Mama Bird

It was still early, and rays of sunlight shone through the Fletchers’ east-facing front window. The light poured through the spaces between the venetian blinds and fell across the wall like prison bars in the otherwise dark front room.

Jack adjusted the blinds in an effort to make the bars wider and wider until no more light shone through, creating more of a solitary confinement situation.

After checking the front door to make sure it was locked, Jack walked toward the kitchen and dining room area.

Robins were singing a nest-building song in the elm tree outside the kitchen window. Jack wondered vaguely if it was the same family of birds who had been nesting there since before Brookie was born.

He looked out at the fat mama robin working away. The bird looked back in Jack’s direction, with a sideward glance. Jack wondered whether she saw him standing at the kitchen sink, or whether she was just attracted to the reflection off the glass.

           Jack scowled at the stupid bird, then continued trudging over to the dining room. Time to get back to the matter at hand. Lying across the table was a 10-foot length of rope Jack had bought at Len’s Hardware yesterday. His cell phone sat beside the rope, where a YouTube video was paused.

           “How to Make a Noose” was the title of the video.

Jack was wearing a faded, blue bath robe – the last thing he ever planned on wearing. He glanced back at the front door, making sure he had locked the dead bolt, then at the window blinds to make doubly sure they hadn’t opened on their own.

Jack had never had the occasion to fashion a noose before, and wasn't very good with knots. 

Mandy had always said he was about as handy as a 12-year-old girl.

A mixture of joy and melancholy overtook him. The thought of Mandy's off-handed comment about his lack of manly skills brought tears of anguish and joy to his eyes. Jack cried and cried. His breathing subsided until he thought it wouldn’t resume. Unfortunately, it did. And with it came more painfully happy thoughts.

           Brookie’s first Christmas (but she won’t have any more, will she?), the day Jack asked Mandy to marry him (the beginning of something that should have lasted until death do them part), a random day at the playground, when Brookie became frightened of a large grasshopper and Jack flicked it off and got to be her hero for doing a very simple thing (but never again).

He couldn't do it anymore. The flood of emotions he'd felt almost constantly over the past two months had become too much for him to bear. He wiped his wet eyes on the backs of his hands, turned his thoughts back to the video, and tried to concentrate on the task at hand.

"Now, you're gonna wanna wrap the rope around the loop 13 times,” SuperDad3769 was saying. “That's the traditional way to do it. That’s the way the hangmen of old used to do it. You’re gonna have the best Halloween display on your block."

Jack started to wrap the rope, but it kept loosening and uncoiling. He wondered if maybe the rope he had bought was too thick to make a noose. Was SuperDad’s rope made of different material than Jack’s? 

Suddenly, Jack's phone vibrated and a notification appeared informing him he only had 5% battery life left – probably not enough to watch the rest of the video and finish the noose.

Jack sighed. He should have charged it last night.

Jack glanced out the kitchen window to see Mama Robin flying past. That was the kind of thing that used to make Brookie giggle and point, as if something magical had just happened.

The thought made Jack, once again, laugh and weep at the same time. Remembering his wife and daughter filled Jack with happiness – like the happiness you feel when a friend you haven’t seen in a long time shows up at your door, for instance; or like the happiness you feel when you look through old family pictures. But then his brain would hold him down as his old grade school bully used to do, and show him images and sounds and smells from that day in March when he had received the call that had ripped his heart out of his chest – the call about the crash, and…

Jack looked away, trying to escape the memory, like a squeamish person might turn away from one of those real-life doctor programs that show how surgery is done. But it didn’t help to look away. His bully brain was relentless. His eyes landed on a family portrait on the fridge – last year’s Christmas card, the one Mandy had insisted they keep and not send out.

To remember the happy occasion. 

“Merry Christmas from the Fletchers,” read the card.

"Jesus Christ," Jack said, covering his face. "They're everywhere I look."

Removing his hands from his eyes, Jack looked back at the table, saw his phone lying there, almost dead, sighed, and walked to the bedroom to get his charger.

The bedroom was dark. Jack walked in, keeping his eyes on the ceiling, pulled his phone charger from the outlet by the nightstand on his side of the bed and quickly walked out again. The whole maneuver had taken no more than 10 seconds.

