All the Dancing Birds (2 page)

“Just hurry up and get here,” she says, “for, you know… the other thing.”

“Oh, you mean Bryan? Well, of course, dear. I can’t
wait
to see him.” I make the first completely true and honest statement of our conversation. It’s hard to locate the last time I’ve seen my boy.

My boy. My heart of hearts, my love of loves.

Allison makes a groaning noise. I can see that, once more, I shall oversee the friendly dissonance of my children; I’m delighted with the prospect.

We hang up and I decide to also hang up the last of my horrible day. After unclipping my car keys, I wipe my wallet clean from any remaining scent of lettuce and shove it into my purse. I give my face a fast swipe of lipstick and then hurry to the car. I pat the hood as I cross to the driver’s door. “Good old paint,” I say. “
You
, at least, decided not to crawl into the lettuce drawer.”

Within a few minutes, I squeeze into an opening just large enough for my car on the ramp of eastbound Interstate 80, heading toward Fair Oaks. The sky stays busy shuffling clouds around and around until I feel nearly dizzy from the constant movement. In front of me, I see a long, dark line of rain; behind me, the sun works its way toward the horizon. I’m somewhere between the rain and the sun, firmly wedged into a lane of stop-and-go cars. I float along within a stream of sour-faced commuters.

The traffic is agonizingly slow, but my mind thankfully whirls with thoughts of my Allison‌—‌my first, and in some ways, my best. She is beautiful. Yummy. She is what I once was and I am what she will become. After thirty-two years, I still feel the astonishment of her birth, the moment of her exit from my body, the continued string of our connection. We share structure and cells and even the peculiarity of subtle mannerisms and vocalizations: the way we tilt our heads just slightly to the right when we puzzle over something; how the understructure of our speech is a composite blend of the drawling, warm butter drizzle of North Carolina painted over with a clipped northern California influence; the way we bite our lower lip when pensive or disquieted; the looping gestures we make with our hands.

We also share the odd quirk of our names. I am Lillie Claire Glidden. She is Allison Claire Colson. We laugh that our first, middle, and last names each are peppered with little ells. We call ourselves the La La La Girls and fall over our tongues trying to say our names three times quickly. We have yet to do so with success.

She’s a beauty for certain, yet she breaks my heart. I still carry the disbelief that any man, most especially her former husband, would be foolish enough to leave such loveliness. I guess there’s no accounting for taste, nor is there any guarantee that a woman’s good looks make a compelling argument for marital longevity.

When I arrive forty-five long minutes later from what should have been a twenty-minute drive, Allison greets me with air kisses and waves me into the living room. I’d like to fall into her arms and have a good cry over my abysmal day and how now even her neighborhood appears slightly off kilter and out of perspective, as if someone has moved the street signs and rearranged all my landmarks. I decide instead that a nice glass of wine or two might set all my worries aside for the rest of the day. Allison’s hands are comically pushed into man-sized, heavily padded oven mitts. Her cheeks are ruddy and moist from the effort of cooking.

“It took you
forever
to get here,” she says, her lips pushed into a complicated pout.

“Friday traffic… you know how it gets around here. I hope you’re not going to too much trouble.” I try to keep the irony of my statement from showing in my voice.

“Oh, no. No trouble at all.” She pushes at a wisp of fallen hair with one giant-mitted hand. The lock immediately falls again across her forehead. “Wait.” Allison sniffs at the air. “Uh oh. I think… do you smell something burning?”

“Go. Not a problem,” I say to her already retreating form.

I’m left to pour my own glass of wine, which, given the state of my day, suits me just fine. I serve myself an extra generous portion and then look for my son. He sits in the den, scowling at the television. From the sound, I gather he’s watching a basketball game, and from his demeanor, it’s easy to conclude things aren’t going well for his side.

But then again, my Bryan Ivan Glidden is of the sullen variety to begin with. He’s been this way since the day he was born. Maybe he’s just mad after discovering his initials‌—‌B. I. G.‌—‌spell a word he doesn’t feel he measures up to according to the length of his own yardstick. Maybe he’s angry because his sister, older by only one year and wild in the business of her own babyhood, stole me away from him for great long moments at a time. Perhaps he was simply a fumbling baby who grew to be a man of graceful charm and the confusion of such an unlikely juxtaposition filled him with constant sparks and clouds.

