Bury the Heart

            The robin stuck to the truck’s grill like she belonged there, splayed like a ship’s figurehead. A decorative ornament. Artie squatted in front of it, stroked his chin like his grandfather, Ardal, for whom he was named, would have. He looked to the sky, ironically sunny and blue. “I’ve gone and done it this time. Killed it,” he said. He shook his head. “Not much I can do now.” 

Artie’s girlfriend, Janie, leaned out the window of his steel-gray pickup. “What’s that?” 

            “Least he didn’t fly into the cab and die,” he said. Janie gave him a look he couldn’t put his finger on. He figured he irritated her with his superstitions. He figured she thought less of him for them. 

“What would have happened then?” she asked. Artie was surprised she bothered to ask. He was sure she was being polite, sure she didn’t really care.

“One of us would have died.” 

“If a robin flies into the cab of a truck, someone has to die? That seems so specific,” she said. “I mean, I guess if it flies in and distracts the driver, then everyone dies.” She awkwardly laughed. Sometimes he made her nervous, and her nervousness irritated him. He was making her nervous now. He looked up. She was still leaning out the window, her arms folded across the frame to soften the sharpness of the edge. She lay her head on them. Earlier, at the start of the drive, he had, on an impulse, taken out her hair clip, so now her brown hair fell partially across her arms, over her face just a little. She twisted her left arm over her head to swoop the strands out of her eyes.

Artie returned to looking at the dead bird. He didn’t feel like seeing Janie, didn’t feel like arguing with her.

“So what happens now? What happens when a kamikaze bird dies on the grill?”

Artie shrugged his left shoulder. “Life of misery.”

“What happens?”  she asked again. If Janie wanted to talk to him, she could get out of the truck. He didn’t feel like yelling the answer to her. Hardly wanted to hear it himself. 

“Life of misery,” he said again, but no louder. The old Irish were clear: if you cause the death of a robin, you will have a life of misery. God can be whimsical like that. Artie had seen it all his life. Little things becoming catastrophic at the whim of the Creator. Some silly story his grandmother telling him becoming as real as the Bible in her mouth. 

“Now what?” she asked.

Artie gave the bird a gentle nudge with his toe. It tumbled to the ground. He looked around for a stick to flick it to the side of the road.

“What are you doing? Are we going to bury it?”  He didn’t directly hear the sarcasm, but he was sure it was present in her voice.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“You really think you have to bury it?” 

“Really.” In Artie’s head, this was the end. He’d had enough of her, and she, he was pretty sure, was done with him. They weren’t meant to be. It started with a blind date, and it ended here, with the burial of the robin. Sure, Janie was a good woman. A good person.  It was great at first; he was happy for a while, then he slipped back into himself. She couldn’t keep him out of his own vortex. Maybe this was his out. When he looked up at her again, she was on her phone, hair clipped up. She’d probably moved on to taking selfies and pictures of him that he imagined would show up on social media with some catchy hashtag. Already life was seeming pretty miserable.

“Ok, I’ll look for a stick.” 

“Forget it.  I’ll just be a minute.” He wanted her to stay in the truck; didn’t want her help. She’d be posting all kinds of shade about him after this, anyway. He didn’t even think they’d talk about breaking up. It was all around them, hovered over them, this breakup. She’d think about the dead bird then, crying to her friends that she didn’t believe in superstitions, but now look what happened. Maybe the dead bird was her omen of misery and not his. Could be. He couldn’t talk to his grandmother about this like he would have, like he used to, because she was dead, and Artie believed in a lot of things, but he didn’t believe in talking to dead people. He could speak to the fairies, and they’d intercede. That’s what his grandmother told him. 

“Ardal,” she’d said, “when I go, ask the fairies to find me. You can even whisper, even just think it, and they’ll still hear you. They dance with the dead.” Artie pictured small, wispy, ghoulish figures dancing with corpses in varying degrees of decomposing. Thin hair swirling gravity-less. Thin arms and legs tangled with winged creatures. These weren’t the fairies of children’s stories but of Irish grandmothers afraid of leaving the world of the living, afraid of losing their influence over their children’s and grandchildren’s lives. But he didn’t believe in fairies either and so kept to the superstitions about things he could see and touch. Like dead robins. Like dead robins getting him out of a rut, even risking a life of misery for it. 

He found a spot on the side of the road and was able to carve out a small ditch with his hands and a stick. He’d have to use grass and weeds to finish covering the bird. He wondered if she had chicks somewhere, though it was late enough into the summer that the babes would be off on their own already. Maybe she wouldn’t even be missed. A life of misery seemed a heavy price for a bird that no one would miss. Still, those were the rules. He knew them. He should have been more careful. He looked up at Janie. She was still on her phone, probably posting about this, turning this into a game of likes and comments. She saw him looking at her and leaned out the window.

“God between us and all harm,” she said.

“What?” He walked closer to the cab.

“God between us and all harm. I looked it up. You Irish don’t have a lot up your sleeves to reverse a bad omen, but this came up.”

“I don’t think it will work,” he said.

“Why? God between us and all harm. I mean, it sounds very strong to me.” She smiled weakly at him.

“Because no one says that,” he said.

“They do. Trust me. Maybe you’ve never heard it, but listen to it: God between us and all harm. That’s a pretty big shield, don’t you think?”

He did think so, but he didn’t believe in God. Not like that. The McGiverns were Irish Catholic but of the severest type. They believed in the God of the Old Testament, the one that sent fire and brimstone, plagues, floods, and murderous brothers. God created the fairies who stole children, He created magpies and crows (and robins) that appeared out of the Heavens themselves and brought bad luck. God sent the Banshees to sing the death knell. He, according to everything Artie knew, was not a shield against harm but a catalyst of big and small catastrophes.

“Just say it.” What was she doing? “God between us and all harm. It might work.” She

got out of the truck and started pulling weeds from the side of the road to help cover the robin.  “Really, Artie. I’m giving you a possible way out. Say it: God between us and all harm.” She smiled at him and gave him a gentle push. “Come on, say it!” But Artie couldn’t. He just looked at her, watched her covering the dead bird. “We’re really sorry, Miss Robin. We wouldn’t have hit you if we could have avoided it.” She got down on her knees and lowered her head. “God between you and all harm. May your children live to grapple with worms on Spring mornings, to lay beautiful blue eggs in May, and to watch fledglings fly away come June. May your family live on and on. Amen.” She crossed herself the way all Catholics do, like his grandmother had done, the way he used to: purposefully, as a way of saying the end after the final Amen. “Say it,” she repeated, this time without the smile. “I dare you.”

“Nope. Come on, let’s go.” He held out his hand, and she took it. She carefully stepped over the little mound. They walked toward the truck. He thought maybe he’d say it later, in bed, just before sleep took him. He thought that maybe today wasn’t the day he’d break up with her. Thought maybe she might be on to something. He squeezed her hand before they split off to separate sides of the truck. When he reached his door, he said it, quietly and quickly, “Godbetweenusandallharm.”  All one word. An exhalation.