Flight Patterns (14 page)

“Can I pick her up?” Georgia asked, her words spoken quickly, as if her heart had told her to speak them before her mind could stop her.

“No.” Maisy met her sister's eyes, as if to ask,
Remember?
“That's not a good idea.” She felt James glancing between her and Georgia as if he could possibly make sense of it.

“Fine.” Georgia reached over and flipped open the cover of the book in front of Maisy. “This is volume three—I've already gone through the first two. You want to focus on the blanks—show me any that you think match the saucer shape—since there's always a chance I'm wrong and we'll have to look at patterns in another blank. We'll be focusing on the shape first, but if you happen to see any patterns with bees at all, let me know. They're very rare for twentieth-century
Limoges porcelain, so that would be ideal if we spotted the pattern. Just know that won't necessarily be the china we're looking for, since the same patterns were used on different blanks. And with gold rims or without.”

Maisy examined the black-and-white page of half-moon sketches of plates in front of her. “So I just need to go through each page and see if I recognize the shape from the saucer. Or bees. That's easy enough. I should be able to get through all of these little books in plenty of time to get Becky.”

“You think so?” Georgia asked in the same petulant tone of voice Maisy had used as she opened up the thick, hardbound book she'd set in front of James and opened it to a premarked page before giving him his instructions.

Maisy caught James's expression. He was smiling,
definitely
smiling. Irritated, she asked, “Do you find something funny?”

He didn't even bother to hide his smile. “Not funny. More reassuring, I guess.” His phone buzzed and he quieted it without even looking. “I feel like I'm at home when I listen to the two of you. Except my sisters are a little bit louder.”

“Stick around long enough and I bet you'd change your mind about that.”

His expression sobered. “Good. I've learned that you shouldn't hold back what you really want to say. You might not get a second chance.”

Both she and Georgia were saved from responding by a shout from Birdie upstairs. Maisy was halfway out of her chair when Georgia touched her shoulder. “Let me go. She's my mother, too.”

Maisy wanted to argue, but could feel only relief. And also a sense of justice—at least while Georgia was home she could pay her dues.

“All right. She's probably just had a nightmare—she has one at least once a week. Just hold her hand. I think she's replaying some theatrical production she was once a part of—never changes. It's always some dramatic farewell scene where she's being forced to leave against her will. She'll eventually fall asleep, but you might convince her to come down and eat instead. She hasn't had breakfast.”

Georgia nodded, then headed up the stairs.

Maisy and James studied the pages in front of them, the sound of Birdie's shouts and moans a distracting backdrop. “She wasn't always like this,” Maisy said, needing to offer an explanation. Something about his warm eyes and his recent loss made him an easy target for unsolicited confessions. Like the statues of saints she'd seen in Italy on her honeymoon, their stone faces eroded by centuries of weather and unanswerable prayers.

“When did she change?” he asked.

Maisy thought for a moment, the sketches of dishes swimming in front of her eyes. “Birdie has always been . . . different. Not like our friends' mothers, anyway. Georgia used to say she fell into motherhood like some people slip off a curb and into a mud puddle—except she couldn't figure out how she got there or how to get it off of her.”

She paused, wondering if he would stop her. “Aunt Marlene said Birdie as a girl was hard to get to know because it was like she was always pretending to be somebody else. Like she was acting in a play. It was just accepted that Birdie was different, which was why Grandma sent her to a performing arts school in Jacksonville—where different was probably a good thing.”

Maisy raised her hand to her mouth to chew on a fingernail, but withdrew it as soon as she realized what she was trying to do. “I don't know if Georgia's told you, but Birdie's spent time in and out of mental institutions for brief periods of her life. I think the first time was right after she started dating Georgia's daddy. Marlene said she wasn't sure what instigated such a drastic measure, but said it had been a long time coming.”

“And the last time?”

Maisy met his eyes. “The summer Georgia left. A lot was going on then, and sometimes I wonder if, had I been paying attention, I would have known when she'd reached her breaking point. But . . .” She stopped, not wanting to share any more, but needing to say it out loud. It had been so long that she'd begun to imagine that it had never happened.

