A Charm of Finches

by Suanne Laqueur

  “It’s all right,” Stef said. “Keep moving with me. Every step means something. You’re doing great.”

  Juan leaned on him like a wounded soldier, stumbling and shuffling with a hand over his face. His other hand in a white-knuckled clench on Stef’s shirt. Hanging on. Trusting Stef to walk him the hell out the other side.

  Another time, Geno arrived in the art room to the sound of sobbing. A pathetic wail that went on and on without a pause for breath. Ebbing and flowing like a siren. Over by the windows, Stef was pacing. His youngest client, six-year-old Max, draped on his broad shoulder, crying and crying.

  Geno stared as Stef walked back and forth, backlit by the sunlight pouring through the glass, his hand rubbing between the little boy’s shoulder blades as he talked.

  “I know he said boys don’t cry. That’s baloney. I cry all the time, Max. You can cry, too.”

  Geno’s arms itched, remembering his nephew’s trusting weight and the press of a wet face in his neck.

  “It’s all right,” Stef said. “You cry as much as you want.”

  Max moaned and wept harder.

  “I’m right here. I got you.”

  Geno couldn’t look away. He could feel that solid mass of muscle and bone under his face. Stef’s chest pressed to his. His strong arms carrying Geno away from all of this, like a kvater. The hand between his shoulder blades. The shushing air between his teeth. The beautiful, perfect words that broke apart chains and knocked down prison walls.

  I know what he said. He was wrong. He lied to you. I am telling you the truth now. I am here to put it right.

  Geno wanted it. He could taste that mighty protection. The sweetness of having a champion.

  He craved it.

  He began to dream about it.

  He dreamed of being his grown self in a child’s body and Stef was carrying him. Sometimes draped on his shoulder. Sometimes cradling Geno in both arms. This time, being a baby boy was so pure and peaceful and secure.

  Hold me, brother mine.

  I am one chick in an empty henhouse.

  “How have your anxiety levels been?” Dr. Stein asked.

  “Better,” Geno said. “It doesn’t seem as constant as it used to. I still get panic attacks but not every day. I’m getting better at getting through them.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Visualize safe places. Or places I remember being happy. I remembered the other day how much I liked being at the beach. Stef found this app I could download that plays different kinds of white noise. One setting is ocean waves. It helps get me into that place in my head.”

  “Ah,” Stein said, nodding. “Excellent.”

  “Stef’s got a lot of good ideas.”

  “I’m glad you’re working with him. He’s extremely insightful as well as creative. He comes at a problem from all directions.”

  “Yeah, he’s good. They’re all good there. Even some of the people who aren’t therapists are good. I mean, I feel like I made a few friends.”

  In fact, he had to build an addition onto his little henhouse. Stef already had a room. Now Javier and Stavroula had moved in.

  Geno watched them all the time in the kitchen, studying their interactions like a map. Putting down pins when Jav’s gaze went far away into the zone where his ideas lived, then came abruptly back when Stav walked by.

  Gotcha, Geno thought. Pin after pin making a route when he caught Jav looking at Stav. Quick little glances, like he was taking careful spoonfuls of some delicious dessert. Stav’s eyes on Jav weren’t as intense, but she called him cookie sometimes. Like he was something she wouldn’t mind nibbling on. The guys gave him a ton of shit about it, helping themselves to his new nickname.

  “Hey,” Jav said, a finger pointing around. “Only Stav calls me cookie. Everyone else, it’s Mr. Cookie.”

  He totally likes her, Geno thought.

  Stav was easy to like. And goddamn, she had that look. The clean, simple beauty that came out of Geno’s past like a long-forgotten dream. It was older on Stav, mature and solid and a little weathered. Still, it rested easy on his eyes, while the age difference kept it safely at a distance.

