A Catalog of Birds

by Laura Harrington

  Our Father who art in heaven . . .

  We were the Flynns, by God; we were the Flynns.

  “Why am I all alone in the goddamned kitchen?” Marion shouts from the ancient stone sink where she is peeling potatoes. She crosses to the porch as Nell makes her escape, disappearing beneath the canopy of trees, reappearing on the grassy stretch down to the lake.

  Brendan pulls Nell onto his lap, tickling her as Sheila gets her transistor radio to work, pulling in the not-too-distant Binghamton station. Rosie is instantly on her feet, grabbing Nick, winding her arms around his neck. Connor and Collin run circles around them while the baby sleeps in the shade. And look at that: Sheila, the one who thinks she wants to be a nun for God’s sake, shaking her hips and shimmying in what probably passes as dancing, though in Marion’s book it looks more like having some kind of fit. The boys join in, reluctantly at first, teasing wild-woman Sheila, but soon they are all laughing and shouting out the lyrics they somehow know by heart even though they sound like gibberish to Marion.

  And Nell. Good lord that girl can move her hips. She stands behind Billy and Brendan, imitating every step; where in the world did those boys learn to dance like that?

  “Hey! Turn it down! Are you trying to wake the dead?” she shouts down to them.

  Nell laughs up at her mother, still shaking her bottom like something Marion would rather not put in the same sentence as her youngest daughter.

  A phrase bursts clear:

  Paint it, paint it, paint it black!

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Let them be,” Jack says, appearing beside her. “They’re having fun.”

  “Nell was supposed to send Sheila up to help me in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “You will not.”

  “How many potatoes have I peeled in my life, Marion?”

  “I don’t know, Jack. How many?”

  “As the youngest of nine . . . ”

  “This is beginning to sound like a comedy routine.”

  “Shanty Irish comedy routine.”

  “Lace curtain, if you please.”

  “Oh, the infinite ways of being poor and Irish and proud,” he says, putting his arm around her.

  Down by the rickety dock, Rosie dances, eyes closed, Percy Sledge crooning: When a man loves a woman. She reaches out to Nell, linking hands.

  Brendan, best-loved Brendan, ticked off to be pulled away from his girlfriend for a night, for the “family only” graduation party for Nell. No friends, not even Harlow; no aunts and uncles, just the tight circle of Marion’s brood. The circle always a bit too tight for Brendan.

  “Sheila! Rosie!” Marion’s voice drops down from the cabin. “I could use a hand!”

  In the kitchen, Sheila and Rosie take over the potatoes and the coleslaw, freeing Jack to return to his sketchbook.

  Jack sits at the picnic table on the front porch with his colored pencils and pens and the field journal he’s been keeping for as long as he can remember. He pushes the newspaper aside, begins with where and when: Seneca Lake: June 24, 1970.

  When he was a toddler, Billy used to climb onto his lap and scribble on scrap paper while Jack drew in his journal. A bit older, three and four, Billy would lie on his belly on the floor, drawing airplanes. By five he was coming with Jack into the field with his own journal. Billy quickly outstripped his father in his ability to both find and draw birds, especially birds in midair. It was as if he could glance into the sky, record shape and motion with his mind’s eye, and then, with a few strokes, capture that flight and that freedom on paper. He made it look easy but Jack knows, from trying and failing and trying again, it is almost impossible.

  He looks up to see the boys bombing off the end of the water-worn dock, followed by Nell. They are like seals, beautiful creatures. How is it possible these are his children and grandchildren, that somehow they will carry pieces of him into the future?

  Jack thinks of teaching Billy how to swim on top of the water. By the time he was five and getting teased about swimming underwater like a fish, he learned the crawl. Then he started teaching himself to hold his breath for longer and longer. Jack would time him; make a game out of it. Brendan couldn’t beat him; even Jack couldn’t beat him. It got to be terrifying when Billy stayed underwater for forty-five seconds and then a minute and then more.