“I'd just lost a child, you see. A little girl. And my marriage . . .
well, you can imagine how that might have affected a couple. Georgia was doing absolutely nothing productive with her life, working in a bar downtown. And then Birdie decided that the house needed redecorating because some big Hollywood people were supposedly coming to film a movie here, and she thought one of the stars or director would want to stay in our house.”

He didn't flinch or roll his eyes or return his gaze to the catalog, and Maisy took it as a sign that she should continue. “She met with a decorator who came from Tallahassee, who told Birdie that before spending money on new furniture and accessories, she should go through all the closets and attic to see if there were any antique pieces they could feature in the redo. She only made it halfway through the attic. Grandpa found her in a catatonic state on the attic floor. Georgia and I took care of her for a few months until Grandpa decided she needed to go away again to get help. Birdie hasn't spoken a word since—just sings.”

“So she doesn't speak to anybody?”

“Becky seems to think Birdie talks to her, but that's just wishful thinking. In the beginning it was like Birdie had forgotten how to speak English, but then she started to sing, which was a huge relief. So we know she's in there somewhere, and can understand us. She just chooses not to communicate with us.”

He didn't say anything for a long moment. “That's why you and Georgia were so close. Because of Birdie. Nobody else could understand what it was like being her daughter.”

“Why would you think we were close? We're certainly not now.”

“Because no one can hurt us as much as those we love the most.”

Maisy opened her mouth to tell him that she hated her sister, but her lips were unable to form the words.

“Maisy? Can you come up here, please?” Georgia's voice came from upstairs, seemingly calm, but Maisy recognized a note of panic.

Maisy stood, holding her palm out to James to discourage him from coming with her. “I'm sure it's fine. Just stay here and we'll be back soon.” She ran up the rest of the stairs and straight into Birdie's
bedroom. She almost had to double-check that she'd entered the right room. Instead of the usually neat and orderly space, clothes, shoes, and accessories were strewn haphazardly all over the floor and unmade bed, as if someone had left a window open in a strong wind.

“Georgia?”

“We're in the closet.”

Maisy followed her sister's voice toward the open closet doors, where more clothing items were stacked in uneven piles. It almost seemed that whoever had made the mess had started off with a plan, and had begun emptying the closet item by item until rationality had disappeared and a frantic search had taken over.

Birdie, still in her nightgown, knelt by the corner of the closet swaying back and forth, her mouth open in silent agony. Georgia knelt next to her, her hand on Birdie's arm. She didn't seem panicked or confused about her role, and Maisy felt an odd jab of anger mixed with admiration.

“She was here when I found her,” Georgia said. “I think this is what's got her upset.”

She reached behind her and pulled out an old leather suitcase, something a person would expect to see in a vintage shop. “It was open, but empty. It's pretty dusty, so I think it's been here for a while. I think I even remember seeing it in here before, tucked in the corner. And the soup cup isn't here anymore, either. I looked.”

“I know,” Maisy said, irritated. “I told you we already looked in here. We even opened the suitcase. Although we definitely closed it and put it back in the corner when we were done.” Maisy sat back on her heels and looked closely at their mother, wishing that Becky really could communicate with her grandmother. A light, almost airless sound came from Birdie's lips as a vaguely familiar tune filled the air.

“What is that?” Georgia asked.

Maisy closed her eyes and listened. “It's a children's song—the alphabet song. But it's a little different, like she's thinking of different words and changing the tune to make them fit.”

“Should we call her doctor?”

Maisy shook her head. “She's been like this before. Usually she goes to sleep, and when she wakes up she's forgotten all about it. I'll call her doctor if she doesn't.” She stood. “Come on; help me get her back into bed.”

They took her gently by her elbows, the strange, familiar-yet-not song teasing her ears. Like a docile child, Birdie allowed them to tuck her under the covers.

“Do you have something to give her? Something to calm her?”

“Of course,” Maisy said, her irritation returning. “We have a drawer full of prescription meds, but she refuses to take them.”

Birdie curled up on her side, her eyes finally closing as the last notes of the melody faded.

They watched her for a moment and then Georgia spoke. “Have you ever heard the name Adeline before?”

“No, why?”

“I think she said it. When we were in the closet.”