For whatever reason, Bryan has fussed at me from the first. My breasts were never tasty enough; my arms never comfort enough for his lusty lungs and kicking legs. He fumed and gyrated from the beginning and, from all indications, he is still eluded by the simple satisfaction of an ordinary day.

Still, in spite of his frowning eyebrows and lip biting, he is beautiful and I ache for the days when I could have pulled him to my lap, singing
Skidamarink a dinky dink, Skidamarink a doo
, which always made him clap and laugh and beg me to sing it again and again.

Bryan waves me in, barely taking his eyes from the game. I settle myself in a chair across from him. He jiggles his legs up and down, a habit born, I suppose, from always hurrying. Even seated in a comfortable chair, my son seems to run places without ever leaving. A defiant glass of yellow-white chardonnay (in direct opposition to my lovely, rich cabernet) rests cupped in his hand.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I say. “Wow, it’s good to see you.”

“Hey, Mom. Good to see you too.” He greets me without looking up from the game. The last light of the day crawls over his shoes.

I try again. “I’m so excited. Your sister tells me you’re moving back to Sacramento.”

That does it.

“Allison!” Bryan yells toward the direction of the kitchen. “She’s such a butt,” he says into his wine when she doesn’t answer. “It’s not a certainty… I’m still negotiating with the law firm.”

“A law firm? How wonderful. In Sacramento?”

“Good God, Mom. Of course it’s a law firm. I’m a
lawyer
.”

“Don’t be so cheeky with your mother, Bryan. I can only thank God that your
father
isn’t alive to hear such language.”

I watch my son’s face fold inward for a brief moment and I know my words have stung like needles. A mother’s words, especially when spoken through a well-puckered mouth, punctuated with narrowed eyes and a slight tilt of the head, carry more weight than any well-articulated swat.

“Oh, gosh, Mom, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry,” Bryan says, lowering his face. “I only meant‌—‌”

“I know what you meant, dear. It’s just‌—‌”

“Well, still… I don’t think it was Allison’s call to spill my good-news beans.” Bryan swirls his wine, then watches it settle back. “If she ever gets a job, I hope she’ll give me the honor of jumping into the middle of her announcement.”

“Allison would be the
first
to tell you she married well and divorced even better, so perhaps we’ll need to wish for other good news for you to spill on behalf of your sister.” I smile, but I’m not certain my point was received in the manner I intended.

“Right… I forgot her job is
shopping
. Not much to spill when her only source of world news is the Saturday Macy’s ad.”

I decide it’s that nasty white wine that’s constricted his mouth and soured his mood. I tip my head rightward and bestow a smile on my son, in spite of his fundamental arrogance. I wait until he can no longer stand my silence‌—‌another effective motherly tactic.

“Sorry again. I didn’t mean to be rude. Not to you.” Bryan leans his head in the direction of Allison, who’s now fussing over the dinner table. “I
meant
to direct my rudeness to She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Ignored.” Bryan raises his voice toward Allison, who is unsuccessfully trying to stand a narrow bouquet of dyed blue daisies within the neck of a too-large vessel.

“Whatever, Bryan,” Allison says, giving up on the flowers and allowing them to flop in an ungainly clump down one side of the vase.

“Okay, kids,” I say. “Let’s not make my day worse than it’s already been.”

I stop myself before spilling my own secret-news beans about the recent state of my memory.

“No worries,” Bryan says. “Anyway, I wanted to surprise you at dinner, but the deal is this… I’m negotiating with Brown and Sauter.” His mouth curls over the name of the law firm like a child screaming delight over a shining red bicycle on Christmas morning. “They’ve opened a spot to bring on a water guy like me, actually they’ve decided to start up an environmental department, and it looks like I’m their dude. It’s a perfect fit and I’m really,
really
ready to move back here.”

I clap my hands. “Oh, well, dear, that’s wonderful news. Just wonderful!”

“Don’t get excited yet. I probably won’t know anything for at least a month.”

