The Hummingbird's Cage (11 page)

I
woke on the porch, curled up like a fetus on the wicker settee. It was early morning and a dank chill hung in the air. I pushed myself up and a blanket slid off—someone must have laid it over me while I slept. I felt sluggish, as if my brain had been working overtime through the night. I rubbed at eyes that were dry and sore, trying to recall how I ended up sleeping outside.

And in a flash it came back . . . The sisters and the bee. The thunderstorm. Olin. The Place of Truth.

I swung my legs to the floor and nearly toppled an empty wine bottle sitting at my feet. It was one of Simon's—the apple wine he supplied at Saturday suppers. I'd sneaked it from Jessie's cupboard after they'd all gone off to bed. Then I'd slipped outside to get as snockered as circumstances would allow. I considered it a necessity. A palliative. Even an experiment. And
what I discovered was that circumstances allowed snockered, sure enough. But apparently not sloppy. Or maybe for sloppy you needed two bottles.

The noises of a waking household were coming from inside. Jessie would be back in the kitchen, setting her cast-iron skillet on the stove, grinding coffee beans, sending Olin to the henhouse for eggs. I pulled the blanket back over my shoulders and stood. The planks of the porch felt cool and sure against my bare feet. I padded to the front railing, keen for any signs of the supernatural. I wasn't sure what that might be—a melting landscape like something out of Dalí, maybe. A second sun flaring overhead. A herd of bush elephants trumpeting across the valley floor, white tusks flashing . . .

How had Olin called it?
Getting a handle on the moment
. But how do you get a handle on a moment like this? Take it one day at a time, like a recovery program?

Then again, maybe this was meant to be an easy, familiar passage. Like leaving one room to enter another. Otherwise, how could you bear it?

The rattle of an engine came from the hills to the north where the road reared up and disappeared. An old Ford pickup appeared, its black paint faded to dull, piebald grays, coughing blue smoke from its tailpipe. It puttered past the diner on its way south, a ladder poking from its bed, a red rag knotted around the last rung, whipping in the wind like the wings of a scarlet bird.

For some reason, the sheer banality of it heartened me. This, I could handle.

I picked up the empty wine bottle and slipped it under the blanket, out of sight. When no one was looking, I'd drop it in a waste can. Apart from sparing myself some embarrassment,
I intended to use it as another experiment—to see if I was entitled to secrets here.

Breakfast proceeded the same as every other morning. Olin gave no hint that anything was amiss. As if he hadn't lobbed a virtual grenade in my lap hours before.

Hours. Were there still hours? I wasn't sure anymore.

But there was continuity. Familiarity. You sugar your coffee. Spoon the jam. Sop gravy off your plate with hunks of biscuit. You talk about the day ahead, ticking off what needs doing. By the end of breakfast, I was reacquainted with the rhythm, nearly myself again. If I wasn't ready to praise the day, at least I was ready to participate.

Dishes washed and dried, I stepped back outside to find the chill had gone, the sun blazing overhead. It was what Laurel calls a shiny day—so bright and clear your eyes ache with it. She'd gone with Olin to the coop earlier, and her sneakers were caked with mud from the storm the day before. I took a bucket to the yard and was scrubbing her sneakers when Jessie suggested we walk to town to get Laurel a pair of rain boots. I wiped a stray bit of hair from my face and stared at Jessie, searching for a sign on hers—anything to indicate she was aware of what Olin had told me last evening. A hint of complicity. Of
knowing
. Maybe even of sympathy.

But it was Jessie as Jessie had always been—her gray hair coiled to a tight bun, her sturdy frame as straight as a fence post, brooking no argument.

She tied on a straw sunbonnet and handed me another. It was wide brimmed, and from long habit I slung it low to hide my face. I brushed Laurel's hair into a ponytail and the three of us set out.

This was the first time I'd ventured off the farm, and even
now—even now—I couldn't imagine heading along this road without running into a deputy's cruiser, slanted off to the side, engine idling, windows dark. And Jim hunched like a vulture behind the wheel. But I knew that if I hid out on this farm much longer, I'd only be making myself a prisoner on purpose.

We struck out for town—toward the Mountain—an easy walk not only for its length, a mere two miles or so, but also because it felt as if the road sloped down a tick, although to my eyes it seemed level enough. The effect was of some force drawing me on, compelling me to
come
.

As we walked, Jessie pointed out wildflowers on either side of the road. So many, and such variety. She began to name them: fiddlehead and soap tree yucca, thistle and red pussytoes, lupine and Indian paintbrush, chicory and biscuit-root, sagebrush and mountain dandelion, heartleaf and pearly everlasting.