“She spoke to you?”

“Not exactly,” Georgia said, her eyebrows knitted. “It was more like a moan, but the name seemed so clear.” She looked Maisy in the eye. “What are we going to do, Maisy?”

Maisy met her sister's gaze and raised her chin. “What we've been doing. We'll continue as we have been, and you'll go back to New Orleans and your work. There's no reason things have to change.”

“There's something we're missing, something important. I think it's something about that suitcase.”

Maisy shook her head. “It's all about something in the past that we can't change. All we can do is move forward. She's made her choices.”

Birdie's breathing held the smooth rhythm of sleep. Georgia stepped closer and hissed in Maisy's ear, “But what if whatever it was that made her this way wasn't her choice? She's our mother, Maisy. For better or worse. If there's some key to unlocking what's wrong with her, shouldn't we do our best to find it? We used to be a team, remember?”

Maisy turned and headed out of the room, shaking her head. She heard Georgia following her and then the soft snap as she closed Birdie's
bedroom door. “I already agreed to help you with finding James's china and searching for any matching pieces we might have here. But never make the mistake of thinking of us as a team. You gave up that right a long time ago.” She took a step, then paused. “And don't ever ask me if you can pick up Becky or spend time alone with her. The answer will always be no, and you know why.”

She headed down the stairs and back to the dining room, still hearing in her head the tune her mother had been humming. It wasn't the alphabet song, not exactly. But she knew she'd heard the version her mother had hummed somewhere before, a long time ago. The answer would come to her eventually. It always did.

She smiled at James as she resumed her seat and bent over the book in front of her, even more determined than before to identify the pattern so everything could return to normal. But as she stared at the pages she kept hearing Birdie's tune playing over and over in her head, except now she imagined it was accompanied by the droning of bees.

“The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.”

Saint John Chrysostom

—NED BLOODWORTH'S BEEKEEPER'S JOURNAL

Georgia

I
leaned my head against the rocking chair on the back porch and held my breath as I began to count the birds I could spot flitting over the calm waters of the bay or lingering closer to the shore. It was another silly game from my childhood, one in which I wouldn't allow myself to catch another breath until I'd reached the count of ten. I'd often wondered why I'd felt the need to create these little personal entertainments, or why I continued to do them. Maybe I'd never quite grown out of the childish need to create order and routine in a scattered, unorganized life.

“What are you doing?” James asked.

I uncrossed my legs and placed my feet flat on the ground, stopping the chair. I realized my cheeks were puffed out and that I'd been holding my breath for so long I was getting light-headed.

My cheeks flushed. “Just thinking to myself.”

He regarded me calmly, his eyes never wavering, but I saw the corner of his mouth tilt up; he was probably too tired to laugh out loud.

We'd been poring over the catalogs and the Internet—thanks to his laptop—for the past week, and I'd made dozens of phone calls to my contacts in the country and all over the world. Nobody had seen a pattern like ours, or anything vaguely similar. I'd been given more leads on where I should look or what it could be, but I was beginning to feel a lot like Alice chasing the elusive rabbit down a hole that apparently had no bottom.

The sound of an approaching motorcycle slowing and then stopping had me on my feet and walking down the porch steps by the time Aunt Marlene appeared from around the corner of the house.

“You come in so late and leave so early that I figured if I wanted to spend any time with you, I'd better come find you here.” Her hair was windblown from riding without a helmet, and she wore boots with her shorts instead of flip-flops, in deference to her mode of transportation. “I figured I'd see you at home, but you leave before the sun comes up and come back long after the dogs and me are snoring. Best way to visit was to come over here and risk running into Birdie.”

James stood as Marlene approached. “It's good to see you again, Ms. Chambers.”

Marlene glanced at me and raised her eyebrows as if to say,
Now,
that's
a gentleman
, then turned back to James. “Please sit down. And it's Marlene. Nobody's called me anything else for such a long time that I don't think I even know who Ms. Chambers is anymore.”

He indicated his chair for her to sit, but she waved her hand, then perched herself on the top step. “How's your granddaddy?”

