“Gran’s house!” I realized suddenly. “The houses the city wanted to buy. One of those was Gran’s house!”
“I didn’t know that was on the market,” said Louise.
“It wasn’t! It isn’t.” At least, I didn’t think it was … yet. “People came to Mom. People came to Gran first, I remember. But she wouldn’t … Mom had to … Gran’s care is super expensive … but as far as I know, it’s not sold yet.”
Richard nodded. “It would make sense,” he said gently. “I wouldn’t blame her. But I’m going to do some digging. I feel like conservation land can’t be used for development. Plus, building on wetlands is a terrible idea. I remember when Sarig Pond and Jenkins Wood were developed. I was in high school and one of the steel families wanted to give back to the city. You can’t just destroy something that has been part of the community for sixty years. And so important to the birds, too.” Richard shook his head in disgust. “Louise, let’s take a trip into town today.”
The two of them walked toward the small parking lot deep in conversation.
“Never piss off birders,” Risa said. “They’ll end you.”
“Let’s spy on those guys,” I said to her. Thoughts of winding myself around Mom’s legs and begging her to keep Gran’s house floated through my brain as my likely evening activity.
Of course, the thought that I could have saved Gran and kept any of this from happening also floated through my brain. That we could lose her, her home, and her woods … and that it would be all my fault … was almost too much.
“Okay,” Risa said.
We followed Team Armani around the boardwalk. Nuthatches (male and female) and cardinals (female) hopped above us, and I couldn’t help but watch flashes of dull yellow and red and gray skitter the leaves. Watching the men proved a whole lot less interesting. They mostly just texted. I lifted my camera from around my neck and took some pictures of the men.
“Guess Monday bird walking turned into a bust,” I said to Risa.
She frowned. “Yeah.”
We walked back to the Nature Center, where Jerry had just arrived. We filled him in on the details of the Armani Men.
“Oh, those guys,” he said. “Yeah, they came here before. Said the land was for sale, or belonged to somebody who was gonna build on it. Something. Fancy guys like that come around sometimes. It’s all talk.”
“Are you sure about that?” said Risa.
“Pond’s still here, isn’t it?” He shrugged and left to check the public bathrooms.
Risa watched him uneasily.
“I get a weird vibe from those guys,” she said. “Like they know something. That this isn’t something that might happen. They look all business.”
“Yeah,” I said.
I texted Sophie and she said she was doing sudoku because her co-op boss was out sick. I biked to Gran’s after lunch, since there wasn’t a lot of point in going back to school.
There was a car in her driveway. My stomach dropped. I went up onto the front porch. The chair and little table that normally stood there were gone, as was Gran’s mailbox. The mailbox was particularly alarming because the extra key was usually hidden behind it.
I opened the screen to try the doorknob, but it swung open.
“Oh! Hello!” The man who’d been at Gran’s house with Mom before stood in front of me. “Lori, right?”
“Laurel,” I murmured, straining my neck to look behind him. “I’m just here to get some books.”
“Oh, everything’s been moved. Thought it wasn’t going to be till this evening, but the company had an opening. Your mom knows where it ended up.”
“Wait, what?”
“I think she specifically said the books were going to your place. Some of it went to your grandmother’s new place.” His voice caught at the word “place,” as if he knew it were a lie. Gran hadn’t moved to a cool new apartment across town. She was trapped inside her body fed by tubes, inside a room that reeked of loneliness.
“What about her furniture?” I said. “Why are you here?”
“Oh. Didn’t your mother tell you? You should probably talk to her.”
“Talk to her about what? What is going on?”
“House is just about ready to sell. I’m just doing the final walk-through.”
I stared at him. “So it hasn’t sold yet?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
My heart lifted. There was still time.
I went out back to check on Gran’s garden. It looked pretty decent, though I would need to weed it this weekend. The fucking asshole squirrels had knocked down the hummingbird feeder again. I made a note to fix that as well.
I made dinner and thankfully Mom didn’t have a date. I’d have to play it cool if I was going to convince her not to sell.