  Her hair was brown, with pretty blonde highlights and a few faint streaks of silver. She had a way—as most women did—of gathering her hair up in a sloppy fist, winding an elastic around the whole mess and ending up with a bun that looked on the verge of falling apart, yet never moved. The shorter pieces of hair fell down around her temples. Over and over, she’d brush them to the side and tuck them behind one ear.

  “Geno, look at her ears,” Jav said. “They’re the tiniest ears I’ve ever seen.”

  Stav laughed. “I’m like the opposite of an elf.”

  Her ears weren’t pierced, either. Small, pink, perfect ears. Just like her fingernails: short, pink, unpolished and perfect. The veins and tendons of her hands lay close to the skin’s surface. Swift, competent hands that chopped and sliced and stirred. When she leaned over a pot or bowl, her short hairs fell in her face and she pushed them back with the sleeve bunched around her elbow. The crook of her arm soft and secret, a single blue vein flickering. If you kissed that spot, would you feel her pulse?

  Jav looked at her. Geno looked at him looking and it filled him with a warm, luscious pleasure. His eyes followed the path of Jav’s finger, through the air to catch the tendril of Stav’s silvery-gold hair, and draw it back behind the pretty pink seashell of her ear.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, laughing.

  Are they together? Geno wondered. Or getting there?

  His imagination sawed and hammered at the henhouse, assembling a master bedroom. Busting out a back wall to expand the kitchen. He hauled bricks and built a fireplace, dragging furniture around it. A comfy couch for Jav and Stav. Mismatched arm chairs for himself and Stef. The door latched tight against foxes. Feet stretched toward the flames. Stav’s hair tucked behind her little ears. Companionable silence within and the sound of ocean waves outside.

  Toward the end of February, Jav got Stavroula pregnant.

  He didn’t mean to. It was The Thing’s fault. In the kitchen one day, Stav took her hands out of soapy dishwater and stretched. Back arched with one hand pressing into the small, kneading the muscles there. The other hand, thick with woven bracelets, brushed her bangs back, water droplets sliding down her forearm.

  And shazam, she was pregnant.

  Pregnant with the world, Jav thought, his fingertips itching. Pregnant with the sun. The son or the sun?

  Little Ears was drawn out of the water. Bracelets of rope at her wrists. Her hair never dried. She was always pregnant.

  She was on the ship a year before anyone thought to mention she hadn’t had her baby yet.

  That’s when everyone knew she was pregnant with the world.

  She was the one they’d waited for.

  “What?” Stav said.

  Jav blinked. “What?”

  “Stop staring at me,” she said, laughing.

  “I’m not staring at you, I’m staring through you. An idea is on the other side. Hold still and let me get it.”

  She rolled her eyes but her face went rosy pink. “You’re really making up a story right now?”

  “A character. She might tell me a story.”

  “What will you name her?”

  “I love Stav,” he said. “And not just because it rhymes with Jav.”

  “It’s a strong name,” Geno said, who’d been quiet up until now. “What does it mean?”

  “Stavroula? It’s Greek for cross.” Stav tucked her hair behind her ear. “My birth mother’s last name was Cross.”

  “You’re adopted?” Geno said.

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Cross,” Jav said. “That’s a good name, too.”

  His shift was over and just in time. His head was starting to
overflow. He had to get some of this down. He got a little lunch and sat at a table with his notebook, scribbling away. He’d filled two pages when his phone pinged an incoming text from Roger Lark.

  Brother from another mother, Rog typed. Got some news. Can I call you in about ten minutes?

  Sure, Jav typed back. Good news or you-better-sit-down news?

  Good news. Bad news I send by registered mail. Talk in a few.

  “This seat taken?” Geno said, appearing with a plate of ziti and meatballs.

  “No, no,” Jav said, putting down his phone and pushing a chair out with his foot. “Siéntate.”

  Geno plopped down with a long exhale. His dark hair, cropped short when Jav first met him, had grown in enough to start waving a little. His light brown eyes were smudged with fatigue.

  “Qué lo qué,” Jav said.

  “Nothing.”

  “Feel all right?”

