A bird will soar, p.16
A Bird Will Soar, page 16
It’s the best he can do, and besides, interrupting Ms. Dale to ask if it’s okay to break the rules doesn’t seem like something she would be interested in right now.
So he types about Frank at the house after his walk with Ray yesterday. The walk where they didn’t see any birds, and it didn’t feel magical at all to be out in the open in the clearing, the way it used to feel being under the canopy of trees, surrounded by green in all directions.
“I found this,” Frank said, trying to hand Axel a feather. “You still collect them, don’t you?” Frank asked.
“Turkey feathers?” Axel responded, noting its brown and tan stripes.
“Feathers,” Frank said. “We couldn’t walk two feet without you picking one up.”
“Dr. Martin says that feathers should not be removed from nature unless for Indigenous or religious reasons.” Frank passed the feather from one hand to the other. “I don’t collect them,” Axel clarified.
“Oh,” Frank said, and then let the feather go. It didn’t flutter to the ground the way you might expect a feather to do. The shaft was thick, the plume dense. It dropped. Straight to the ground.
Axel could feel the hurt coming off his father, so he said just what he thought might make it better. “Do you collect anything, Frank?”
Frank said something about fishing lures and then asked Axel to come fishing with him over the weekend.
“No,” Axel said, because he doesn’t like fishing.
It doesn’t seem like a great conversation to put in the assignment, but it is all that Axel can remember. The turkey feather and how Frank asked about fishing, and didn’t ask about going to the cabin to look for sandhill cranes. But that they both told the truth, Frank with his fishing lures and Axel with the feathers, and even though it wasn’t a special conversation, it was good enough.
It takes more than one day for Axel to get the whole conversation typed up into a document. He finishes just in time to play Uno with Ms. Dale before Friendship Club. When Daniel and the other kids arrive, Ms. Dale finds ice pops in her freezer and announces that it’s free time Friday and they can talk about anything, as long as they are good listeners when another friend talks.
So Axel talks about branching.
Daniel acts out the jumping from branch to branch and makes his thin arms flap.
Ms. Dale doesn’t yell at Daniel for being out of his seat or letting the ice pop melt on the table, because all she said was that they had to listen when their friends were talking, and Daniel is definitely listening.
Axel says hop, and Daniel hops.
He says fly, and Daniel flaps his wings.
It’s like a party in Ms. Dale’s office, and things feel like they are fluttering back to normal. Back to school. Back to Friendship Club. And back to time with Daniel, best of all.
After school, Emmett takes Axel to the Delaware Valley Raptor Sanctuary, then Emmett goes to his favorite grocer for ingredients. More things are falling back in place, like when Axel sees Braviary hop and flap, just like Daniel, from the swing to a stump. Not pretend like Daniel, but really do it. The eagle’s body looks stuffed like a beanbag, not fluff and bones, like before. Like there is some shape to him.
When Emmett and Axel arrive home, Frank’s in the driveway.
“It’s almost ready,” Frank says, pointing to the house, which looks wrapped like a present in white paper. He grabs a grocery bag from the back of Emmett’s car.
Things are fluttering back to normal here too, Axel thinks.
“Want to go for a walk?” Axel asks.
“Sure,” Frank says. “Let me load these into the house.”
Ray comes barreling out, and Aunt Nancy waves from the porch. “How’s that bird?” she calls.
Axel runs up the walkway, lets Ray give him a quick hello. “He’s getting stronger every day.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Memories
From A. P. Brown’s Collection of North American Birds, page 669
wingspan: distance from one wingtip to the other when a bird’s wings are outstretched and fully extended
BY THE FOLLOWING WEEK, the side of the house is closed up all the way.
Even the one space where once there was a window, the only window, is boarded up, and there’s even more of the waxy white paper stuck to the house. Frank called it tech wrap and acted like this was one of the very last touches the house needed to be complete. Yet, with all the waxy paper, and the board over Axel’s favorite thinking spot, Frank still shows up, day after day. Sometimes with his crew, in the early morning hours before Axel and Byrd drive off to school. Sometimes without his crew at all.
There are things that Axel likes about this: seeing his dad, hearing his voice. And the fact that Frank hasn’t said one more thing about burning the nest. But there are things that make him worry, too. Like when Frank and Byrd go off and whisper words together, away from Axel, away from the rest of the family, like they still have so many secrets, like maybe Frank will forget that he promised to tell the truth.
And he did lie, just yesterday. He said that the house was finished enough for Byrd and Axel to move back in. “Just cosmetic things,” he said. Whatever that meant. He said he’d help carry their bags over to the house, help Byrd clean up the guest room at George and Emmett’s. But he did not. At the last minute he said, “Not today.”
From the back of Emmett’s SUV, Axel has a clear picture of Byrd and Frank today. He can see them down at the picnic table by the creek. No work being done. Just talking. Somehow this view of his parents makes the lie from yesterday stick sharp in his side. Axel knows that he has to be brave. He knows he needs to find out from his parents what’s really going on.
“I’ll let Ray out,” Emmett says as they exit the car. “Want me to carry your backpack up?”
