Are You Sitting Down? (7 page)

She kicked at the flames, and eventually got a foot u
n
der the hose.
With her leg, she scooted the nozzle into the pile of snow the plows had pushed up next to the pump when clea
r
ing the lot.
The flame went out.
Mr. Greer had just made it out the door and down the steps.
The lady leaned against the car in tears.
He patted her arm.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying to her.
She took his arm and he helped her inside.

“I’m okay.
I just need a gallon of milk,” I heard her say over the cowbell clanging on the door as they came inside.

She looked at me with strange eyes, probably wonde
r
ing why I had not come to her aid.
I bit my lip and looked back out the window to avoid her glance.
She’d left the screaming baby in the car.
I
tried to be
like some chameleonic animal blend
ing
into its surroundings, but felt more like a fat helpless pig at some county fair trough with people gawking over its size.

“Thank you, Mr. Greer.
I’m so sorry,” she said paying for the gas and the milk.

“As long as you are okay, Clare, that’s all that matters.
You be careful out there,” Mr. Greer said.

He followed her back outside to the car.
He tapped on the back window and played peek-
a
-boo with the crying baby.
The lady waved good-bye and drove away.
Mr. Greer shook the snow from the nozzle and examined it.
He put the nozzle back in the cradle and waddled back inside.

“Them White kids sho is trouble,” he said, shaking his head.

“Who was that?”
I asked with a dumb look on my face over the whole thing that had just happened.

“Clare White,
Lorraine
’s youngest girl.
You know she got a mixed baby?
Her brother was just in here.
He’s a queer.”

Mr. Greer didn’t give me a chance to respond.
He di
s
appeared into the back whistling to the song on the radio.
I had nothing to say about her anyway.
I had recognized her from Justin’s funeral, but didn’t know she was Travis’
s
sister.
I looked back out the window and played the sudden events over in my head again, impressed at how quickly Clare had r
e
sponded.
I felt like an idiot just sitting here, too tired and bloated to aid someone in trouble.

She had a child in the car to think about.
Her response was instant, while I just sat here with my gut pressed against the table.
 
She was headed to
Lorraine
’s now and would relive the events out loud to her loved ones.
Clare would say som
e
thing about how her life had flashed in front of her eyes.
She reacted on impulse
because
all she
could think about was her kid.

All I ever thought about was Justin.
But m
y life was a slow flash, and I never reacted
to it
at all.

Lorraine
 

Like every morning, I
was awake by dawn.
I preferred the winter months when it would still be dark outside.
The earth was quiet and asleep.
I felt like I had it all to myself.
The old habit of tip toeing through the house, from
back
when I still had kids upstairs sleep
ing
, had never gone away.

The coffee was on a timer, and if the smell of it bre
w
ing didn’t wake me
first
then my internal clock
never failed
.
I don’t remember the last time I’d set the alarm clock on the nightstand.
I didn’t even keep a clock there anymore.
It’d been in the dresser since Frank passed.
When you are
the last one left
in a
big
empty house, with
no
kids to attend to
or lunches to make, a clock timed schedule is pretty useless.
I got up with the sun, and sometimes went to bed “with the chickens” as my Granny
had
liked to say.
And
as long as
my eyes opened on tomorrow, I’d
get up and
do it all over again.

I stretched my way out of bed and threw on my slippers and heavy housecoat.
After the first cup of coffee, I picked the p
a
per up from the front step.
The obituaries were always read first.
I had constantly skipped that section before I lost Frank.
Now, it was as if I was waiting to find my name printed there,
and I guess
that would be the day I’d stop reading them again.
After reading the paper, I
load
a pail with birdseed
and
go out into the backyard to fill up my three birdfeeders.

I ke
p
t
a large plastic container
just inside
the back door filled with seed.
Four bags from the dollar store fill
ed
it up.
I a
t
tempted to keep it outside the back door
once
, but a raccoon discovered it one night and helped himself to it.
I assume
d
it was a raccoon, and one with a sense of humor.
He spilled the seeds all over the deck,
ate
most of it, pooped by the steps, and then carried the container off into the yard like a toy.
A flock of sparrows had frightened me when I opened the back door the next morning.
They had been devouring the leftovers.

Cardinals and finches anxiously watch me from the low limbs and the fence posts, accustomed to seeing me put food out for them but still keeping safely out of
sight
.
T
he two la
r
ger feeders were pretty commercial looking, and could hold a whole bag of seed.
I never filled them up that much because the squirrels would come around and chase the birds away.

