One Bird's Choice

by Iain Reid

  I settle down on the couch, opening the front section of the paper before my face like a screen.

  But the sight and scent of my unconventional breakfast is too unsettling for Mom. She peers up from her notes anxiously. “What kind of breakfast is that? There’s plenty of eggs and fresh bread in the kitchen.”

  “I know, but I didn’t feel like cooking. I’m fine.”

  “But your dad picked about a dozen fresh eggs from the coop this morning.”

  “I just wanted something quick and easy. This is fine. I’m happy.”

  I rarely hear Dad snort, but he does now from his study. “Eggs are quick and easy, and very good for you.”

  “Also, you love them. You always have,” says Mom, setting her pencil down.

  “I know, but —”

  “I can remember when you used to eat four or five in one sitting.” Dad sounds completely ambushed. “It was amazing.”

  “You would eat them fried or scrambled or poached . . . you just loved them.”

  “I still like eggs, guys, but I don’t crave them as much since I’ve been back home. Probably ’cause they’re so readily available.”

  “Did you hear that?” Mom calls to Dad. “Iain’s off eggs.”

  I hear Dad’s chair push back against his bookcase as he rises from his desk. This startling news has roped him in from the study. He arrives with a puzzled look on his face. “But Iain loves eggs.”

  “I know,” says Mom. “And ours are so fresh and delicious. Not to mention organic.”

  I’ve discovered the problem with impaling the sardines with the hollow straw is that with each piece, several drops of the fishy oil unavoidably collect in the tip, creating an unappealing mouthful. I don’t mind the fish but loathe their unctuous bathwater. I’m in mid-chew, delaying the next bite, when a balled-up piece of loose-leaf hits my forehead.

  “Wait. What have you done? You look different,” exclaims Mom, who’s standing now.

  “I bet it’s connected to this whole egg thing,” says Dad.

  “Maybe, but take a look for yourself. He definitely looks different today.”

  They move in closer, eyeballing me with stern resolve. I put my half-eaten meal down on the armrest and grin. It’s taken a little longer than I’d thought. Before my kitchen stop I’d just come from the bathroom, where I’d shaved off my Karl Marx–style beard, right down to the wood. It’s left my face noticeably puffy and red. I’ve worn beards of varying lengths ever since I returned home last year, but the most recent beard had been growing, unguarded, for months. It was shaggy and unkempt. I haven’t been clean-shaven in well over a year. I look about ten years younger.

  “You might be right,” says Dad. “He looks cleaner. Did you bathe this morning?”

  “Bathe? No, I didn’t bathe, Dad.”

  “He’s right though, Iain. You do look cleaner.”

  “I still think it has to do with the eggs,” says Dad determinedly.

  I wonder what they would say if my eight-year-old self, all four feet and sixty pounds of him, strolled into the living room tomorrow morning eating a can of sardines.

  Did you do something different?

  Who, me?

  Yeah, something’s not quite the same.

  What do you mean?

  I’m not sure, but you look more innocent this morning, or something.

  Dad would have his own take. Or maybe a little more optimistic — new trousers, bud?

  Mom returns to her seat at the table. Dad stares for a breath longer. “I know! Did you shampoo your hair?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Could just be our imaginations, then.”

  Again I shake my head, but Dad’s already retreated back to his study.

  “Add that to your letter, Mom,” I suggest. “That Iain’s looking cleaner and shampooing his hair now, which is good news, but you’re still a tad concerned since he’s stopped eating eggs.”

  Mom’s quick to disregard my suggestion. “Now you’re just being silly.”

  It’s getting close to lunch when I pass through the living room again. I’m en route to the kitchen but hesitate in front of the closet. I detect some rustling. It’s probably a cat tunnelling around in one of the parkas. I’m about to investigate when Mom emerges, backing out slowly on her knees. She’s wearing a brown fur coat. There’s a patch of fur missing from the collar and one of the buttons is missing.

  “What do you think?” she asks, standing slowly. “Your aunt Charlotte gave me this coat and I’ve never worn it. I just found it when I was putting some shoes away.”

  “When did she give it you?”

  “I’m not sure . . . maybe ten or twenty years ago.”

  If possible, the coat would cough a few times, hack up some yellow phlegm onto the carpet, smear on a thick hoop of bright red lipstick, and, with a smutty wink, reveal her age to be closer to forty .

  “Are you sure it’s only twenty years old?”

  “I’m sure it’s much older than that; it wasn’t new when she gave it to me. It was a hand-me-down.” Shocking.

  “I don’t know, Mom; it’s not really fur-coat weather these days. It’s almost summer.”

  “I know, and I don’t usually like fur coats at the best of times, but I’ve just had this one for so long.” Her tone implies a deep sentimental attachment. I’ve never seen her wear this ghastly pelt.

  “How often do you wear it, Mom?”

  “You mean wear it out? Oh, never. I’ve never worn it. I had totally forgotten about it until just now.” She moves in front of the large mirror mounted on the wall and faces her reflection. She slowly turns to her left, maintaining eye contact with her fuzzy profile. “Doesn’t mean I can’t start.”