The only sound aside from Jessie's voice was the faint basal hum of cicadas. Their drowsy noise always reminded me of high-voltage transmission wires, and a thought struck. I looked about, and there were no transmission towers in sight. No power lines anywhere, in fact. No telephone lines or utility cables. No poles to string them on. No cell towers, no radio towers. Behind us, no poles or lines running electricity to the farmhouse. Yet the house
had
electricity. Something was powering the lamps, the radio, the sewing machine, the oven, the clocks . . .

I glanced at Jessie, at my daughter walking so easily with her, the two of them holding hands like great friends.

Jessie glanced back at me, her expression obscure, still reciting the names of flowers in a singsong voice as soothing as a lullaby.

*   *   *

By the time we rounded that first foothill, I had few expectations of Morro. Olin had said it was long forgotten, and I'd seen bypassed towns before: the bitter decay of empty storefronts and boarded-up windows, littered streets and broken sidewalks.

But Morro was nothing like that.

It wasn't big, consisting of but a single street. But that street was more like a broad boulevard that ran for blocks, and smoothly paved. At the town line a sign read:

WELCOME TO MORRO

Beyond the sign, sidewalks with rows of shade trees that branched thirty feet and higher lined each side of the boulevard. On the outskirts of town stood handsome family homes with deep lawns, while at the center well-kept commercial buildings bustled with people. And right in the middle of the boulevard stood a large domed gazebo.

Jessie stepped briskly to the sidewalk, making for the business center of town. Laurel and I followed. There were few cars, and no traffic signals. We passed a sidewalk café and an Italian bakery selling gelato from a walk-up window. An antiques store, an art gallery, a butcher shop, a green grocer's. Across the street was a lending library and a redbrick building with a sign that read,
Town Hall
. Beyond that were more shops, then more homes lining the far end of town.

But the anchors of this place were clearly the general
store—a three-story building that took up the better part of a block—and across from it a grand Victorian hotel called the Wild Rose, painted in flamboyant shades of red.

I walked slowly, the better to take it all in.

There wasn't a single crack in the sidewalk, no hole in the asphalt. No chipping paint. Not a stray bit of litter skittering down the street.

Morro was idyllic—a town Norman Rockwell might have dreamed up.

Or me.

Jessie led us past the hotel, where a couple emerged—very elegant, in their thirties, with dark hair and skin. The man wore a tan sport coat and open-collared shirt; the woman, a beautiful sari of apricot silk. I tried not to stare—they seemed so cosmopolitan, and in their way as anachronistic as Olin and Jessie.

At the general store, its massive front windows were papered with flyers for club meetings, recitals, the weekly farmers' market, a school play. And inside, the building seemed cavernous, with row after row of well-stocked aisles.

Jessie led us to the shoe section, where we searched the shelves for rain boots in Laurel's size. But we found few children's boots at all, and none small enough for her.

Jessie called out for assistance, and a big man sorting boxes nearby left his pallet and joined us. I recognized him from the café—Faro LaGow was the customer I'd brought blueberry pancakes by mistake but who graciously took them anyway.

He was muscular and ruddy, with a short graying beard and close-cropped ginger hair. He put me in mind of an old ring fighter.

He grinned at Jessie. “What can I do you for today?”

“We'll take a pair of rubber boots. For this child here. Something sturdy.”

Faro considered Laurel for a moment. “You're seven if you're a day.”

Laurel nodded.

“Not sure we got anything on the floor to fit,” Faro said. “But a shipment's just come in. First, young lady, why don't you tell me what sort of boots you had in mind.”

Laurel's eyes widened. I could tell she was delighted to be consulted, but with an imagination like hers the possibilities were endless. So I answered for her: “Just rain boots. Anything her size.”

Laurel yanked her hand from mine and tossed her head at me.
“No!”
she said.

Faro leaned low till he was level with her. “I take it you got your own ideas.”

I didn't like where this was going. Of course Laurel would have ideas, but they would likely be wildly unrealistic. Faro seemed to be needlessly stoking her hopes, inviting disappointment. Just the sort of game Jim liked to play.

Laurel took a moment to consider the options, biting her lip thoughtfully.

“Yellow boots,” she said finally. “With polka dots.”

“What color polka dots?”

This time she didn't hesitate: “All colors.”

Faro straightened, rubbing his chin with a hand the size of a boy's baseball mitt. His knuckles were stitched with faint scars. “Well, now, let me go poke through my stock.”

By now I was sure the man was toying with her. Whether he meant it unkindly or not didn't matter.

“No,” I insisted. “Don't bother.”

“Worth a look,” he said, and winked. Then he turned on his heel and headed toward the back, disappearing behind an unmarked door.

“Laurel, honey, he's gone to check,” I said. “That doesn't mean he has them.”

“If he doesn't,” she said, “I don't want any.”