“But still, it’s wonderful. We’ll
all
hold good thoughts for it.” I point my voice toward the kitchen. “Won’t we, Allison?” Returning to Bryan, I ask, “How does Katie feel? Is she excited?”

“I really couldn’t say. I don’t talk to her.”

“You don’t
talk
to her? Why on earth?”

“Mom, of course not. Why would I talk to Katie? We’re through with all the haggling over who gets what, no kids to fight over, no designer dog to split down the middle. It’s just a matter of toughing out California’s stupid six month and one day waiting period for the divorce to be final. We’re almost there, though… actually, the middle of next month.”

“Divorce?
Divorc
e? My God, Bryan. You never told me.” My hands flutter across my lap like wounded sparrows shot from the sky. “How could you not tell me?”

“Of course I told you. We talked on the phone about it. You cried all over the place. Told me I was a jerk and I should try to work things out. How could you forget?”

“Oh, well… of course,” I say, my eyes widening as if I were just caught being naughty. “No, actually… I just meant‌—‌”

YOU SEARCH. You search like a wild woman through every tangled memory you’ve ever had for something‌—‌anything‌—‌that reminds you of a significant conversation. You look into the deep of your wine, like it’s a witch’s gazing pool and think yourself crazy not to remember your son announcing the end of his five-year marriage. You run through the halls of your mind to whatever synapse or structure might hold the memory of a conversation so meaningful that it most likely stole your breath away and made you twist a hanky between your fingers for the sheer agony of it all. Your mind is mean. It has taken a moment from you‌—‌a huge moment‌—‌and in a bully’s game of keep-away, it won’t give it back. You hope your eyes don’t make a clamor that would call attention to the wild foray going on inside your head. In the end, you lamely mutter an apology. Tears well in your eyes and you excuse yourself to the powder room before those too are discovered. You stand over the sink and berate the face you see in the mirror. When you’ve sufficiently recovered, you finish the evening with a half-frozen smile pasted to your face, all the while spreading vows throughout every nook and cranny of your mind to keep future diligence over your conversations. By the time you leave, your only issue is where‌—‌once again‌—‌you’ve placed your car keys.

On the way home, I make a wrong turn onto the freeway. I’ve headed toward Lake Tahoe, when I should have turned in the direction of San Francisco. Stupid. Silly. I realize I’m well far away from where I should be, but in all honesty, I could say that about myself in most everything these days. “My God, Lillie Claire,” I say into the dark of my car. “What in the world is
wrong
with you?”

For the umpteenth time in one day, another sting of tears starts up behind my eyes. I’ve been tilted on my axis, only to be soundly dumped onto my sad and ridiculous chowderhead.

I correct my direction at the following off-ramp and then spend the next thirty minutes paying close attention to my hands, gripping them tightly to the wheel to keep them from making another wrong turn. I only find familiarity when I finally pull into my driveway. I turn off the ignition and sit wordlessly in the dark before asking my legs to tremble their way out of the car. I start toward the house, but stop, standing gawky and slew-footed in the middle of the drive.

For a brief moment, the day’s clouds part like a ruffled, purple peek-a-boo skirt. I look up and whistle at a round and yellow moon.

The moon whistles back.

Chapter Two

I
stand beside my bed, wondering if I should straighten the covers or crawl back in its downy softness. I run my hand over the sheets. I don’t know when it was I decided lace-edged pink sheets would be my signature bedwear. I think it occurred during a shopping trip about a year after my Ivan died so suddenly that it took at least that long to stop expecting him home every night for supper. Even now, I’m still caught up improbably thinking I can hear him singing in the shower, or clanking dishes about in the kitchen, or humming some made-up ditty while spreading strawberry cream cheese over an onion bagel or pouring glasses of wine for dinner. Then I realize he’s been gone ten years. Ten years!

It’s odd I can’t remember where I kicked off my shoes last night, but I can remember every moment of Ivan as if he were still here, sitting in the bedside chair pulling on his shoes, tucking his shirt down over his narrow belly and talking about some client’s spreadsheet as if it were the most exciting literature ever written. I would be making the bed‌—‌the one that now has pink ruffled sheets, covered by a poplin rose-embellished quilt‌—‌nodding my head as if spreadsheets were the best thing since Poe’s
Sonnet to Science
.