  As the sun sets, Jack and Nick gather wood, Connor and Collin trailing them. They scrape the old grill rack and set it on stones over the fire. While Rosie feeds the baby, Marion, Sheila, and Nell carry down platters and plates, cups, cutlery.

  There is too much food. When making her list Marion could only add, never subtract, and so they have hamburgers, red and white hots, potato salad, macaroni salad, coleslaw, baked beans, deviled eggs, radishes, and lettuce salad, lemonade, milk, and iced coffee. They can barely find room on the picnic tables Nell decorated with red gingham cloths and wildflowers in jelly jars.

  Packed away in a separate basket are Sheila’s brownies and Rosie’s cupcakes. These are the accompaniment to the main event: Marion’s prized strawberry shortcake.

  Brendan and Nick manage to eat two hamburgers apiece, though it looks like Billy has barely touched his food.

  When it doesn’t seem possible anyone could eat another mouthful, Marion carries the strawberry shortcake down the hill, piled high with whipped cream. The boys clamor for bowls of it, not just those dinky little dessert plates. Jack passes out the sparklers he drove into Canada to buy, dozens of them, more than they’d ever had for the Fourth of July. Connor and Collin run and twirl with the sparklers, streaks of light up and down the path, in and out of the trees.

  There are graduation gifts. Nell is embarrassed by all the attention. Wearing the gown and crossing the stage was more than enough spotlight. Megan had not even been mentioned at the ceremony, although what could be said? The cruelty of not knowing silences them all. Her absence is like a stitch in Nell’s side, a missing rib.

  As Nell crossed the stage, she’d looked up to see Asa Alsop standing at the back of the auditorium. He’d raised a hand to her, a salute.

  Who else thought of Megan that day, remembered her, turned to each other to ask: Did they ever find that girl? Reduced now to that girl, fading from view, mind, memory. Not for Billy, she knows. Not for her family.

  Jack and Marion make toasts with lemonade until Brendan reveals the stash of beer. Even Sheila has a bottle.

  Jack throws more wood on the fire. Sparks scatter into the sky.

  “Give us a song, Sheila,” Brendan asks.

  “No, no way,” she says.

  “C’mon,” Brendan insists.

  Connor sits beside his grandfather. Collin claims Nick’s lap.

  Sheila, embarrassed, clears her throat.

  “Quit stalling,” Brendan teases.

  I’ve met some folks who say that I’m a dreamer

  And I’ve no doubt there’s truth in what they say . . .

  Jack joins Sheila. Nell looks at him, surprised. It’s so rare now, he’s shy of his voice, though anyone would tell you it’s a beautiful voice, high and sweet.

  But sure a body’s bound to be a dreamer

  When all the things he loves are far away.

  “Oh, for the old Ireland of freezing to death in front of a smoky peat fire and never enough to eat,” Marion carps.

  “Not our problem tonight,” Brendan says. “I can hardly move I’m so full.”

  “Great shortcake, Mom,” Rosie says.

  Marion joins in on the chorus with Rosie and Brendan and Nick.

  Billy leaves the table, walks out to the end of the dock, and lies down, Flanagan at his feet. Nell watches him go. She can see how spent he is, feel the undercurrent of agitation, how often he needs to shut down, withdraw.

  Marion notices Billy leave as well, tries not to re
ad too much into it.

  Nell follows her brother, lies down next to him, her head on his shoulder.

  “You okay?” she asks.

  “Tired is all.”

  She waits for him to tell her more or the truth or anything at all. She looks across the lake, feeling the weight of Billy’s sadness, the darkness that sometimes engulfs him. Thinks of Harlow’s distance and wonders if the two are related.

  “Will you sing to me, Nell?” he asks, turning to look at her.

  “After those two . . . ?”

  He nods, holding her gaze.

  She’s unsteady as she begins, her voice catching in her throat. She sings softly, hardly more than a whisper.

