Sparrow Migrations (20 page)

“He was a huge baseball fan. Baseball was to him what birds are to Robby. I took him to the Yankees play-offs a few years back—I think it was the highlight of his life. He died just last year.”

“That’s the happy ending?” Christopher looked at Felk curiously.

“Sure. Benjamin reached his potential. He was happy. He was living in the world, not locked away from it. You asked why I was interested in Robby. Benjamin is why.”

He swirled the ice in his glass. “But I’m a lot older now. Robby needs somebody younger.” He paused, then nodded again at the two-inch piece of plastic on the bar. “Take his drive back home, Christopher.”

Christopher had hesitated one more moment, then dropped the drive into his tweed pocket.

Now he stared at the cryptic list of files. He glanced at his watch. Three o’clock on a lovely spring Friday afternoon, but he didn’t have anything better to do. Randomly he opened a spreadsheet labeled “NTSBstrikes1985to2005.” It took a minute to load. The document had over one thousand lines of content. Christopher peered through his glasses, digesting. He sat up straighter and scrolled down farther.

Jesus
. Dr. Felk was right about Robby.

TWENTY-ONE

D
eborah stepped up to the nose-pierced cashier at Ivory Tower Coffee and Smoothies, looking longingly at the silver carafes lining the counter. Beside her, Julia poked a straw into a cup of dark-pink liquid and reproached her good-naturedly. “The Berry Blast is the best.”

Deborah sighed. “Make it two.”

She never thought it would be so hard to give up coffee. It was nice, though, Julia’s friendly needling. How long had it been since she went out with a girlfriend? Elizabeth had moved to North Carolina four years ago. There was Helen, but they only saw each other a few times a year. She’d missed friendship without realizing it, she thought, following Julia to a table.

“So, Megan’s going to celebrate Mother’s Day after all,” Julia said.

“Yeah. She was what, almost four weeks early?” The most pregnant at last week’s class, Megan, she of the arm and ankle tattoos, had not returned that week. Kate, of course, informed them that Megan had delivered early. Baby Carson was in the NICU at Cayuga Medical Center as a “precaution,” but he was expected to go home later that week. The news sobered everyone at the class.

“Mmm-hmmm. But the baby was almost six pounds. Doesn’t seem like he belongs in a NICU. I guess you never really know what can happen.”

“I guess not,” said Deborah, feeling uncomfortable. Helen had called the other night, again urging Deborah to get tested at Columbia so that she could “manage the pregnancy better,” whatever that meant. “So tell me about your nonprofit.”

“Oh, never mind.” Julia took a long sip. “You probably get sick of people picking your brain all the time.”

“No, it’s OK. I’d kind of like to talk about something I know, actually. And know I’m good at. All this baby stuff unnerves me. There’s so much to learn, and no way to practice before the real thing.”

Julia smiled. “Yeah, who decided that? All right. We need help with fundraising. What else is new, right?”

“What’s the name of the organization again? Interfaith something?”

“The Ithaca Interfaith Alliance. We run a food pantry and a community meal program. I got involved through my church.”

“A food pantry? In Ithaca?”

“That’s part of our problem.” Julia sighed. “Everyone thinks Ithaca’s a rich college town. But that’s not the whole story. There is real need here. I think we get a lot of Cornell people, in fact. The grad students and the adjuncts.”

Deborah stared out the window. The grass was greening up and students flowed by on bikes. She thought of the students she saw studying in the law library, buried behind piles of five-hundred-dollar books. Probably all purchased with student loan money. She’d never thought they could have a need as basic as hunger.

Julia continued. “So the churches who are Alliance members support it, collecting food from the congregations. We use their kitchen facilities for meals. But we’re starting to get more and more requests for meal delivery. Attendance really dropped this last winter. We heard it was because people couldn’t get out of the house.”

“Because of snow? Bad weather?”

“Maybe.” Julia looked pensive. “Or maybe they didn’t dare drive because they hadn’t paid their car insurance. Maybe they bought medicine that week, instead of gas. Or paid the heating bill.”

“Really?” Deborah thought about that. “People are that bad-off?”

“Well, think about it. You know all the stats about this economy. Record unemployment, especially long-term. How long could you last without a paycheck?”