  “It looks a little small — the sleeves don’t even reach your wrists.”

  “It’s a three-quarters cut; that’s how it’s meant to be. Actually this one’s a tad big.” She turns to the other side. “Maybe you’re right; I don’t think I can wear it. I look like a little brown bear.”

  “Actually, yeah, a little . . .”

  “Well, what do you think about getting my hair cut, only this time I leave half untouched and cut the other half really short? My haircuts are always so symmetrical.”

  “I think most cuts are typically symmetrical.”

  “That’s boring. Any second thoughts about the coat?”

  “It’s hard to get a sense, since you’re still in your pyjamas.”

  “You’re right, it’s ridiculous. I was going to go up and get changed hours ago.”

  “How’s the letter coming?”

  “It’s coming, but I got a little sidetracked.”

  When I walk through the dining room forty minutes later, Mom’s still wearing the coat. She’s settled on the floor now, her back resting against the stool. An old black photo album is open across her lap.

  “I know, I know,” she says. “I went to find a ruler in the drawer and came across this damn album. Now I can’t put it down.”

  She ponders each picture intently. She waves me over to see a few. There doesn’t appear to be any order or pattern. Some are from the farm in Oxfordshire where Mom and Dad rented a cottage after they were married, some are from dinner parties with friends in Canada, a few are from their actual wedding day. I’m pretty sure I recognize the fur coat in one picture. It’s being worn by an elderly lady standing beside an elderly man I’ve never seen before. I don’t mention anything to Mom.

  “I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I moved home,” I say, sitting down on the stool, resting my chin in my hands, my elbows on my knees.

  “What?” Mom peers up from the pictures.

  “Nothing. I’ve just been thinking abou
t this last year and being back at the farm.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  For a few minutes, neither of us speaks.

  “It’s just funny how things play out,” I say.

  “Yup, and I think life’s better when it’s unpredictable.”

  “It’s kind of hard to believe, but I feel like it’s done me some good, you know.”

  “We hoped it would,” she says.

  Mom refocuses on her album, lingering on each page, pointing out how young everyone looks. “Especially Dad and I. We look ancient now compared to this.”

  One picture in particular has piqued her interest. She lifts the book higher for me to see. It’s a picture of Dad standing outside the dairy cottage, dressed in wellington boots, a tweed jacket, and a scarf. He’s holding a leather briefcase at his side. “I remember I took this one morning before your Dad walked to work. Most mornings he would walk across the field to catch a train. I’ve been pretty lucky,” she says. “Still am.”

  I watch her peel back the thin plastic barrier and remove the photo from the book without explanation. She’s mumbling to herself as she walks into the kitchen. It takes her a minute or two but she’s able to shift around a few other pictures to free up a small gap on the top left corner of the fridge door. She sticks the newly recovered photo there, of Dad in his wellington boots, with a yellow and black magnet shaped like a bumblebee.

  The afternoon has turned warm, even for May. On my last trip through the living room, Mom’s papers were still littered across the table, but she was absent. I called a few times, but when no one answered, I wandered outside.

  I stroll around the back of the house without a destination in mind. Meg’s asleep beside one of the rock gardens. I walk quietly past her to Dad’s magnolia tree. It hasn’t changed much. Somehow Meg detects my soft steps and is up instantly, investigating the nascent tree along with me. The tree has stayed consistently unremarkable — short, frail, and sparse. There is only one appreciable change since I’ve last seen it: green buds have sprouted at the ends of each branch. I don’t know enough about botany to know if these buds indicate that the tree is doing well or still struggling. The green buds are small and untrustworthy. There are no blooms, no flowers. The tree looks thirsty. I bend down and feel the earth around the base of the tree. I’ve seen Dad watering its roots every day for the past week, and this afternoon the dark soil feels gluey and damp. Mom must have been out yesterday adding some compost to its base. She’s mixed it into the soil unscientifically. I walk on. Meg retreats, hoping to find that her spot by the garden is still warm.

  “Where’s Mom?” I’ve spotted Dad in the stone shed. He’s wearing work gloves and a red baseball cap stained with dots of white paint. “Did she finish her letter?”

  “No, not yet. She’s upstairs on the phone. She forgot, said she’s been meaning to catch up on some calls for a couple of days.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Are you busy? I could use a hand.”

  Mom’s been after Dad for weeks to clean out the shed. Since she’s taking care of some of her own chores today, Dad elected to do the same. He does it each year, between spring and summer. It’s not a job he relishes. And the shed never looks any different. It’s eternally filled with an impressive collection of unimpressive stuff, mostly old, broken, or damaged stuff. It’s all worthless. Some will eventually escape outside, to the chicken run. That’s the typical lifespan of my parents’ belongings. The chicken run is the cemetery where most of their stuff is laid to rest after spending years deteriorating in the shed. Dad has the old basketball backboard, a box air conditioner, and a cracked satellite dish propped up against weathered two-by-fours in the chicken run. “It gives the hens some extra shade,” he claims.

  I tell Dad I’m not busy and he tosses me a pair of gloves. We toil mostly in silence. I lose track of time, but several feet outside the shed we’ve mobilized a small army of junk on the grass.