He hadn't been able to turn the light on in there since the accident. In fact, most nights, he slept on the couch.

Jack plugged one end of the charger into his phone, and the other into the outlet above the toaster. He grabbed the rope from the table and placed it carefully on the counter. The video still wouldn't play. He'd have to wait a few minutes.

The birds tweeted outside.

Jack hung his head. The sights and sounds that used to bring him joy had been tainted. The whole world, really, had been coloured a darker hue. He just couldn’t do this anymore. He was relieved it would soon be over.

He looked out the window again. Mama Robin was sitting on a branch in the elm tree directly outside the window looking in. She had a twig in her beak, but instead of adding it to the nest she was building, she sat still, looking in at Jack.

Jack slowly approached the sink. Locked in a gaze with this bird, he got the feeling that she wasn’t looking at the light reflecting off the window glass; Mama Robin seemed to be looking directly into his eyes.

No, not his eyes.

This bird was looking into his soul.

Suddenly, he felt naked. Judged. Jack felt as if this bird were judging him on his decision to end his life. He had never seen any animal wear this type of expression.

           This was a human expression.

Jack had been very careful about closing the blinds and covering the windows around the dining room table, but the one over the sink had no curtains or blinds. Anyway, it was too high for anybody to see in, he reasoned. A wall separated the sunlit living room from the kitchen and dining area. But this bird...

This fucking bird!

           She knew what Jack was planning.

Jack leaned forward and tapped the window with his fingernail. The bird turned, took a hop towards him, tilting her head to the side.

“What do you want?” Jack said out loud.

Jack swore he could see his own reflection in the bird's eyes, and was suddenly filled with rage. He banged the window hard with his fist.

"Fuck off and leave me alone!" he screamed.

In a flurry, the bird was gone, leaving Jack feeling vaguely ashamed.

He looked over at the rope and at the charging phone, and let out another great sigh before reached over to pick it up.

Before Jack could pick up the phone, he was startled by a loud bang. He stumbled backward, crouching down and covering his face with his hands.

What the hell was that!

It took Jack a second to realize the sound had been the result of something hitting the outside of the kitchen window. There didn’t appear to be anyone out there. No kid who looked like he had just thrown a snowball.

Jack leaned his head against the window and peeked at the ground below the elm. There, motionless, lay the bird that had just peered into Jack's soul.

Mama Robin.

"Oh shit," Jack said out loud. "Oh boy. Oh shit."

His heart was beating at double speed.

"Oh boy."

Jack pulled his bath robe closed and tied it securely as he made his way to the front door. There was still some snow on the ground outside, so Jack grabbed his winter boots and slipped them on, without tying them. He turned the deadbolt and walked out onto the front porch. Absently, Jack looked down at the porch swing Mandy had asked him to assemble.

A nice place to sit and admire a sunset, she’d said. And people-watch, she’d added with a wink.

Building things was not his forte, but Jack had made a great effort this time, because Mandy had specifically asked him to make it for her. The seat of the porch swingwas sitting on the deck boards. He had never finished attaching it to the base. One more thing Jack had left undone.

With trepidation, Jack took some tentative steps around the corner of the house toward the elm tree. His pace slowed as he neared the spot where Mama Robin should be. 

Jack could see from where he’d stopped, 10 feet away, that the bird's eyes were moving, but that her body was not. The twig was resting in her beak, and her wings were outstretched like the arms of a crucified martyr.

"Shit," Jack said.

His mind flashed to a road trip his father had taken him on when he was a boy. They’d been on their way to Watt's Lake for some fishing. They'd been driving down a gravel road with a wheat field on one side and some pasture land on the other, when a white farm cat had darted out of the ditch and had made to run across the road. Jack's dad had swerved to miss it, but had hit it anyway. Jack remembered feeling the slight bump as the right rear tire had run it over.

Jack's dad had brought the car to a sudden halt, then backed up slowly toward where they had struck the cat. He had put the car in park and opened his door.

"What are you doing, Dad?"

"Checking to see if it's still alive."

"Why?"