I spooned chili into a bowl for her after she’d changed out of her work clothes.
“Hey, Mom. So. Funny thing. There was this man at Gran’s house today. And not much else, actually. Everything was gone. He seemed to indicate you hadn’t decided to sell it yet. And so, I was thinking…”
“I’m going to sell, baby.”
I stared at her. Her lip quivered a tiny bit.
“No. See. Here’s the thing. The city has this crazy idea about putting some kind of new school there and we can’t let that happen. So we can’t sell. It’s a matter of life and death and birds, Mom. Oh my god, the birds…”
“Laurel,” Mom said quietly. “I have to do it. The sale of that house will take care of Gran for years. Even if she needs … whatever.”
“No! Listen! Migration season is in a few months! And…”
“Laurel, you can find another job next summer. Or you’ll be getting ready for college anyway.” Mom sighed. Dark rings bagged under her eyes and a few more silver strands shone in the florescent lights than I remembered. “I don’t want you to have to worry about this.”
My optimism at talking her out of this plan faded slightly.
“Does Gran know?”
“I told her.”
I smiled hopefully.
“No. She didn’t react, Laurel.”
I smiled harder. “Mom, maybe we can rent the house out like an Airbnb. Make money from it! People come here for the birds in the summer, and the leaf peepers in the fall. It’s an investment! And I will have a ton of free time with no school, so I. Could. Make. This. Work.” I balled up my fist and punched it into my hand with every word.
“This is my fault, Laurel. I should have looked out for her, not have her look out for me. I’m a grown woman. I should have been there for her. I should be there for you. This is what has to happen.”
I said nothing but felt a pang in my side. Mom blamed herself, but it wasn’t her fault at all.
“We have each other, sweetie. Okay? We’ll get through this.”
The pang grew to an angry stab.
“I have to find Gran’s bird,” I said.
I had hit the right thing to say in that moment by accident. Mom patted my leg. “That’s my girl. You worry about your birds, and your pictures. I’ll worry about everything else.”
“Listen…,” I started. But Mom’s phone rang and she answered using her ChadBradChetBret voice, so I knew I wouldn’t be getting her attention back any time soon.
“The bird is trying to tell me something,” I said weakly. “Maybe it is actually Gran.” My words hopped up splintered bark and hid in the wide, leafy branches that grew in the distance between Mom and me. “It’s my fault she’s in the coma, and she’s trying to tell me how to get her to wake up. This might be the only way.”
The sound of the truth was lost in the breeze from the open window.
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 21 NOTABLE LOCATION: SARIG POND LIFE LIST ENTRY 3,285: BLACK-BACKED ORIOLE
The unschoolers were on their spring unbreak, so I should have been happy. But Jerry knew how to end joy pretty effectively.
“The boys are coming today,” he said.
“What boys
?” I said, hoping that maybe a new toddler group had formed and I hadn’t heard.
“Them kids from Fogton. The other co-ops. You know.”
I forced my face to emote joy. “Sure, Jerry, no problem.” Inwardly I groaned. The nature dude bros from Fogton Prep were the worst. They could be the lifeguards of the River Styx—bronzed, beautiful, but ultimately awful. They were the anti–Eagle Scouts.
What would that be? Piranha Scouts? A troop of bottom-dwellers? No. That sullied several perfectly honorable carnivorous fish.
Damn Birdie Bros. Birders who hated sitting. Hated waiting. They abandoned nature after warbler migration season and I was surprised to see them back for the summer birds they’d grown tired of years past.
I stood, waiting for the Mercedes SUV to pull up (because it was always a Mercedes SUV that carried them), and sure enough it did, fifteen minutes late. Four statues of boys emerged, their hair wavy and golden as fuck in the spring sunshine.
Goddamn, did it annoy me.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said. “Are you looking for anything in particular today?”
One of them looked me up and down. “What are you offering?” He smirked.
Oh, that I had talons to deal with these morons. I smiled stiffly, hoping that if I ignored the flawed courtship ritual he would give up.