The third feeder was one the boys had made for me from a craft kit for Easter or Mother’s Day many years ago.
It rese
m
bled a miniature barn the boys chose to paint red, white, and blue.
It always made me laugh because, unbeknownst to them, three of
the
five children had been conceived in an old barn Frank and I use
d
to stroll out to on the edge of the pro
p
erty.
The barn ha
d
since been torn down when I sold several acres after Frank passed, but a coat of shellac each spring helped pr
e
serve my little barn birdfeeder.

A few weeks ago w
hen I went to fill the barn
-shaped feeder
with seed, I found a small yellow oriole lying on the ground beneath it.
It frightened me at first and I took a step back, e
x
pecting it to quickly fly away.
When it didn’t, I knelt by it to get a closer look.
It had yet to snow so the bird was not wet.
Its gold colored feathers were soft and dry.
Its eyes were closed as if it was sleeping.

It broke my heart because the orioles only visit this area during the winter.
I see mostly sparrows and robins during the warmer months.
I wanted to blame the cat, Marcus, but he was so old he rarely chased birds these days.
Back when he did, he’d leave them at the backdoor for me to find and they’d look all wet and matted from where he chewed on them.

I filled the
last
feeder with seed and then picked up the small fragile bird and put him in the empty pail.
After I sho
w
ered and dressed, I retrieved a garden shovel from the garage and dug a small grave next to the koi pond.
Marcus sat on a rock next to the pond and lazily eyed me, proud as if he had killed the oriole or as if I should give it to him now. With it a
l
ready being dead he’d have no interest in it at all, and b
e
sides, the little bird deserved a proper burial.

“Don’t you go digging him up either,” I said to the cat.
I dipped my hand in the pond water and flicked it at him.
He gave a hiss and ran under the porch.
The fish flopped, wanting to be fed.

A few days passed, and I had just begun to get the thought of the
unfortunate
little bird out of my head.
Then
,
a
n
other dead oriole
startle
d me
on my morning routine. T
his time
it was
right under one of the other feeders.
It looked exactly the same as the other one had.
I turned and looked over at the koi pond, expecting to find an empty grave as if the oriole had risen from the
dead
only to die again.
The little brown
patch of dirt
where I buried
the first bird
was still
intact
, and so I planted his friend next to him.

“Could be the
whole corn kernels
in that cheap feed you’re buying,” the blatantly rude pet store attendant told me when I went in to
in
quire about the health conditions of orioles within the vicinity of town.
“Some smaller birds can choke on the la
r
ger seeds and nuts.”

“I had no idea,” I said.

I was ashamed of myself.
I felt like some exterminator pu
t
ting out rat poison for unsuspecting rodents.
I was Violet Newstead putting Skinny
&
Sweet in Mr. Hart’s coffee!
I never expected
blue
birds
to come up and tie ri
b
bons in my hair, but no wonder the
little critters
kept their distance
from me
.
I thought I was doing a service to n
a
ture by feeding the winter birds, but I might as well have been putting out a
r
senic for the raccoon.

“What can I do?”
I asked the pubescent faced boy
as if he had a degree in ornithology.

“Stop buying that dollar stuff.
Use this
,
”
h
e
said
,
sho
w
ing
me a bag of
something called
Clydesdale Birdseed.

“Sounds like it’s made from horses,” I said.

“I didn’t name it.
I just sell it.”

I bought three bags.

“I’ve got a new menu today,” I announced out the back door the next morning.

I could clearly see hesitation in their black beady eyes that day, but they eventually came and they ate.
I watched from the porch as flocks of bright red cardinals and green finches, and more orioles than ever emptied the feeders.
The next mor
n
ing I held my breath as I made my way out into the yard on my daily routine, but there was no body to be found.

It snowed th
at night
and so
I planned to fill the feeders in the
morning and again in the afternoon.
The koi pond had fr
o
zen over
now
, but we’d dug it deep enough for the fish to be able to hibernate in the bottom where the water was still thawed.
Spikes of ice jutted out of the fountain like crystals on a chandelier.
Marcus
rarely ca
me inside, not even during wi
n
ter.
He sat on top of the frozen water now licking a paw as if waiting for the fish to come up.
I somehow envisioned a ca
r
toon version of the ice cracking and the
old
black cat falling in.
The air would be filled with squeaky laughter from the fish and the birds.