“He's getting better, and he won't need surgery. The doctors say it could have been much worse—we're so thankful that Lyle was close by to get him to the hospital as fast as he did. He still can't talk or walk very well, but rehab will help.”

With help from Lyle and James, we'd moved Grandpa into the newly set-up bedroom in his study downstairs surrounded by my grandmother's watercolors. It was almost as if the painted flowers and honeybees had brought his beloved apiary inside, the silent bees keeping vigil.

“How's his mind?” she asked bluntly.

“It's still hard to tell, because he's not speaking yet, but the doctors say his brain function is good. We're taking him to a rehab center several times a week, and then working with him at home. I think he's frustrated by the lack of communication—I feel like he wants to ask me something. But he can't write yet, either—his right side is the one affected by the stroke.

“We know depression can set in, so we make sure someone's with him all the time. Birdie keeps him company a lot, but it's my job to get him up and to walk him around the living room a few times a day while Maisy is at work.”

Marlene nodded. “I'm sure Maisy's happy to have the help.”

I coughed and James looked away.

Taking a hint and changing the subject, Marlene said, “I saw Florence Love yesterday, and she said she'll be here tonight right before dark to close up the hives so she can pick them up first thing in the morning and take them to the swamp. That's real nice of her.”

I nodded. “I'd love to help, but I don't think she'll want my interference. It's been so long that I barely remember all that's involved. I do remember that the most important thing is to make sure the queen stays with the brood frame on the bottom and isn't somehow left behind.”

James leaned forward, seeming to be genuinely interested. “So the queen calls the shots.”

I smiled, remembering having the same discussion with my grandfather. “It's a chicken-and-the-egg sort of thing. The queen can't survive without her worker bees to feed her and to take care of all the baby bees and the hive. But the worker bees can't survive without her eggs, either. They each have their purpose, their own reasons for being. They know their roles and behave accordingly. Otherwise the order of things would be in total chaos and the entire hive would die.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “So it's a matriarchal society. That means the worker bees probably ask for directions when they're lost and that's how they all find their way back to the hive at night.”

I grinned. “Yes and yes. They do a sort of dance to tell the other worker bees where good sources of food can be found, and the girl bees do all the work around the hive. The male drone's job is solely to mate with the queen—which she does with several at a time.”

“Lucky them.” James was grinning now, too.

“Not really. The drone's penis breaks during intercourse and he drops dead.”

“But what a way to go,” Marlene interjected with a smirk.

James let out a genuine laugh, and I realized that he didn't laugh often. I wondered whether it had been different before his wife's death.

“Will Florence let us help if we promise not to get in the way?” he asked.

It was my turn to raise eyebrows. “Are you interested in becoming a beekeeper? The world needs more, you know. Bees are dying off, and if Grandpa and Florence had their way, there would be a law making it illegal not to have a hive in your backyard.”

“Who knows? I'm pretty much open for suggestions right now. And I kind of like bees.”

“I'm sure Florence will let you watch, but I think she'd prefer to do it on her own—she has a system. Besides, you don't have to, you know. I don't think it's in your job description. You've already been such a help with Grandpa.”

He shrugged. “I don't mind. I'm actually enjoying myself. I never imagined I'd ever be in a place like Apalachicola.” His phone buzzed and he turned if off without even glancing at it. “And learning about the sex lives of bees, among other things.”

Marlene gave me a knowing smile and I immediately sent her a sharp shake of the head.
No. Don't even go there.

I recalled something I'd been meaning to ask her. “Have you ever known somebody named Adeline?”

Her brows knitted together as she thought for a moment. Shaking her head, she said, “No, I don't think so. Not in this town, anyway, and I pretty much know everybody who's lived here for the last sixty years or so. Why?”

“I thought Birdie said the name when she was having one of her spells. I'm curious who it could be.”

Marlene looked up at me with sympathetic eyes. “It's probably a character she once played, that's all.” As if to change the subject, she twisted around to face James. “Has Georgie taken you to Up the Creek Raw Bar for the best oysters in the world? Or to the Old Time Soda Fountain for a chocolate soda?”

James sat back in his chair. “Not yet—we've been pretty busy. Although I did buy a beautiful painting of the river at the Robert Lindsley Gallery on E Street. I thought that would make a nice memento of my visit. But I should eat some oysters while I'm here. Apalachicola is the oyster capital of the world, right?”