“There were several nests on the last count. Lots of rare-ish sightings.”
Their leader, Greg, grinned at me. Bottom-dweller Asshole that he was, he had a camera that was worth at least five thousand dollars and had placed in the Fauna shoot more than once. He knew his shit.
“Got a text that a noob spotted a black-backed oriole here today,” Greg said.
“What?” I said. There was no way. “On the rare bird alerts?”
“Nope, I have special sources,” he said.
“Where?” I asked, mystified.
“I was hoping you could tell me. First sighting was on Sunday. Heard there might even be a nest.”
“A nest?” All I could do was repeat what this kid was saying to me. A fucking black-backed oriole right here in my (well, Gran’s at least) backyard and I hadn’t even heard about it? And to have a Birdie Bro be the one to tell me served as the ultimate insult. “Wait, did you hear the call? What does it sound like?” So help me if Greg uncovered Gran’s bird. Still, discovery often comes from unexpected sources, and I needed the help.
Plus a black-backed oriole would be one for the life list and a total Gran bird to inhabit.
“Nope,” he said.
“Well, boys, let’s go find it,” I said. “I know six places to start looking.” The other three groaned. I think at least one of them was also named Greg. Maybe they all were; I couldn’t tell the other Birdie Bros apart. They didn’t like bird watching if it wasn’t some sort of adventure vacation.
We all crept around the pond and checked the nests I knew of. Robin, robin, goldfinch, red-breasted nuthatch, unknown. We stopped at the last one and stared up at a dim outline of tiny forked sticks just reaching over a branch.
Gran? I thought at it. You there?
Something made a tiny, strangled sound high above.
Nope. Not Gran.
An onyx shape hopped onto the branch and Greg and I gasped. A white patch splashed over wings like a paintbrush drawn over canvas. A bright yellow-yellow-orange breast practically gleamed. Its deft, beady eye twitched over us down below. It seemed to know we weren’t a threat, with our binoculars and overly showy camera equipment. Tiny sounds demanded attention behind the oriole. Mama bird turned her attention to the crew apparently inhabiting the nest.
“Holy fuckballs,” I said.
“Right?” said Greg. “Where is that thing from? Mexico? What is it doing up here?”
“No clue,” I said. I stared through the binos watching an occasional tail feather poke out of the nest. Not only was there one bird; there was a fucking nest. This was up there with the hummingbird that I tried to photograph last year. The Nature Center had a feeder and I rigged up this whole time-lapse thing to capture it. Hummingbirds move so fast that my pictures were, of course, blurred. But someone (Risa) messed with my timer and knocked down my setup. Asshole Greg ended up getting the best picture of it over at Stackhouse Park (our rival nature sanctuary) and got second place with Fauna. Risa got the only shot of it at Jenkins Wood, but didn’t place.
Now Greg the tool was doing it again, coming to my house and finding a rare bird.
Fucking Birdie Bros.
I texted Risa.
You are not going to believe this, I texted. There’s a black-backed oriole!
Oh, yeah, she said.
You knew?
Yeah, they’ve been there for a week or so.
OMG, I texted. I narrowed my eyes at my phone. Risa knew this whole time. Of course.
I’m sorry, I thought you knew, she wrote back.
Sure she did.
After my shift ended, I went to visit Gran. Mom and I had set up some stuff from her cabin on her side of the room. Her roommate also had new pictures up all around her. It made me feel better that whoever this woman was, she was loved. Maybe all that love would rub off on both her and Gran and they’d wake up.
“Hope no one is selling your house, either,” I said to her.
No reaction.
“Gran, you are not going to believe this…” I launched into my oriole tale. I noticed distinct finger twitching.
“I know, right!” I said to Gran, grinning. This had to be real. “Still working on the mystery call. Oriole’s have a distinct, brash sound. Not like our bird. So weird,” I said.
Nothing.
“But you’ll always wait for me, Gran, right? I swear I’m working on it,” I said.
Finger twitch.