Axel hears Emmett’s words, but his heart is too focused on the picnic table and the smiles, and the way Byrd keeps laughing with her whole body. The way his parents don’t look away from each other long enough to even notice that he’s home.
Maybe he should just wait until they do?
Stand right here, right in the middle of the driveway until they look up from the creek, across the front yard, over Byrd’s raised garden beds, over the fence and see him standing here.
“Anything good happening?” Aunt Nancy calls from the porch. Ray slipping from behind her out into the open air. If they hadn’t looked before, they really should now, the way Ray is carrying on. Axel knows what’s on Ray’s mind—a w-a-l-k. But Axel has a great big mystery to solve first, and Ray will just have to wait.
“Nance,” Emmett says, approaching his house. “What are you doing?”
“Getting off this porch to find out what’s going on over there,” Aunt Nancy says. Axel turns to see Aunt Nancy fling her rollator at Emmett. Emmett with his already full hands.
“Nance,” Emmett warns again.
“Either get out of my way or give me a hand,” Aunt Nancy says. “None of this ‘Nance’ crap.”
“Where’s George?” Emmett asks, like this will delay Aunt Nancy from doing whatever she wants.
“Napping under some book filled with fancy words . . . For Pete’s sake, give me your hand,” Aunt Nancy demands. Her thick white sneaker toddling on the first step.
This all happens between glances for Axel. An ear on Aunt Nancy’s orders and eyes on the picnic table.
“They’ve been nestled up there for too long,” Aunt Nancy says when she reaches Axel’s side. “They’re dodos, those two.” She turns her rollator so that she can sit facing the scene by the creek. “Dodos,” she says again.
“Turkeys,” Axel says. “Everyone knows that turkey brains are the worst.”
Right there, from her perch on her rollator, Aunt Nancy cups her wrinkled hands around her wrinkled mouth. “You have turkey brains,” she hollers. And this, this has them turn from one another and scan the creek and the front yard and Byrd’s raised garden beds and over the fence until their eyes finally land on Aunt Nancy and Axel.
And just in case Byrd and Frank weren’t sure what the noise was, Aunt Nancy shouts again, longer and louder this time, “TUUUUUUURRRRKEYYYYYY BRAAAAAAAIIINS!”
They smile back like being called a turkey brain is hilarious and they couldn’t possibly be keeping secrets.
“You know what I could use?” Aunt Nancy asks in a softer voice. “I could use some intel. Think you could go down there and find out just what they’re talking about? I think this is as far as my adventure will take me today, so it’s up to you to find out more.”
Axel wants to run straight down there, demand to be seen and told the truths that they are telling each other, but he isn’t Aunt Nancy. Demands don’t come as easily to him.
“Aw . . . Go on,” Aunt Nancy says. “Take Ray with you. Maybe he’ll get something out of them, too.”
It’s hard sometimes to just put one foot in front of the other, even in the place called home. Axel looks down at Ray. “Should we go?” he asks.
And the thing about dogs is that the word go is a magic word, so Ray takes off, and all Axel can do is follow.
“Give ’em heck,” Aunt Nancy calls.
Ray reaches the picnic table first, practically crawls on top of Frank, slipping right in between where Byrd and Frank sit side by side.
“Hey, buddy,” Frank says, scratching Ray behind the ear.
“His name is Ray,” Axel says.
Frank and Byrd share a quick look, only long enough for Axel to know that there is a longer story behind the look, one that they haven’t told him. Just another secret between the two.
“You have to tell me,” Axel says. “No secret jokes between the two of you. You promised to tell the truth.”
“It isn’t that great of a story,” Byrd says. “It’s just, of course your dad knows Ray’s name. He named Ray.”
“You did?” Axel asks. He slides into the bench across from his parents. Ray ducks under the table and rests a heavy head in Axel’s lap.
“Let me see if I can remember,” Frank says. “It was a long time ago. You wouldn’t know it, but he had even more energy then. This little fur ball made George and Emmett so happy. Your mom and me, too. He was like a ray of light. A ray of sunshine.”
“But he’s not golden,” Axel says, looking at Ray’s sweet face.
“A ray of light can come in any color,” Frank says. “And this guy made us smile. He had these huge ears and paws.”
“He still has big ears.”
“Right, and if you can imagine, those big ears on a little puppy. His ears are the same size now as when they brought him here, only his body was, like, half as big.”
“More like ten percent as big,” Byrd says. She holds her hands like she’s holding a baby. “Remember?”
“That first weekend they brought him up. No name. They’d rescued him from a place near where they worked. I know we have a picture somewhere from that first visit with Ray. He curled right up on your mom’s belly. You were in there. He wasn’t much bigger that day than you were when we brought you home a few weeks later. I bet we have a picture of that too.” He turns to Byrd. “Remember that day?”
And now it makes sense, the way they were smiling before when Axel saw them from the driveway. Sharing memories like this brings on smiles.
“I’d like to see those pictures,” Axel says.
“Well, let’s go see if we can find them,” Frank says.
“Where?” Axel asks.
“Inside,” Frank says. He stands up and offers Byrd his hand, and she stands too.
