. And I won’t make a public announcement, certainly. But eventually, I suppose, people will find out. Otherwise I’d still have to pretend.”

“You’re breaking up our family. And you don’t think you’re changing anything?” Amanda exclaimed, jumping up from the bed. “You’re ruining my life.” She swabbed roughly at a tear leaking down her cheek and turned to the door. “I’m tired. I’m going to take a nap.”

Watching helplessly as the door banged behind her daughter’s shaking shoulders, the pilot’s famously unemotional last instructions the day of the crash resurfaced in Brett’s mind. “Brace for impact.”

The passengers’ fright was unimaginable. But with impact, at least there was an end. The emotional free fall Brett tumbled in now felt like eternal damnation.

EIGHTEEN

I
n the lobby of the Lansing Radisson, Robby claimed the end of a sofa next to a giant fish tank. His dad, Ed, and some other club members lined up to check in. Paula and the rest dispersed to vending machines and the bathrooms.

Settling himself firmly into the upholstered corner, Robby felt himself relax. The rhythm of the water pump, the random but constant motion of the fish, and the blue-green tones of the water were all soothing. He dug a deck of homemade flash cards out of his backpack. On each was a goose from Donald Baxter’s database.

He wanted to figure out just which geese met their deaths in the spinning blades of the Airbus engines. Using Baxter’s database, he had narrowed it to ninety-eight birds that for the last three years followed a winter migration path from the reservation in Ontario down the East Coast to Hilton Head Island.

The timing was a little off. The data put most of the geese past New York City by Christmas at the latest, and the Hudson River crash took place more than three weeks later. But Baxter could explain that, Robby was sure.

In the meantime, he studied each flash card, which bore the bird’s band ID number on one side and its key data points on the reverse. Each bird had a minimum of eight dates. Robby had memorized all of them for the forty-eight birds he considered the most likely victims—none of which had been observed on the migration route after January 15. He was now working on the other fifty that he considered less likely accident contenders.

He was staring at the flashcard for goose eighty-six when Paula appeared in his field of vision with a Diet Coke and a bag of M&Ms. She had her headphones on and sat down on a chair across from him.

“Hi,” Robby said.

She glanced up. “Oh. Hi, Robby.”

“I’m doing research.” He waved the flashcard at her.

“Oh yeah?” She crossed her arms and legs, jiggling her foot.

“On the geese. You know, like you said.” It was her idea, after all, that the geese had come from Donald Baxter’s reservation.

“Donald Baxter’s geese?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What are you learning?”

“I think I know which geese caused the plane crash.”

“Really?” Paula took her headphones off. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “Are you going to talk to him about it here?”

Robby hadn’t thought about actually speaking to Donald Baxter. But Paula was interested now, and talking to him. Maybe he should say yes. As he considered the idea, his gaze wandered past Paula, over her shoulder, to his dad in line at the registration desk. What was it his dad said in the car? What was he supposed to say to Paula? Apologize? Yes, that was it. He adjusted his gaze in the direction of her face. “My dad said to tell you I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For that night. In the car. When we drove you home. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Paula looked away. “OK.”

“It’s not my fault that I do that.”

Paula didn’t reply. Robby tried again, reciting his dad’s explanation. “My brain works different. So sometimes I act different.”

“OK,” Paula said again, crossing her arms. Suddenly her attention swerved. “Look! There’s Donald Baxter! He’s here!”

A man stood in the lobby, hands on his hips. He looked like he came from Canada, Robby thought, wearing a thick parka, a cap with earflaps, and gloves. Old, too. Older than his dad, but not as old as Dr. Felk. Surveying the lobby, he appropriated a brass luggage cart and steered it back out the doors.

“Come on!” Yanking his hand, Paula pulled Robby to his feet and into the center of the lobby. He barely had time to grab his backpack. They watched Baxter maneuver the luggage cart through the parking lot to the back of an older minivan.

“Well? What are you waiting for? Go talk to him!” Paula’s face was so close Robby smelled the chocolate from the M&Ms.
What if he kissed her?
The sudden urge paralyzed him.