  “Didn’t sleep much last night.”

  Jav nodded sympathetically, capped his pen and let it roll into the notebook’s spine.

  “You’re almost at the end of the pages,” Geno said.

  “I know. I’ll need to start looking for another one.”

  “What were you writing about Stav?”

  Now the circled eyes had the tiniest sparkle of curiosity, and Jav wanted to coax it bigger. “Oh, I’d tell you,” he said. “But the voices in my head would say I had to kill you.”

  “Come on.”

  “No, I’m serious, they get really angry when I share the— Shh, wait.” Jav put up a finger and tilted his head toward the ceiling. “Did you hear that?”

  “You’re ridiculous,” Geno said, and right then, with the rolling eyes and the snort, he was Ari. Young, full of sass and bemoaning the tragic unhip-ness of the adult population. Jav’s brain swelled with questions begging to be asked.

  Where are you from? Where are your parents? How long will you be here? What happened to you?

  No, wait, don’t tell me.

  As he was walking back that question, another sneaked out. “Is Geno short for something?”

  Geno looked up from his plate, brow furrowed.

  “Sorry,” Jav said quickly. “That’s personal. I’m a writer. I like names. I read the newspaper just to collect them and sometimes—”

  “It’s short for Geronimo.”

  Jav sat back a little. “Shut up.”

  “Swear to God.”

  Geronimo, Jav thought. You couldn’t think it quietly. It begged to be yelled. Preferably as you were jumping off a diving board.

  Geno laughed now. “Dude, you’re looking at me like I gave you a million dollars.”

  “That’s the greatest name ever.”

  “My dad’s father was Jerome. My mother wanted the Spanish version. Doesn’t exactly go with Caan, but…”

  “Caan. Like James Caan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.”

  Geronimo Caan.

  Yes, he Caan.

  Wrath of Caan. Jav chuckled at that one.

  “What?” Geno said.

  “Nothing. It’s a great name.”

  “So, what comes first when you’re writing? The character or the name?”

  “Usually the name.” Jav tapped the cover of the notebook. “I have a ton of them in here. Like the other day I came across the name Ike. You don’t hear many guys called Ike these days. It feels cool to say. A character named Ike would definitely be badass.”

  “Ike Turner?”

  “Well, he was an asshole. I guess that theory’s ruined. But I still think names with X or K sounds have a lot of strength.” Jav was babbling a little now, his mouth jumping off the diving board. “Rex is Latin for king. Rex is a badass name. Javier in French is Xavier. If my parents changed one letter of my name, I could’ve had a whole different life. This is the kind of shit I think about.”

  “No, you’re right,” Geno said. “A lot of great leaders or legendary kings had those sounds. Constantine.”

  “Tutankhamen.”

  “Alexander.”

  “Lex Luther.”

  Geno laughed. “Christopher Columbus.”

  Jav pointed. “Carlos Quiñones Velázquez,” he said, exaggerating all the hard syllables. “Not a king. Relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. Before your time.”

  Geno’s expression trembled a little. He looked down and with his fork, drew lines through the tomato sauce on his plate. “My brother was Carlos. Carlos Caan.”

  “Oh.”

  “He died last summer.”

  Jav blinked, adding this death to Geno’s father, also last summer. “Lo siento,” he said. The obvious next question being, What happened? But he didn’t ask.

  “It’s kind of similar to your situation,” Geno said. “The thing you told me about with your cousin. How he turned on you and died before you could find out why? Something like that happened with my brother. Left me with a shitload of unanswered questions and unfinished business.”

  “I see,” Jav said. He switched to Spanish, drawing a bit more privacy around them. “Man, I’m sorry. You got my heart on that one. It’s so hard not knowing why.”

  “Yeah.” Geno made a vague gesture around. “One of the many pleasant things I’m working out in this place.”

  Jav tried not to laugh too heartily. “Was he older than you? Younger?”

  “We were twins.”