Her young face was pure petulance now, and I only hoped she wouldn't pitch a fit right there in the aisle when Faro LaGow showed up empty-handed.

While we waited, Jessie wandered off for boxes of salt crackers and roasted coffee beans. She collected a can of boiled linseed oil and a horsehair brush for Olin to refinish his gunstocks.

At last Laurel hissed with excitement. “Here he comes!”

Faro was approaching, his hands hidden behind him. “Well, now, young lady. Will these fit the bill?”

And from behind his back he drew a pair of rain boots: bright yellow, covered in polka dots of every color.

Laurel squealed, snatched the boots up and ran to me. I turned them over, checking for signs of fraud, however well intentioned. But there was no drying paint, no stickers. And they were just the right size: seven.

I stared at Faro in disbelief, and he grinned back.

“These are . . . perfect,” I managed. Then to Laurel, “What do you say, honey?”

“Thank you, Mr. Faro. Can I put 'em on now?”

He looked at me and I nodded. Laurel pulled on the boots and paraded back and forth for us to admire them properly.

I struggled with how to feel about this. The man had either dug up Laurel's dream boots back in that stockroom through sheer serendipity or had somehow managed to conjure them out of thin air, made-to-order. I lacked the nerve to ask the obvious question: Where on earth had these come from?

Jessie linked her arm through mine. She was gazing at Laurel indulgently, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

We checked out and left with our parcels, returning the same way we'd come, Laurel bounding ahead.

That
evening, Laurel kept her boots on all through supper. She kept them on as she and Olin played checkers at the table, Jessie reading nearby, half-moon glasses tipped low on her nose. The radio was playing a set by the Artie Shaw orchestra.

I sat for a good hour alone on the dark porch, watching the road, recapping the day, struggling yet again to ground myself. Now and then my attention strayed to the foothills, and to Morro beyond—the pitch-perfect town where whims can come true.

When I came back inside, I paused at the table lamp by Olin's empty chair near the fireplace. The base was a ceramic Remington cowboy astride a cattle pony.

I turned the switch and the lamp sprang to life—the round bulb glowing under the linen shade. I studied the base again,
checking all around the pony's four hooves where they attached to the heavy metal stand. I could find no power cord to run to an electrical outlet. On the nearest wall, there was no outlet.

I turned the lamp off again.

Then on.

I
slept fitfully. Every time I woke, I'd lie very still and listen to the silence. An old wind-up alarm clock had sat on the nightstand, but I went and buried it in a laundry basket inside the closet where I couldn't hear its
tick-tick-tick
—like a heartbeat, but mechanical and mocking. In the dark, too, I listened to my own heart. I could feel the steady pulse at my neck, my wrist. And when I pressed my palm against my chest, there it was.

Tick-tick-tick
.

The upshot was to make me doubt Olin, or want to. But I couldn't tell if my resistance sprang from strength or weakness. I kept shifting back and forth. One minute, Olin was an old soul doing me a kindness. The next, an old coot feeding me a line. In the dark, anything and everything seemed possible.

My brain wouldn't shut off.

I rubbed my temples, feeling the soft skin stretch across
the hard cradle of skull. Anatomy itself was a mystery now. In the Place of Truth, in Morro, in whatever or wherever this was, how much was illusion and how much was real?

And what was the purpose? Or even the power source? What keeps a lamp going here? Or a heart?

One night when I was a little girl my mother drove us down some desert highway in our old Rambler wagon. I lay in the backseat staring at a black sky bristling with stars. My brain wouldn't shut off then, either. For the first time, I was struck by the vastness of the universe, pure and perfect, and my own place in it. As I stared, the stars began to shift, inching across the sky like a pinwheel. And I knew it was revealing itself to me, and only me. And a voice that was no voice at all began to fill my head with thoughts so big, so frightening, they set it to spinning, too . . . and soon enough my whole body seemed to spiral like those stars, toppling headfirst toward the sky.

The shock, the enormity, had made me pull back. I closed my eyes and shut my brain down—like pulling a pot off a stove before it boils over. As if whatever I was about to discover threatened to burn me alive. It was all too vast. Too terrible.

After that, the stars were never the same. In time, like anyone else, I learned the names of the major constellations, the North Star, the Evening Star. But I never again trusted myself to get lost in them.

That had been a lesson learned, and I decided to apply it again. There are things too big to take in all at once. And thoughts so deep they might send you pinwheeling off to disappear in the dark.

I couldn't handle Awe when I was four, and still couldn't as a woman of thirty.

I wanted surety and safety and continuity. I wanted to wake in this bed in the morning, wash my face, comb my hair, wake Laurel and get her ready for an unremarkable day. I wanted a long march of unremarkable days just like it.

I wanted it for as long as I was able. Or allowed.