“Robby, it’s Donald Baxter! He’ll be mobbed for the rest of the conference. Now’s your chance. Go!” She pushed him gently. Robby stumbled a few steps, but gained enough momentum to get out the door.

Walking up behind the minivan, Robby could see it offered room for a driver and front passenger only. All the other seats had been removed to make room for Baxter’s gear, which he was now piling onto the luggage cart. Two laptop bags, a digital projector, a giant portfolio bag, and a stack of a half-dozen large, clear storage tubs, each labeled with the name of the taxidermied bird inside.

“Where is that Greylag? I know I had it on my list. Where could it have gone?”

“The Greylag goose?” Robby asked. “I thought that was only found in England.”

“British Isles, actually. Usually true,” Baxter replied, not turning from the interior of van. “But I spotted one on my reservation last summer. Hen and a flock of eight chicks. Found the hen again last November. Idiot hunters must have got her by mistake and were too cowardly to take her, in case they got caught. So I took her. Aha. There she is.”

He leaned in and tugged another large plastic bin. It wouldn’t fit on the luggage cart. “Useless thing.” He began rearranging his boxes. “If I use her to educate others, at least she won’t have died for nothing.”

Robby smiled in excitement. Just like he felt about investigating which geese crashed into the plane. “I’ve been using your database, and I think—”

“Hold on.” Baxter stopped shifting boxes and over the top of his glasses looked directly at Robby. “Who are you?”

“Robby Palmer.”

“You’re here for the conference?”

Robby nodded.

“And you’ve been using my geese databases?”

Robby nodded again. “Canada geese database.”

“Goes back to 1984. One of my best documented. Good choice. Go on.”

“I think I found out which geese caused the plane crash.”

“A bird strike crash?” Baxter’s brow wrinkled.

Robby nodded. “In New York. In January.”

Baxter’s wrinkles smoothed out. “Pilot landed the damn plane in the river, right?”

“Right.” Robby was bouncing up and down on his toes now. “I was there. On a boat in the river. I saw it.”

“Were you now?” Baxter mumbled, more to himself. “And so?”

“So there’re ninety-eight birds who migrate through New York around that time. To Hilton Head. And no data points for half of them since the crash.” Robby held up his stack of flash cards.

“Interesting,” Baxter glanced at the cards, but now seemed more interested in Robby. “Your conclusion?”

“They’re in the engine.” Robby scrutinized Baxter’s face closely. This was what the whole trip came down to. The whole last two and a half months. If Baxter said he was wrong, then—well, Robby didn’t even want to think about that.

“Hmm. Plausible. Certainly plausible. I’d have to review your data. Care to accompany me to my exhibition space?” Baxter didn’t wait for an answer. “Here. You can carry Greta.”

“Greta?”

“The Greylag goose. Come on.” He handed Robby the oversize box, slammed the van doors, and steered the cart back into the lobby.

Obediently, Robby followed Baxter back into the hotel, through the lobby, and into the exhibition hall. Conference participants were setting up at booths arranged in two concentric rectangles. He forgot about Paula. He forgot about his dad. He was going to show his research to someone who understood it and find out once and for all what had happened to those birds.

“Here we are.” Baxter stopped the cart next to a white-draped table in the middle of the outer rectangle. Unzipping one of the laptop bags, he powered it up and navigated to his own site, and then the Canada goose database. “Show me.”

Eagerly, Robby scrolled through the long list, highlighting his chosen forty-eight from memory. Then he started pointing out their shared data points. “All of these leave Ontario around December fifth. They usually get to New York by Christmas. They’re in Hilton Head by end of January. See, the records go back to 2006.

“But none of them have been observed south of New York City since January fifteenth. The date of the crash.” Robby sat back and took a breath, and waited.

“But if they’re in New York by Christmas, they would have been long past the Hudson River by January fifteenth,” Baxter said.

Robby winced. Baxter went right for the weak link. “I was hoping you could explain that.”

“I can. Those geese aren’t in that plane engine. Or in the river, or anywhere near that crash.” He stood up and started unloading the luggage cart. “Your theory’s wrong.”

Wrong
. Robby shook his head. He couldn’t be.

“Then why do their dates end?

Baxter shrugged. “Could be a lot of reasons. Most likely, they’re not my geese.”