Deborah shifted in her chair. She had been thinking about exactly that lately. She still hadn’t told Phillip. Under the best circumstances, he would have groused about a maternity leave, but the retrenchment from the law school donors made the timing even worse. Legally, he couldn’t deny her a leave. But he could—and would, no doubt—make her life miserable right up to and after it.

“Sorry.” Julia filled in for her silence. “I didn’t mean to sound so self-righteous.”

“Don’t apologize. You believe in your cause. That’s the most important thing in fundraising.” Deborah paused. “I was just thinking how I’m not sure what’s going to happen with my own job after the baby. And what I’d do without my paycheck.”

“Mmm.” Julia nodded. “One income makes it tight, that’s for sure.”

Deborah hesitated again. She didn’t know Julia Adams well yet. But if Deborah didn’t tell her she’d find out from the campus grapevine sooner or later. If her husband hadn’t told her already.

“Actually, I don’t know if there’s another one I can count on,” she said carefully, watching Julia’s reaction. “Christopher and I are separated.”

Devoid of judgment, Julia’s eyes relieved Deborah before her words. “I’m so sorry. Going through that while you’re pregnant must be very difficult.”

Deborah nodded, trying to will back her tears. The other day four large packages had arrived in Cayuga Heights. Inside was both the baggage they’d carried on and checked on Flight 1549, retrieved when the plane was salvaged from the river. Her purse, with her ID and credit cards and makeup bag and keys. Christopher’s red Cornell carry-on. Their matching navy rolling suitcases, a wedding gift from Helen and Matt. Inside Christopher’s, the green sweater she had given him for his last birthday. Their toothbrushes—his blue, hers red.

Sorting through the detritus of their lives lived together, Deborah felt mocked. The suitcases and purse were in bad shape, but the recovered contents, which someone had dried and folded, were in amazingly good condition, even smelling sweet from sheets of fabric softener placed in between the garments. Just the opposite of her personal aftermath. Still not visibly pregnant, she looked the same as ever outside. Professional, perfect Deborah. But her insides felt as battered as the waterlogged leather and canvas as she volleyed between resenting Christopher and missing him, blaming him, and feeling guilty, anticipating motherhood and fearing it.

But just like in the class last week, Julia was holding out a tissue. And even before she’d dried her eyes, Deborah felt the tears slow. A shared burden is half a burden. Shared joy is double joy. And she had that, too, she remembered, laying her palm on her belly. She took a long sip of the smoothie. It was pretty good, after all. She smiled as she dabbed her eyes.

“I’ve got an ultrasound scheduled.”

“What! Already?” Julia gasped.

As the spring sun streamed in through the windows, they feathered their nests together.

Chewing the end of his hooded sweatshirt string, Robby clicked “Play.” Two or three low notes followed by several higher ones. He clicked again, counting silently. Six was the most high notes in a row. He shut his eyes to block the distractions in his bedroom, concentrating as hard as he could. The low notes sounded almost like a duck’s quack, short and clipped. The high notes varied, some held twice as long as the others. He clicked “Play” again.

“Whatcha doing, Robby?”

Startled, Robby opened his eyes just long enough to locate the disruption. Without a word of response to his dad, he blinked them back shut, and once more clicked “Play.” The song of the Bicknell’s thrush, which the website said had one of the most restricted breeding and wintering ranges in North America, was extraordinary. Just like Dr. Felk said. Below the audio link it said it was recorded by someone named William H. Gunn.

“Listening to bird songs?” His father was behind him, looking over his shoulder.

Duh, Dad.
Robby swiveled his chair side to side as he pondered. How did William Gunn get the recording? Did he take a microphone out into the woods and just wait? How did Dr. Felk get his? He said he went to Vermont every year to look for it. The website said the thrush’s conservation status was vulnerable. How hard would it be to find a vulnerable bird? He started to click “Play” again when his dad covered his hand on the mouse.

“Robby. I’m asking questions so I can learn, too.”

Instinctively, Robby jerked his hand and swiveled his chair away from the touch. But his dad stopped him, grasping the back of the chair and crouching down next to it, at his eye level. “I want to learn, too. Can we do it together?”

Robby spit out the sweatshirt string and exhaled deeply, blowing his long dark hair out of his eyes. His dad was different since they’d gone to the Audubon conference in Lansing. He yelled less, and sighed less. Robby couldn’t say why. But it had started there.

“Bicknell’s thrush,” he said, nodding at the screen.