  Oh, if I were a blackbird, could whistle and sing,

  I’d follow the vessel my true love sails in

  And in that dark rigging, I’d there build my nest

  And flutter my wings o’er her lily-white breast.

  Nell sings all the verses for Billy, while Sheila lights the candles, full dark falling down on them through the pine trees. Nell imagines soaring like a blackbird. From high above she would see the candles shining on the table, the smoke from the fire curling into the sky. Higher still and she would see the kitchen lights from the old camps and small cottages around the lake, a few blinking dock lights, the warm windows where families eat dinner, talk about the weather, plan tomorrows. Higher still and she would see all ten of the Finger Lakes, surrounded by thousands of acres of forest and farmland.

  If she could see her family running down through time, into their future, what would she see? Can she guess their hopes and their fears; can she imagine Rosie’s boys grown, Billy fully healed, all of them living out their days and their years?

  Will they be so lucky?

  Billy wakes her, as he does every morning, by walking onto the sleeping porch and pulling the covers off her bed. She glances at her watch: 5:30, half an hour earlier than usual, and stretches, playing for time, trying to get a look at him. But he turns away before she can see his face.

  Nell pulls on a sweatshirt, makes a quick dash to the bathroom and hurries down the stairs. Billy hands her a thermos of tea. She follows him down the steep path to the lake.

  Cold clouds blanket the water as she climbs into the rowboat. She wishes she had boots on instead of bare feet. Flanagan barks and whines from the dock, weaving in and around Billy’s legs as if she wants to push him back to shore.

  “Today’s the day.”

  “What?”

  “No wind. We’re going for it.”

  He pulls on his goggles and dives in.

  Nell turns the boat around and catches up with him easily. His first strokes are choppy; he’s wasting energy. And then she sees him settle. He is no longer a graceful swimmer, but he’s gaining strength and his determination has surprised them both.

  It’s quiet on the lake at this hour, except for Billy’s steady flutter kick, the rhythmic splash of his stroke, the oars grinding in the oarlocks. In the last few weeks she has gotten good at timing her strokes to stay abreast of him.

  The mist on the water is eerie. Now that they’re a few hundred yards out, she can no longer see the house in its shelter of trees and the dock is shrouded in shadow. Where’s the sun and when will it burn through this haze?

  Billy switches to backstroke and she tries to exchange a few words with him.

  “I’m fine,” is all he’ll give her.

  The breeze picks up, cold on the back of her neck, and the fog thickens opposite tiny Swan’s Island. They used to talk about camping on Swan’s when they were kids. They leave the island behind, and here, where the lake narrows a bit, she can see a few docks and boats. But no other early birds.

  Visibility drops to near zero. She can’t see the channel buoy. And she’s managed to miss their halfway landmark. This is insane, she thinks, as the mist becomes so dense she can only see a small circle around the boat and her swimming brother.

  She shouts at him to get his attention, but he ignores her. The loss of landmarks is disorienting; they could be going in circles. Billy plows on.

  There’s a momentary break in the weather; she can see the Harrises’ cottage with the blue and yellow Sunfish pulled up on their landing. Is it the fog that makes the cottage seem so far away? Or have they drifted out of the center channel and closer to the western shore? She twists around to see if she can see the east side of the lake when the breeze drops and closes them off again.

  For a moment she can’t see him. The shot of adrenaline to her heart reminds her of waking to his screams last night. She stops rowing and listens. He’s on her right instead of her left. How did that happen? She adjusts her course and pulls alongside him.

  “You okay?”

  He lifts his head and nods. A moment later he surprises her and turns to look at her.

  “You’re doing great,” she says.

  He holds her gaze, his dark hair plastered to his head, and smiles at her.

  For the rest of her life she will wonder what he was thinking when he looked at her. Was he thinking at all, or was all the thinking and deciding already done?

  When he slips beneath the surface, her first thought is: Quit messing around. Now I really can’t see you!