“It’s safe?” Axel asks.
“Today’s the day,” Frank says. “I think they’re in the basement, those photos.”
Axel enters his house after Byrd and after Frank, and even after Ray. It’s his house so it shouldn’t feel like anything but “home” but so much has changed.
And it smells funny inside.
Ray sniffs around too, especially over in the living room where all the furniture is missing and there are new floorboards.
“That’s where he peed,” Axel says.
At the same time, Byrd says, “Oh, no you don’t.”
At the same time, Frank says, “Ray,” in a singsongy voice.
Ray looks up, tilts his head like the commands don’t make sense altogether. Maybe they don’t, but something about it does make sense.
And just like the smiles outside at the picnic table, all three Rastusaks laugh inside their home. Their laughter echoes in the empty space with no carpets or furniture or houseplants to dampen the sound.
Just like the smell, it’s a different sound than Axel remembers in the house. The echo of them laughing. All three of them. All in on the same joke.
It’s a different sound, yes, but one thing Axel knows for sure: it is a sound he loves to hear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Pasta-palooza Take Two
What it is:
Elbow macaroni.
Gluten-free fettuccini.
Angel hair.
Rigatoni.
Fusilli.
Marinara.
Alfredo.
Butter.
Pesto.
Meatballs.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT THE LAUGHTER in the house, and being brave enough to walk right up to Byrd and Frank and ask what they were talking about, and even knowing a story from long ago that once he didn’t know about Ray and his name. There’s something about all of this that swirls inside Axel’s very head, and his heart too. Like the way it must feel to fly.
“We’re celebrating,” Emmett says when he places the last bowl of pasta on the table. It’s elbows with extra butter and extra salt, and it is right in front of Axel.
The table is crowded again, because the sixth chair is squished next to Byrd again. But this time it’s not that bad. After all, this time is a celebration, like Pasta-paloozas are supposed to be. Lots to celebrate.
“Cheers,” George says, raising his water glass. The wineglasses are still missing, and if the clues are all true and in place, Axel knows exactly why the wine isn’t part of tonight’s celebration. And that’s just fine; Axel doesn’t drink the wine anyway.
Even Aunt Nancy raises her glass. It wobbles a little, but she touches it to Axel’s without spilling. “You ready to celebrate?” she asks out the side of her mouth.
Axel nods.
“Well, then I am too,” she says. “But I’m also ready to toss the table if needed.”
Axel can’t help himself, he laughs. The image in his brain of Aunt Nancy tossing a table is just too much. Ray would sure like it, the pasta all over the floor. A real feast for him. A dog celebration.
Too bad for Ray that isn’t going to happen. Not tonight. Tonight isn’t a dog celebration.
“To Frank for finishing the house in record time,” George says, raising his glass in the air again.
Frank blushes a deep purple color. Axel does that too when the spotlight is on him. “I don’t know about finished,” Frank says. “But it’s safe for Byrd and Axel to stay in tonight.”
Axel’s suddenly on his feet. His bedroom with its hawk eyes and books and ticking clock. Why hadn’t he gone to look when he was inside the house with Frank and Byrd? When they’d gone for the pictures down into the damp basement? Now his whole body radiates: ROOM! ROOM! ROOM!
“Where do you think you’re going?” Byrd asks.
The word pops out. “Room!”
Byrd reaches across the table and, as best she can, chimes the side of Axel’s glass with a spoon. Another nice sound. “I want to give a toast, too.”
“I yield the floor to you,” George says to Byrd. He sits, and then Axel does too. It seems like the right thing to do, even with his room and all his things waiting for him.
“I want to toast to Frank, but not for the house,” Byrd says. She grips her water glass in both hands, pulls the glass close to her chest. “Thank you for coming back to us,” she says. “Again,” she adds, but barely, the word almost invisible.
Frank stands up, wraps Byrd into a thick hug. The kind of hug that swallows another person. The kind of hug that only feels good if you really, really want it to happen. And Byrd does. She and Frank stay like that for a little while. Everyone else at the table frozen, like maybe this wasn’t something they were meant to see. Like maybe a secret has passed between Frank and Byrd, wrapped inside that hug.
A secret.
Like maybe Axel doesn’t know the whole truth of the things that happened between Byrd and Frank, and maybe—no, definitely—he doesn’t know what happens next. These mysteries are too hard to solve. Too big to fit into one hug, or one celebration, or one house, or one nest. These mysteries have slithering parts. Byrd should know this better than anyone, but she doesn’t.
She’s too busy wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. Smiling and crying at the same time like her brain can’t make up its mind any more than Axel can make out what’s happening here.
“Coming back?” Axel asks. A simple question, really. Two words.
“To us?” Aunt Nancy asks. And for just a moment, Axel imagines that this is the time she throws the whole table. Elbows with butter and salt, meatballs, and red sauce. All of it thrust from their side of the table to Frank’s side.
Why is it that each time he feels like he knows the truth, there is something else they’ve kept hidden? Why is it that when they were laughing in the house or smiling at the picnic table, that they couldn’t tell him about this whole “coming back” business, whatever it means? So many more whys. Again.