“That’s the one Dr. Felk likes, right?”

Robby nodded, clicking play again. The bright, clear trill filled the room.

“Pretty,” his dad said.

“I want to hear it, too.”

“In real life, you mean?”

Robby nodded.

“Vermont’s a long ways away.”

Robby shrugged. “Still want to.”

“Hmm.” His dad nodded at the computer screen. “Is there more?”

“Lots.” The website Dr. Felk told him about, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, had thousands and thousands of calls in its acoustic library.

“Let’s look for something we can find in Michigan.”

Robby looked doubtful, glancing back at the gray Bicknell’s thrush.

“Let’s just see. There must be something interesting here.”

Robby found a US map and clicked over Michigan. The familiar mitten waved back at them, divided into sections. There was also a list of conservation status search choices: critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, near threatened, of least concern.

“Bicknell’s thrush is vulnerable,” Robby said, clicking the word.

“No results found,” his dad read. “Try another one.”

Robby clicked near-threatened. Two names popped up.

“Piping plover and Kirtland’s warbler,” his dad read. “You pick.”

“Piping plover.” Robby decided, clicking. A bird with a pale brown back and white belly appeared, standing on sand. He clicked the audio link, recorded by Geoffrey A. Keller. The bird’s mid-range peeps filled the room. Unlike the Bicknell’s thrush, the notes didn’t climb up the scale but were all even. A bird that went blah, blah, blah, Robby thought.
Boring
.

“I liked the Bicknell’s thrush better.”

“It’s a beach bird,” his dad said, reading ahead. “It nests up north, along Lake Michigan, mostly in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I went there when I was a kid.”

“Did you see any?”

“Not that I remember.” He read aloud further. “Piping plovers return in late April or early May.”

“April? This month?” Robby said, feeling more excited.

“Incubation of the nest is shared by both the male and the female. Incubation is generally twenty-seven days,” his dad finished.

“That means it takes twenty-seven days for the eggs to hatch?”

“I think so.”

“So we could see the baby birds if we went in a month.”

“You’ll still be in school then. We could go in June.”

“Don’t want to wait until June,” Robby said. June was too long to wait if they returned by early May. Like seventh grade was so important.

“They’ll still be there, Robby. It says the females don’t leave until mid-July.”

Robby felt the anger spreading through his body, stiffening his neck, his shoulders, his arms. His hand clenched the mouse. He shook his head hard.

“Don’t want to wait,” he repeated.

“I promise, we’ll go after school’s out.” His dad spun his chair so they faced each other. “Can you hear me, Robby? I promise.”

Robby stared over his dad’s shoulder, out the bedroom window. He could see the bird feeder hanging in the crabapple. The first buds were starting to pop.

“It’s going to be OK. They’ll be there, and we’ll see them in June. It’s going to be OK.” Sounding far away, his dad’s voice was smooth and even and calm. Kind of like the piping plover’s song.

Robby looked away from the window, back at the computer screen. He inhaled deeply, like his mom was always telling him to do when he got mad. “In through your nose, out through your mouth,” she would say, demonstrating herself.

It helped. He could relax his fingers enough to click the audio link again.

The plover’s sequence of clear peeps resounded again. The first three notes did have a slight rise and fall to them, he realized, sounding almost like a series of pairs: up down, up down, up down. Then came the long, repeated even peeps. He clicked it again, looking at the image of the little brown and white bird on the sand. He liked the beach. Liked feeling sand on his feet. Liked to swim.

A long time ago he’d overheard Megan, the therapist he saw when he was six or seven, tell his mom that swimming was good for him. “The water pressure provides sensory input,” she had said. Robby remembered it because no one had ever explained that water had pressure. It had scared him a little. The next time they went to the pool, he paused on the steps cautiously, waiting to feel the water squeeze around his ankles. He hadn’t felt anything.

He had stepped in deeper, to his knees. Still nothing. What did Megan know, anyway? He had plunged in then, the water comforting like so few other places, enveloping his body, muffling noise, buoying him like a pillow.

As he thought about swimming, imagining seeing the piping plovers on the beach, Robby’s anger stopped throbbing. His hands and arms and legs slackened. His dad’s murmur gradually became louder. “It’s going to be OK. They’ll be there, and we’ll see them in June. It’s going to be OK.”