  Jav’s phone rang. He twitched at the sound, having forgotten about Roger. “Shit, that’s my buddy. I have to take this.”

  “I gotta go get my head shrunk.” Geno threw up a palm, took his half-empty plate and left.

  “What’s up, ugly,” Rog said, voice booming over the line.

  “Hey,” Jav said, thrown by the abrupt end of one conversation and the quick-change into a different language and dynamic. “Where are you?”

  “Hibernating in Vermont. But guess where the show’s coming next?”

  Jav hummed, eyes circling an imaginary globe, looking for locales Rog would be calling him about. “The Dominican Republic?”

  “Close enough. Randall’s Island.”

  “Get out,” Jav said. “You’re building a treehouse in Manhattan?”

  “This is a first.”

  “Santa Claus is coming to town.”

  “In a manner of speaking. Are you being a good boy?”

  “At this stage of my life? Fuck, no.”

  “Excellent. So I’ll be in town maybe second week in March to scout the site with my team. Hopefully start building in April. Wrap-up end of June, budget willing.”

  As Jav took in the timeline, a germ of an idea took root in his mind. “Where will you live?”

  “I’m crashing on your couch for three months. That okay?”

  Jav opened his mouth, closed it. Managed a weak laugh. “Really?”

  “No, dumbass. They find me a long-term hotel or a studio apartment.”

  “I see,” Jav said. “Well, this’ll be great. Let me know as it gets closer.”

  “Will do. How’s your boyfriend, when you getting married?”

  “Jesus,” Jav said, laughing. “He’s fine and not anytime soon.”

  “Tell him I said hi. Gotta run. Adíos, amigo.”

  Jav collected his things together, pulling the pen from the pages of the notebook and giving a broad glance at what he’d written. He’d had more but it was gone now. Flounced out in a jealous huff to find another writer.

  Walking home, his head was a mess. Loose threads of ideas snarled in a knot. Women pregnant with the sun (or the son). Kings with X and K names. Names you had to yell rather than speak. The wrath of Caan (really, he needed to write that down). Last summer. How hard it was to not know. But hey, good news, Santa Claus was coming to town. And needed a place to stay.
r />   I could sublet him my place.

  April to June. The lease is up in July.

  Let Roger live at my place and I move downtown with Stef.

  Three months. See how we feel.

  Why not?

  Is this too soon?

  It’s too soon. You’re out of your mind.

  “How’s your boyfriend,” Roger said. “You getting married?”

  I’m not getting married.

  Yet.

  But I could move in with him. For a while. For the spring. See how it feels come summer.

  His swirling mind pulled and tugged at the tangle of thoughts. Last summer. The high sun of summer. Pregnant with the summer sun. Or was it the summer sons?

  The sun god, he thought. The sun god is two sons. Sun sons. Twin gods born in the sun.

  Twin gods…

  He stopped walking. Last summer.

  He turned around, looked down Eleventh Avenue. He could just make out the northern facade of the brick warehouse where a boy Ari’s age lived, got his head shrunk and worked out unpleasant things.

  “Something like that happened with my brother,” Geno said. “Unanswered questions and unfinished business.”

  We were twins.

  “Twins last summer,” Jav said under his breath, remembering newspaper headlines three inches tall. Remembering the effort it took to say prostitution. The worst-case what-if-ing on what might have happened to Ari if Jav hadn’t been around. The luck that allowed Jav to survive and be there for his nephew. The there-but-for-the-grace fortune of not bouncing off the streets of Queens into the hands of…

  “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  “A treehouse on Randall’s Island?” Stef said.

  Jav turned in his desk chair, taking off his glasses. “That’s what he said.”

  “That’ll be wild. How long will he be in town?”

  “About three months. April to June, budget willing”

  Stef opened a beer then crouched down to let Roman say hello, which involved much sniffing and licking of ears. Also beer bottles, if they were within reach. “Easy, you lush,” Stef said. “You’re underage.”