"'Cause if it is, it'll be in a lot of pain." His dad had gotten out of the car and had walked back in the direction of the cat.

Jack had followed his father, confused.

The cat's bottom half had been run over, flattened, but the top half had looked kind of okay to Jack. The pure, white fur had been spattered and stained in spots with its own blood, as well as the mud from the road, but still, it had looked mostly okay. Its eyes had darted from Jack's dad to Jack, and its side had risen and fallen very slowly, then had risen and fallen again.

"Can we help him?"

Jack’s dad had looked down at the gravel for a couple of seconds.

"Jack..." His dad had begun, “Sometimes...there's nothing you can do for an animal. And to let it live would be cruel."

Jack had started to say that he had some money saved up, and he would pay the vet bill, and that the cat would surely be fine in the end.

Jack's dad had opened the trunk of the car and gotten out his fishing gloves and had put them on. 

"Remember," his dad had said, "this is the least cruel thing we can do."

Before Jack had had time to register his father's words, his actions had spoken louder, as he had placed his big boot on the cat’s head, then brought it down hard, sending more blood spraying the gravel. Then, his dad had picked up the cat and tossed its body in the ditch.

Jack had always resented his father for not telling him to turn his head before ending the life of that poor white cat.

Presently, Jack stared down at the bird lying between the house and the elm tree. The wings fluttered slightly and the legs kicked. Then all movement stopped. Mama Robin’s eyes looked frightened, opening and closing, staring at Jack.

"Oh boy," Jack said. "Oh shit."

He walked back into the house in an effort to regroup. He knew what he had to do, but couldn't summon the courage to take a life, even though it would be the least cruel thing to do.

"Dad, what do I do?" he said quietly, his eyes filling with tears again.

He wrung his hands and paced the linoleum floor.

"Mandy...?"

His head was hung over and his tears fell like bombs against the kitchen floor.

What would Brookie say in this situation? What would Brookie want him to do?

Jack’s eyes fell on the rope on the counter. He closed his eyes and let out a great sigh. He marched back toward the front door, and put on his winter boots. He opened the door with purpose and walked around the corner of the house, ready to step on Mama Bird's head and end her suffering before ending his own.

Jack looked toward the base of the elm tree and...

...found no bird there.

He looked around on the ground, then in the air. His robin friend was nowhere to be seen. Jack’s hand found the lowest branch of the elm and he leaned forward and laughed. 

Mama Robin must have stunned herself, then regained consciousness and flown away while Jack was inside.

He looked up at the branch where the bird had been constructing a home for her babies. The nest was half-built. She must be out getting more supplies.

"You did it, little bird," he said out loud. "You beat the odds."

Jack heard a tweet and a flutter, as the robin flew up and alit on the lowest branch of the elm tree, less than three feet from Jack's hand. 

She looked, once again, into Jack's eyes, and Jack found himself laughing harder than he had since the accident.

A car drove by, and Jack became aware of how bizarre he must have looked out here in his bath robe and winter boots, leaning on a tree, laughing at a bird. The thought made him giggle all the harder. The car was full of staring, chuckling teenagers. He smiled and tipped an imaginary hat to them.

Jack looked back up at the bird, who was staring down at him again. Similarly to the way a human might look right before speaking some profound piece of wisdom. In fact, in that moment, Jack wouldn’t have been surprised if Mama Robin had cleared her throat and stated the meaning of life to him.

“Keep on truckin’.” Something like that.

He shook his head and walked back inside.

When he got to the kitchen and he looked over at the half-made noose lying on the counter, his cheeks red with shame, he no longer wanted to finish it.

A thought came to him suddenly.

"Maybe I can use this for that porch swing," he said out loud, winding the rope over his hand and elbow.

He passed the photograph of his family, smiling, hopeful. He leaned forward and kissed it, kissed his happy family.

Once he had coiled the last of the rope, he allowed his eyes to well with tears again.

"I love you both so much," he said, whimpering. "I'm sorry,"

Jack had a healthy cry. A healing cry.

And when he was done, Jack went in his bedroom, turned on the light, got dressed, and then he set to work on the porch swing. After all, it was a beautiful day.