Just like his dad had said.

Baxter continued. “If they are, you’re assuming that two months without a data point is atypical. I’ll have to look at the database closer, but I’m guessing that forty-eight birds with that interval isn’t an anomaly. Maybe the battery in their chip died. Maybe something did happen to them, somewhere else.

“But not in that plane crash. I can guarantee it. Data doesn’t lie. If those geese have been in New York by Christmas for the last three years, they’re not hanging around three weeks later.”

Robby slumped before the laptop. Baxter stood up. “But it was an interesting theory. You had me going for a few minutes there. Now I’ve gotta get myself set up for tomorrow. Better luck next time.”

Robby stood up and backed away, his head ringing with Baxter’s judgment and dismissiveness.

“Hey, kid, don’t forget these.” Baxter tossed him the flash cards. Robby caught the stack automatically and thumbed through them slowly, watching Baxter go about his preparations, already oblivious to him.

Then, abruptly, he ripped up one. Then two. Then three. When he tried to rip up the rest, the thick sheaf of paper refused to tear. He ran out of the exhibition hall, stuffing the worthless cards in his backpack, tripping over the straps, and colliding with his dad.

Deborah peered through the glass door of the Ithaca Ashram. A dozen women in various stages of pregnancy sat on mats, facing an instructor. She surveyed the group. Except for one next to the wall, most of them looked a good ten years younger than she. Hand on the door, she hesitated, wondering if this prenatal yoga class was really a good idea. Looking up, the instructor beckoned her to enter, forcing Deborah’s decision.

“At the first class, I always like to have everyone tell a little bit about themselves and their baby: when you’re due, if you have any other children, that kind of thing,” she said as Deborah apologetically picked her way through the mats. She found a space between the woman by the wall, who wore a loose Cornell sweatshirt, and another who looked almost fifteen years younger, wearing a peach tank that stretched over her bump of a belly.

“I’ll go first. I’m Ming Su, and as you’ve all noticed, I’m not pregnant.” The class giggled dutifully. “But I have two children and did prenatal with both of them. I hope you’ll find this class helpful with both your pregnancy and delivery.

“Now. Let’s start with you,” Ming Su pointed to a more-pregnant-than-Deborah brunette on the opposite side of the room. Deborah noticed a tattoo on her shoulder blade, bisected by the strap of another stretchy tank, blue this time.

“I’m Stephanie. I’m due in June, and this is my first. It’s a girl, and we’re going to call her Hazel.”

“That’s so pretty!” came a bright voice from the peach tank woman.

“It’s my husband’s grandmother’s name.”

“Lucky you. My husband’s grandmother’s name is Agatha,” Peach Tank said. Giggles erupted around the room.

“I’m Allison. This is my second. I have a little boy who’s three, and this one is a surprise,” said the woman next to Stephanie. “But my husband thinks it’s a boy, too,” she added.

“When are you due?” Ming Su prompted.

“Oh, yes. August. August tenth.”

“I’m August eleventh!” chirped Peach Tank. Deborah wished she had chosen another spot.

The third woman introduced herself. Megan, who sported a lime-green tank and tattoos on both arms as well as her left ankle, was pregnant with her first, a boy, due May 1. Another ripple went around the room as the most-pregnant among them commanded instant respect.

“You could be celebrating Mother’s Day this year!” was Peach Tank’s comment this time, delivered in an excited squeal.

“I’d better send my husband out now,” Megan said with an eye roll that earned chuckles of appreciation. “You think he’s going to remember that with a week-old newborn in the house?”

Deborah smiled gamely with the others, unease beginning to set in. Three for three married. Though she and Christopher had done nothing to change their formal status and she still wore her wedding ring, she had already started thinking of herself as a single mother. She could see Peach Tank wore a wedding band, too, as did the silent-till-now older woman on her right.

Deborah stole another glance at her. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Deborah couldn’t place her. Maybe it was just the Cornell sweatshirt. If she had any tattoos, they weren’t visible. The woman smiled as she nodded at Deborah’s own Cornell shirt. Feeling better, Deborah rested her hands on her belly, right hand over left, a gesture she’d found comforting lately.