The Home for Wayward Parrots

by Wehm, Darusha;

“Well, we didn’t have the report,” Dad said. “And it made life difficult.”

  “Why didn’t you have the report?” I asked.

  “Because we’re not infertile,” Mom said. “At least, we don’t think so. It’s pretty unlikely.”

  “I’m confused,” I said. “If you could have kids, why ...”

  “There are too many people on this planet, Brian,” Dad said. “We both believed that then and we believe it even more so now. But we wanted to be parents. So, the obvious choice was to adopt a baby who was already born. But the bureaucracy didn’t understand that as a reason, so we had to jump through hoops to finally get to be your parents. It was awful.” He looked at Mom, then added, “But as your mom said, everything worked out in the end. And we couldn’t be happier.” He beamed at me, a happily drunken smile that I felt reflected in my own face.

  “I love you guys,” I said.

  “We love you too, honey,” Mom said.

  I WENT TO BED AND FOUND SEEDY FAST ASLEEP, her mouth hanging open and her book face down on her chest. I carefully picked up the book, marked her place and put it on the nightstand. I tried to slip into bed quietly, but I woke her up anyway.

  “What time is is?” she asked groggily.

  “About one in the morning,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

  “We’re going to miss Santa,” she said and rolled over, her arm over my chest. She fell asleep again and I listened to the sound of her breathing into my neck. All of a sudden, I was consumed with sadness at the thought there would inevitably come a day when this wouldn’t happen anymore.

  A tiny drunken voice in my mind screamed at me to quit worrying and just enjoy the moment, but then I fell asleep and it was gone.

  WE’D NEVER BEEN BIG GIFT GIVERS in the Holmes–Guillemot house, and the first time around Seedy and I hadn’t had any money, so presents just never came up. But this time there were a few wrapped parcels under the avocado plant from whose branches Dad had strung some bits of tinsel and hung an odd assortment of decorations. I wondered where they’d come from. I couldn’t see either Mom or Dad actually spending money on something like that. I stashed the few gifts I’d brought in a clear space near the plant pot and inspected the ornaments.

  They were entirely mismatched: a Snoopy on his doghouse wearing a Santa hat, a plastic snowflake with 1993 written on it in red-and-green glitter, an expensive-looking cut-glass dove, an incongruous menorah on a string. I was fingering a scary-looking plastic Santa when Mom came in. “I don’t really understand why people give us Christmas tree ornaments,” she said, a cup of coffee in her hand. “I mean, if you don’t know someone well enough to know whether or not they decorate for Christmas, do you really need to give them a gift?”

  “These were all presents?”

  “Yup,” she said. “Mostly from co-workers of mine or your dad’s.”

  I looked at the motley collection. “What’s with the menorah?” I asked.

  “Oh, that,” Mom laughed. “That was Bill Driscoll trying to be sensitive.”

  Driscoll was one of the other long-serving cops on the Saanich Police Force. Mom must have worked with him for a dozen years. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We were talking about the holidays in the squad room one day and it came up that I wasn’t a Christian. Bill is one of those weird Christmas fans, you know, wears reindeer ties all through December, decorates his cubicle, that sort of thing. Anyway, he got my name in the Secret Santa pool and I guess he couldn’t figure out what to do for a non-Christian. So, voilà.”

  “Does he think we’re Jewish?”

  “Naw,” she said. “He’s just an idiot.”

  I laughed. Mom had never badmouthed any of her co-workers before. “What’s all the hilarity?” Dad asked as he walked into the room. “You’re not making fun of my beautiful Yule Arbour, are you?”

  “Not in the least,” Mom said, kissing him on the cheek. “I think it’s lovely.”

  “What’s that?” Seedy said, finally unable to sleep any more through the racket we all were making, I guess. “The smell of coffee? I’d say it’s pretty lovely.”

  “Let me get you a cup, dear,” Dad said, slipping into the kitchen. “And how does lox and bagels sound for breakfast?”

  “Fantastic,” Seedy said. “I need to come over here more often.”