  She cranes her neck, calculating where he’ll come up.

  The goggles keep him from seeing much; he can’t even see the pines that line the shore. When he looks back at his sister she is just a shape. Just as well. He hears nothing but the water. The sound of it has been in his ears all his life.

  His crummy crawl stroke doesn’t matter anymore. He is so tired. Tired of doctors, of drinking, tired of trying to talk or not talk, to tell stories, to lie, to know when to shut up.

  He misses sleep like it’s a country he can’t go to anymore. The water feels like the promise of sleep. He can feel the giddy deep cold of the channel beneath him. Quiet and dark and mysterious.

  There is nothing to stop him. No sergeant, no harness, no chopper door. No tent, no jungle, no father, years ago, grabbing the back of his pants at the edge of the dock before he could fall in.

  What does he see in the water below him? His own face, his staring eyes, everything that hurts him and haunts him that doesn’t have a name. All the words that can’t be spoken, all the things he’s done that can’t be undone float around him.

  Nell.

  Megan.

  In a few seconds he’ll be free. In the water where the pain stops, the ringing in his ears is silenced.

  He lets the dark take him.

  Nell screams herself hoarse, calling his name, calling for help, every sound she makes swallowed by the fog.

  She strips down to go into the water and hesitates. What’s stopping her? The possibility she will lose the boat and her mother will have two children to grieve. The length of rope they use to tie up the boat lies coiled on the dock, useless to her now. She settles on diving directly below or beside the boat, shocked at the surge of panic that rises hot into her throat, of what she might find, of what she might not find, of all she is certain to fail to do.

  The murk beneath her is impenetrable, the depth of the water unknowable, the current strong. How far is she drifting from the boat, from safety, how far out of reach has Billy already gone?

  The thought of Billy lost to her, lost to all of them; a sob catches in her throat, involuntary, she breathes in water, chokes, suddenly fighting for the surface, disoriented.

  But there. She goes still. Did she feel his touch? She tries to remain quiet enough to feel which way her body is moving and then kicks her way to the surface, breaking through the water, choking and gasping and retching up water and more.

  She turns in a circle once, twice, her panic rising. The boat is gone.

  Listen, she hears inside her head: Billy’s voice. Stop your crying and listen.

 
She closes her eyes, tries to quiet her breath, loud and rasping in her ears. Nothing. More nothing. And then there it is: the faint lap of water against the hull, the creak of an oarlock.

  She swims toward the sound. Stops to listen again. Corrects her course. Drags herself into the boat and lies in the bottom shaking. Pulling her clothes on, her fingers are almost useless; her hands so stiff from cold and shock she has trouble zipping her jeans. Even dressed she can’t stop trembling.

  The image of Billy’s car floods her. So damaged from the crash and the rollover, she knows it’s impossible anyone could have survived. How relieved they all were, all their talk of luck and mercy. Billy himself quiet and wary, not quite ready to return to the land of the living.

  How easily the wind shifts, the world tips, slides out from underneath you. And she knows. She knew from the instant of that last look. He’s gone.

  There’s nothing to do but wait, nothing to break the oppressive monotony of the fog around her. Could anyone have stopped him? Doesn’t your body fight you; fight back? In the end, is it bliss or terror or sadness? Or simply relief. And release.

  “You can’t patch them up,” Marion would say. “These boys cannot be healed.”

  Marion wakes with a start, breathless from a dream about her mother. She never dreams about her mother, but there she was, gray hair, always a dress, a dress with a belt, bought on sale, darned stockings. How skilled she was at “making do.” Mabel Morrissey never owned a car or a house, worked a factory job until mandatory retirement at sixty-six, somehow managed to go to work through all but the very worst of her depressions.

  She throws off the sheet, gets out of bed, and stands at the window looking down to the lake. The fog so thick she can’t even see the dock. A glance at the clock: just seven. She hopes to God Billy and Nell aren’t out in this.