  “Should I go grab some garbage bags?” I notice Dad has brought only one black garbage bag with him. It’s sticking out of his back pocket. There’s enough debris here to fill five or six. It’s as if he’s brought a thimble to empty a bathtub.

  “Well, hold off, we should go through this stuff first. Probably don’t want to throw it all away.”

  We start sifting through the insipid collection. Dad’s save pile is growing at an alarming rate. He finds varying levels of value in the majority of our haul. I hold them up, hoping he’s going to give me the nod when I uncover a pair of children’s cross-country ski boots from the late 1970s. But Dad squints fondly at the boots and says, “Oh yeah, I forgot about those.” He drops a rusty metal fan he’s holding and steps towards me, taking a boot in his hand. “Those were your Mom’s. You wouldn’t remember, but we used to ski a lot more when we first moved out here. We would just go straight back for miles.” I know Mom’s never going to use her old boots again. I also know there’s no way Dad’s going to get rid of them. “May as well hang on to those. I think I can find a place for them in the rafters.”

  When the sorting is done, Dad removes his hat and gloves. He sits down on a squeaky aluminum lawn chair and hangs his hat over his knee. “I’ve been hearing that some of the land around here is going to be sold to developers. It’s close enough to the city to start a small subdivision.”

  It’s unexpected news. For a moment I consider the implications silently.

  “You mean right around here?”

  “Yup.”

  I did see a truck and what looked like a backhoe in one of the fields yesterday. There was a group of men milling about, but I didn’t give it much thought.

  “Is that what the digging was about yesterday?”

  “I bet they were trying to find water reserves for wells,” he says.

  Dad points to the rolling field in front of us. In the distance is an old barn that used to hold dairy cattle. Like the fields, it’s been empty for years. “Probably tear the old barn down, divide it up into two- or three-acre lots. It’ll look a little different, won’t it?”

  “Yup,” I say. “But I guess it’s inevitable.”

  “I guess. You can’t stunt progress.”

  “Nope.”

  “Things just keep moving forward.”

  “Have you told Mom yet?

  “Not yet.”

  Dad stands and shakes out a faded canvas tarp that was folded in the shed. It’s creased and dusty. Together we cover the pile of stuff we’re keeping. We’ll perform today’s task in reverse and bring it all back into the shed tomorrow.

  “I got an interesting email today,” I say. It’s not calculated; I didn’t plan on saying anything, so I surprise myself.

  “Regarding what?”

  I tell Dad how I finally sent some of the writing I’ve been working on to a friend in Toronto, the only professional writer I know. He read it and replied, saying he liked it. He had passed it along to his editor and also gave me a list of names and contacts for literary agents. He said if I’m serious, that should be my next move: continue writing and try to find an agent.

  “Brilliant. That’s pretty exciting,” says Dad. “What’s involved in getting an agent?”

  “I have no idea, really.”

  Dad’s trying to scrape some dried mud off the tarp with a sharp stick but stops now to answer.

  “Anyway, it’s great news.”

  “Well, not much yet; just a couple of emails.”

  “It’s great,” he says.

  “I’ve also been thinking, maybe it’s time I should start looking for a place,” I venture. “Nothing big or anything, but, you know . . .”

  He’s fiddling with the tarp again. “It’s up to you.”

  I haven’t done it in a long time, but suddenly I have the urge to shake Dad’s hand o
r hug him or, I don’t know . . . something.

  “I was just telling Mom about — well, it seems like my time here at the farm has been pretty beneficial.” I stay standing where I am. “It has. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things and —”

  “Well,” he says, “this is a good place for thinking about things.”

  “Yeah.”

  He hands me a couple of logs. “Here, take these.”

  I lay them on my side of the tarp to hold it down like paperweights. The edited reject pile, now only two ripped feed bags, some frayed binder twine, and a ripped pillowcase hardened into a muddy mat, fits easily into the single garbage bag Dad brought with him.

  “I know what it is! You shaved!”

  I’m at the kitchen sink, my back aimed at my parents, filling a glass of water. Mom and Dad are sitting at the table. Neither can see my face. Dad’s nibbling on some mixed nuts. Mom’s moved her computer and papers into the kitchen. The letter is still incomplete.

  “You’re absolutely right, he did. It’s so obvious now,” says Dad.

  “It’s sooo obvious.”

  “It’s pretty obvious,” I answer, shaking my head.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t realize it right away — you had that moustache for a while,” says Mom.

  “Moustache? No, Mom. I mean, I guess I did, but I had a full beard too. It was a beard.”

  “Really? I could have sworn you just had a big, fancy moustache.”

  “A moustache sounds vaguely familiar,” admits Dad.

  I close my eyes and drain my full glass of water. Immediately I start filling it again.

  Dad pops a handful of nuts into his mouth. “Are you done yet? I better get up to the post office soon.”

  “I know, I know. I’m on the last paragraph. I just need some silence.”

  I grant Mom her silence by heading out to the porch. Every so often Dad asks if Mom’s finished, because, he reminds her, the post office will be closed soon. She’s not but is always close. One time she’s on the last thought; the next time, the last sentence.