  Dad smiled happily and Mom turned to Seedy. “I think that would be wonderful, Celia,” she said.

  “It’s not always lox and bagels,” I said, trying for lightheartedness. “It’s just as likely to be cereal and frozen orange juice.”

  “Well, I like those, too,” Seedy said, rescuing the conversation by beaming at Mom. “So, what’s the program here? My mom and I used to open presents in the morning, then spend the rest of the day cooking, eating and playing games. How does it work around here?”

  “Pretty much the same,” Mom said. “Dom does most of the cooking — I’m sure he’d accept assistance if you were so inclined, but don’t feel obliged. It’s a pretty casual affair; usually we just roast a chicken or something. Since you’re here, Dom got fancy and we have a goose. I hope you like dark meat.”

  “Sounds great,” Seedy said. “Uh, Dom isn’t going to be stuck in the kitchen all day, is he?”

  “No,” Dad said, coming back with a large mug of coffee for Seedy and a platter of bagels, cream cheese and thin smoked salmon slices. “Once I get everything going, it won’t take long. And I couldn’t help but overhear, so if you feel like peeling a few potatoes I wouldn’t object. Otherwise, I’ve got it all in hand.” He grinned and sat down, passing out small plates for the food. We loaded up and ate.

  It didn’t take long to open the gifts. I got Mom one of the fancy desk calendars she liked but wouldn’t buy herself because they were too expensive. I got Dad a DVD set of the most recent season of a weird Japanese game show he loved, which I’d had to special order months before. He was visibly excited when he ripped off the paper. Mom rolled her eyes — she didn’t see the show’s appeal — and passed me a large box.

  It was very light and I couldn’t stop myself from shaking it. Mom and Dad smirked at each other and I saw Seedy stifling a grin. “Are you in on this?” I asked her.

  “I say nothing,” she said, affecting a silly accent. I scowled, but felt a strange warmness inside when I realized that she must have talked to my parents about whatever this was. I carefully removed the ribbon and tape holding the paper to the box, folding it and setting it aside. I slit the tape holding the lid of the box closed and opened it, finding nothing but bubble wrap. I arched an eyebrow and popped a bubble between my thumb and forefinger.

  “I do like popping bubble wrap,” I said. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Keep looking,” Dad said, taking a bite of bagel. I took out all the plastic and at the bottom of the box saw an envelope. It was a plain number-ten envelope with what felt like a couple of folded sheets inside. Seedy grinned, and Mom and Dad were smiling widely now, too. I felt conspicuous and strange. I opened the envelope and found a gift certificate for a week at a luxury surf camp in Tofino.

  “This is ...” I didn’t know what to say. “How did you know?” I asked them all.

  “You mentioned it once,” Seedy said. “Back in university. I remembered.”

  “Wow,” I said. “And you told them and ...”

  “It just came up in conversation,” she said. “Then your mom called and asked if I thought it would be a good gift and I said yeah. I hope you like it.”

  “Totally gnarly,” I said, feeling foolish. I handed Seedy her gift, a silver necklace I’d noticed her eyeing in one of the little boutiques in Fan Tan Alley. She put it on and I saw her eyes glow. Mom and Dad exchanged a glance and I sighed, hopefully quietly.

  Then Seedy pulled out a box not too dissimilar to the one my parents had given me. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s from me,” she said. I opened it carefully as always and found inside a heavy, rattly box labelled Power Grid. I turned
it over and looked at Seedy, puzzled.

  “It’s a game,” she said. “I played it before; I think you’ll like it. Trust me.” I’d never been a big fan of board games; Monopoly made me want to scream. I could barely stand Scrabble with Mom and Dad.

  “Thanks,” I said, weakly. I looked at the copy on the bottom and thought the game sounded pretty different from anything else I’d ever played. “Three to six players,” I read. “Hrm.”

  “I thought we could invite your friends over sometime,” Seedy said. “Johnny and maybe Blair and Angela, too.”

  “Huh,” I said, sensing an entire strategy in the guise of this gift. “Well, why don’t we open it up and give it a try?”