I nudged his foot with mine, knowing he'd read that on the welcome sign as we'd driven into town. Marlene threw her head back and laughed, her smoker's voice like sandpaper against stone.

“You got that right. Most of the restaurants around here brag that their oysters were in the bay yesterday and on your table today. Don't get any fresher than that.” She jerked her chin in my direction. “Georgia's daddy—my brother—was an oysterman, just like our daddy and granddaddy. Had his own skiff handmade right here in Apalach from marine plywood—lasted for three generations and would have lasted longer.” She was silent for a moment watching a pair of oystercatchers swooping and hollering in flight as they searched for dinner. “Mama sold it after he died—couldn't stand the sight of it.”

Marlene leaned against the porch railing. “Did Georgia tell you she's named after her daddy? His name was George. George the third, to be exact. We called him Trey when he was younger—that means three in French, in case you didn't know, but with an ‘s' at the end instead of a ‘y'—because there were already too many Georges in the family and it got confusing. But when our granddaddy died, he wanted to be called George to honor him, so we did.”

James began to tentatively rock back and forth in his chair, as if he were unfamiliar with the movement or even sitting still for long periods of time. His phone lay quiet on the floor beside him, and I
wondered whether he'd turned it off. “And then he had a daughter, so he figured he should pass on the name to her.”

Marlene barked out a laugh. “Nope. It was Birdie's idea. She said it was because it was a family name, but I always thought that she gave it to Georgia because it was the only part of her husband she was willing to share.”

“Aunt Marlene, don't . . .” I began. I glanced at James and his eyes were calm, as if to remind me that he was just a stranger on a plane.

“Sorry, sweetie. You know I have a lot of grievances against your mama, and sometimes things just pop out of my mouth like a bullfrog's tongue snatching a fly. I have to remind myself that she has reasons for being the way she is. And I get that; I do. But it's hard to forgive a mother who doesn't cherish her daughters the way they deserve to be.”

She wasn't saying anything that I hadn't thought myself over the years. I just didn't like them being said out loud, even with Maisy. Birdie was still our mother, the soft-skinned, perfumed presence in our childhoods, the warm fingers on our temples as we drifted to sleep. The remembered tunes sung softly in the dark. It was as if as children we had known Birdie's indifference hadn't been intentional any more than you can blame a bee for stinging in self-defense. Maybe even then we recognized that she was as lost as we were, trying to navigate an unfamiliar world. To us, Birdie was a ghost we could feel but not see, an unexplained force in our lives we'd stumble into head-on, the resulting bruise the only evidence she'd been there at all.

I took a deep breath. “Daddy died when I was three. I hardly remember him—except when I'm walking along the marina and the scent of fish is so strong there. But I do remember that Birdie wouldn't let him near her after he'd been out on the boat, but he'd swing me up in his arms and hug me, because I didn't mind. Even today I can't be offended by the smell of fish.”

James rested his elbows on the armrests of his chair, steepling his fingers, a slight grin lighting his face. “I've walked around town and been down to the marina several times. I think it's a gift if you can find the scent in the air there a pleasant one.”

Marlene threw her head back again and cackled while I smiled at James in appreciation. Maybe it was being raised with so many sisters that had taught him the perfect timing of when to lighten the mood by saying the right thing.

“There's that,” Marlene said. “Birdie loved George something fierce, I will give her that. And he loved her back. It was a wild kind of love, though. You know how they say there's a thin line between love and hate? I think they crossed it too many times. It seemed to me that they each desperately needed something from the other that neither was prepared to give. It was hard to watch.” She paused, looking out over the bay, seemingly unaware of the screaming gulls overhead. “I've never seen two people more bent on self-destruction than they were. Poor George. I don't think he ever recovered from watching our daddy drown. Their boat got stuck in a storm they never should have been out in. I think George always blamed himself, because he was the one who said they should stay out a little longer before they headed home. Always looking for the next big catch. I guess that can be a heavy burden to carry.”

We sat in silence as James continued to rock. I was about to suggest getting a few beers, but Marlene spoke again.