I marked that as a success.
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 22
“Don’t move,” I said to the snow goose who sat looking skeptically at Risa and me.
“One of these guys haven’t been here in at least two years,” she said.
“Probably three,” I said.
Both of us pointed our cameras. The snow goose waddled around and took flight out across the pond.
“You get him? You get him?” one of our Classic Friendly Birders called from across the pond.
“Don’t think so, you?” called Risa.
“Maybe one good shot.”
“Mother flocker,” I said. Three years ago, I’d been there for the snow goose, too. Gran had gotten a shot, of course.
“Fauna had a snow goose in issues fifteen, one hundred nine, and two hundred seventy,” said Risa. “It wouldn’t have won anyway.”
“Sour grapes,” I said.
“Tasty, tasty sour grapes,” she agreed.
The sounds of the Classic Friendly Birders (noted by their desire to share birding with everyone, their lack of competitiveness, and their frequent use of portable birding chairs) were replaced by the deep barking of boys.
“Heron help me,” I said. “Birdie Bros.”
“Heron help us all,” said Risa. “I’d rather clean toilets than deal with them.” Risa jogged off down the path, her camera cradled against her snug turquoise shirt that pulled just above her waistband as she ran.
I had to agree with her. Unfortunately, watching Risa run had strangely caused my own faculties to briefly leave. This gave the barkers enough time to cross my path when I’d recovered enough to head back toward the Nature Center.
“Heeeeey,” said one of the Bros. “You get the snow goose?”
“Yes. Totally. Several amazing pictures,” I lied.
“Seriously? Let me see.”
“No. Top secret, I’m afraid. Sorry, boys.” I hurried away from them. If they tried to touch my camera without my consent, I would need to open up a can of whooping crane on them.
“Bet she didn’t,” one of them said. “Whatever. At least Greg got it. Maybe Connor.”
Of course Greg got it.
Back at the Center,
Risa hid herself among the toilets, and I busied myself with Karen and her crew so that I didn’t have to deal with anyone else, but the Bros never came back to the Center. I thought they might, just to gloat, but they were probably already editing their finds to keep in their Fauna entry files.
I wished for the hundredth time that Gran were around. She was my go-to artistic reassurance. I could call Sophie, too. But she needed well-spaced Fauna angst.
I watched Risa emerge from bathroom duty. She knelt by the cabinets to put away the cleaning supplies. Her shirt did the thing again, exposing the smooth tan skin of her back.
Mother flocker, what was getting into me? I shrugged to myself. Chalk it up to the missed snow goose and Fauna pressure from the bros. Damn snow geese, letting the Birdie Bros get a picture. And damned sort-of-enemy Risa and her occasional Warbley quotations and toned back causing inexplicable distraction.
Nature could be so unjust.
FIELD JOURNAL ENTRY
MAY 24
NOTABLE LOCATION: ST. BASIL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, EARLY MORNING. WHY ARE MORNINGS SO EARLY?
Louise wielded her dry erase marker like an expert swordswoman, deftly marking up an aged whiteboard. She’d called us all last night and instructed us to assemble at the break of day. Richard had new info about the threats to the nature reserve.
“And as you recall, those vigilante folks who tried to mess with the land in Oregon were taken down by birders. This is the same thing,” Richard said to the group assembled, his face growing redder with each word Louise recorded.
“A militia in Oregon occupied the national wildlife refuge and birders vowed to work to protect that amazing resource,” said Louise. “Here we have local government wanting land with no exact owner. It’s not quite identical.”
“Fine. Whatever. Local government, local militia, it’s all the same to the birds and the land. The birds need it, and someone wants to take it.”
“True,” said Louise.
“I thought someone donated the land,” said Karen’s mom (who I just now learned was named Lynn. Probably could have asked her that about two years ago).
“Left it in his will,” said Bob (another bird-watcher).
“To the city, just to use as a park and nothing else,” said Jane (also another bird-watcher, who was around my age).
The Confusion of Laurel Graham Page 7