  “First,” Dad said, “we peel the potatoes.”

  33

  THE PAJAMA GAME

  December 25, 1980

  Dear Kimmie,

  Merry Christmas! I have to admit it’s not that merry around here. I don’t want to get all sappy in my letters, it doesn’t help anything. But I really miss you. The guys all got each other little presents like a pack of smokes or a bottle of ouzo, but none of that is helping. All I want is to be home with you.

  I hope you are having a good holiday. Try and stop in to see Mom and the others, I know they’d love to see you.

  I don’t have much to say this time, it’s just kind of tough here right now. But it’s not for too much longer, then I’ll be home.

  I miss you.

  Jim

  SEEDY GAVE ME TWO WEEKS’ GRACE before she started threatening to cold call Johnny, Blair and Angela. She’d never even met Blair and Ange and she was ready to invite them over for a games night. I was horrified.

  So, of course her ploy worked and I invited them myself.

  The first time they came over was a Friday night, and I’d had a hell of a week at work. I was tired and cranky and the last thing I wanted was to have a houseful of people over. But the three of them and Seedy had all planned to come, so it was on and I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d bought a case of beer, a couple of bottles of bubbly water for Angela and twenty bucks’ worth of snacks. When I got home, I got the Romeo’s delivery pizza menu out and the phone ready to go.

  Seedy arrived first and dumped her now very familiar overnight bag in my bedroom. She looked great and smelled fantastic. I wished that the others weren’t coming, but now for an entirely different reason. I told her so and she grabbed my butt and whispered, “I’ll make waiting worth your while.” I was lucky that Johnny didn’t turn up for another ten minutes.

  When he did arrive, he kissed Seedy on the cheek and gave me a leer. It turned out that they’d known each other in university and spent five minutes lying to each other about how neither of them had changed. I busied myself in the kitchen arranging Johnny’s contribution of expensive pastries on a plate. I’d just gotten them out to the table when the buzzer sounded again.

  Angela was huge, but it didn’t seem to bother her. “I’m just so happy that the puking is over,” she said. “I don’t care how big I am so long as that’s done with.” She loaded up a plate with about half of Johnny’s quiches and pies, and poured a large glass of water. “Don’t mean to be rude,” she said. “Eating for two here.”

  “Two elephants, maybe,” Blair said, but he grinned and Angela smiled back. “So you’re the famous Seedy P.” He turned to Seedy.

  “It’s just Celia these days,” she said, jerking her head in my direction. “He’s the only one who hasn’t moved with the times in the nomenclature department.”

  “Old dogs, eh?” Angela said, swallowing a mouthful of something.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Makes me feel like a young punk again.”

  “Guys,” I said, “I’m right here. You don’t have to talk about me as if I were off in Siberia or something.”

  “Sorry, Gumbo,” Angela said. “So, where’s the rest of the food?”

  We ordered a couple of pizzas, one with a half of pineapple and jalapeño for Angela, then cracked open the game.

  Seedy had been on the money: I did like the game. I had no idea there were board games like this and was starting to look forward to a night of playing. We explained the rules to the others and were partway through the opening phase when the pizzas arrived. We ate over the board, stopping to open beers and get more snacks.

  When we got to the third round, all of us except Angela were pretty drunk. “So, are you guys going to move in together?” Johnny asked Seedy as he rolled the dice. “As they say in The Pajama Game, ‘Two can sleep as cheap as one.’”

  “The Pajama Game?” I asked incredulously.

  “It’s a musical,” he said, as if that explained everything. “So, are you?”

  “Maybe,” Seedy said, shooting me a sideways glance. We had not talked about this possibility before. “It’s still kind of soon for that.”

  “How long did you guys go out before you shacked up?” Johnny asked Blair and Angela.

  “A year, maybe two?” Angela said, looking to Blair for confirmation.

  “About nineteen months, if you want to be exact,” he said, grinning. “But there was a chunk of time when Ange was travelling for work, so that doesn’t really count.”

  “I don’t think there’s a particular amount of time you need to date before you know,” Angela said. “When you know, you know.” She gave Seedy and me a pointed look, then said, “I’m buying two units of uranium. Fork it over, Johnny.”

  WE DIDN’T TALK ABOUT IT FOR A WHILE, but some time before Valentine’s Day, Seedy said, “So if we lived together, would we buy a place, do you think?”

  “Jeez, Seedy,” I said, pausing the DVD we were watching. “Do you really want to take that step? I mean, things are great now. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke.”

  “I’m not saying we have to do it now,” she said. “But I’m over here all the time. It’s kind of dumb not to talk about it, at least.”

  “Damn it, Seedy,” I said, then looked away. I had finally managed to put the inevitability of The Fight out of my mind and just be happy. Now this talk of moving in together had smashed the wall that had been keeping those thoughts at bay. I was filled with a sense of dread and sadness, as if we’d already broken up.

  “What’s wrong, BeeGee?” she said, real concern in her voice. “You’re not one of those commitment-phobic guys. Hell, that’s more my line. What’s eating you?”

  “Damn it, Seedy,” I repeated, trying to keep my voice even. “It never works out. And it’s just going to be so much worse if we’re living together when it does ...”

  “What are you talking about?” she said, her voice authoritative and compelling.

  “It’s the birth control thing,” I blurted. “Every girlfriend I’ve ever had, after you, left me because of the birth control thing. And it will happen with us, too; it always does. So, let’s just forget it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “The birth control thing?” she said incredulously. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I wished the earth would open up and swallow me whole, but I stared at my feet and explained as best I could about condoms and infidelity and Audrey and Beth and the rest of it. I have to give her credit: Seedy didn’t laugh. She didn’t even smirk. She did, however, take my hand in hers and grab my face. She looked me deeply and intensely in the eye. I didn’t know how to look away and somehow didn’t want to.

  “I guess I can see how some women might feel that way,” she said, “but I don’t.”

  “I know, but ...”

  “Don’t ‘but’ me,” she said. “I know myself well enough to know something like this. I don’t want children, Brian, you know that. And I know you don’t want children — it’s one of the many, many things that makes us so good together. I also don’t really want to take hormonal birth control, so using condoms works just fine for me. I don’t see that changing if we live together. Besides,” she said, her lips finally tugging up into a grin, “I like men and all, but I can’t ge
t past the fact that jizz is really gross.”

  That broke the spell and I started to laugh. “What?” she said, punching me in the arm and faking a pout. “Well, it is.”

  “I love you, Celia-Dee,” I said when I’d finally finished laughing.

  “I know you do, Brian Gumbo,” she said and snuggled into my arms while hitting play on the remote control.

  JOHNNY AND BLAIR AND ANGELA came to our housewarming, along with three-week-old Marty. Seedy had invited some of her co-workers, including Terry, who, of course, brought Chuck. I hadn’t seen either of them since the wedding and it was obvious that married life suited them.

  “I was talking to Mom the other day,” Chuck said when she caught up with me in the giant eat-in kitchen of the condo Seedy and I had bought. “She said she hasn’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I found out some stuff about my father and I know Kim’s a little ... sensitive about it. I just didn’t know what to say.”

  “Huh,” Chuck said. “Well, you don’t have to say anything about it if you don’t want. I don’t think that’s what’s on her mind. I think she’d just like to hear from you, but now that the wedding’s over she doesn’t have an excuse to get in touch. She’s like that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know the feeling.”

  Terry walked in with Angela then and said, “There you two are. I was just talking with Angela here about volunteering to feed the homeless for a couple of days a month. What a great opportunity, right?”

  She grinned at us, grabbed a couple of drinks for the two of them and they walked back out to the party. Chuck said, “Well, at least it’s the homeless that’s got Terry all fired up.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I was afraid it was the baby,” Chuck said. “We’ve only been married a few months; I’m not ready for that yet.”

  “I hear ya, sister,” I said as we clinked beer cans.