A Bird on a Windowsill

by Laura Miller

  He laughs and looks across the bar. “No, it’s fine. I don’t want to mess up your girl party. I’ll just talk to her later.”

  “Okay, well, you guys be safe tonight. I’m going to get back over to them.”

  She rests her hand on my shoulder after she stands. And then she’s gone.

  Dillon rubs the back of his neck, sits back in his chair and then just stares at me.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  I clear my throat and take another drink.

  “Look, man,” he says, “I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I do think you should know that Jake Buckler has been eyeing her all night.”

  “Where is he?” I ask, looking behind me, trying my best to maneuver as covertly as possible.

  “Over there,” he says, glancing at a place on the opposite side of the little bar.

  I find him, and sure enough, after only a few moments of watching him, I notice he takes a long look in Savannah’s direction.

  “What in the hell is he doing?” I ask.

  “It looks, to me, as if he’s moving in on your girl.”

  My face turns stern and quickly finds Dillon. “She’s not my girl.”

  I get up, polish off the last of my bottle and set it down hard.

  “I’ll see you later, Dillon.”

  “What? You’re leaving?”

  “Yeah.”

  That’s all I say. And I turn and make my way out of the bar. And when I get outside, I suck in a long, deep breath.

  I probably should have just stayed home tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Savannah

  (23 Years Old)

  Day 6,590

  I walk into my office and immediately go to the calendar on the wall.

  “Do you miss him?”

  I freeze, my back to him.

  “How are you always in here?” I ask, turning to see Salem sitting in the old recliner.

  He shrugs. “I’m mostly a face. They don’t notice if I’m gone too much.”

  I smile. “Why didn’t I hear the bell?”

  “Well, I would suspect that it’s because your music is too loud.” He points to his ear. And immediately, I remember the earbuds in my own ears.

  “Oh,” I say, pulling at the wires and realizing, at the same time, that I’m shouting. “That’s probably a good point.”

  I set the earbuds onto my desk.

  “Well, do you miss him? Your uncle?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my eyes getting stuck on the old wood surface of the desk. My initials are carved into the corner. I remember doing it one day, not too long after I learned how to write them. But instead of getting mad, Uncle Les picked up the little screwdriver and carved his initials right under mine. I run my fingers over the L and the K.

  Thinking of Uncle Les still turns up mixed emotions. I’ve had time to accept it, but I’m still sad. I barely saw him the last six years of his life, before the cancer took him away. I remember everything about spending that last summer I had with him. My mom must have known, even then. And I remember those long days I’d spend here growing up, too. The musty paper smell, his stacks of notes on his desk, the endless sticky notes stuck everywhere, this two-room office—all of it felt like home, in a way. Hell, he’s probably the reason why I got into newspapers in the first place.

  “There’s a lot of people here that miss him,” he says.

  I sigh, pick up a paper and stuff it with a weekly ad.

  “That’s nice to hear.”

  He nods. “It’s true.”

  “So, what else did I miss?” I ask, trying to change the subject before my eyes go to tearing up on me.

  He looks at me as if I’m crazy.

  “Here?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “with you. I mean, clearly, I missed the whole part where you got a girlfriend.”

  He just smiles. “Don’t look so surprised, Vannah.”

  My breath catches in my throat, and I feel my own smile start to fade.

  “What?” he asks, after a few seconds, as if he doesn’t know why I lost my grin.

  “Nothing. I just... You called me Vannah. I just haven’t heard you call me that in a long time.”

  “Oh.” His eyes are wide. “I don’t even know where it came from.”

  “No, it’s fine,” I quickly say. “It’s nice.”

  I can tell he’s at a loss for words.

  “Well...?” I ask again.

  He gives me a blank stare, and it makes me laugh. “You and...?”

  “Oh. Anna?”

  “Yeah,” I confirm.

  “Oh.” He sits up in the chair. “She’s great, really. We met at one of Dillon’s parties in St. Louis about six months ago.”

  “Hmm,” I hum. “So, are you guys like...really serious then?”

  “Oh, one sec,” he says, reaching into his buzzing pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” he mouths.

  I shake off his apology to let him know it’s fine, as he pulls out his phone and puts it to his ear.

  “Yeah,” he says. “No, I can pick it up.”

  I stuff another ad into a paper.

  “Sure,” he says, after a brief pause. “I love you, too.”

  I stop what I’m doing and look up at Salem. He’s busy stuffing his phone back into his jeans pocket. He has no idea that my heart just took a beating with those four, little words of his.

  “I’m sorry. Now, what did you say again?”

  I force myself to take a breath. “Oh, it was nothing.”

  He looks as if he doesn’t quite believe me. “Okay, then.”

  I watch as he shifts in his chair. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

  I nod. “Sure.”

  “Did you read my letter?”

  I drag in a long breath. I think I knew this was coming. I expected it, eventually. And of course, I know exactly what letter he’s talking about.

  “Yes.”

  “And...?”

  I open my mouth, but nothing comes out, so I try again. “Salem, that was a long time ago.”

  “As a friend,” he interjects. “Just a friend asking a friend.”

  His look is gentle and almost pleading.

  “I’m sorry I never wrote back,” I say, slowly setting the paper down. “I’m sorry I never texted or called. I’m sorry I...”

  I stop. He’s piercing me with his light brown eyes, as if my answer’s not good enough. And I know it’s not.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” I confess.

  “We were friends,” he says. “You could have just written back. I mean, at the very least, we were friends, right?”

  “Yeah. We were. We are,” I say.

  I look at him. He’s biting the inside of his cheek and nodding his head.

  “It wasn’t anything you said...or didn’t say,” I add. “I’m just...sorry. I really didn’t know what to do. I was a teenager. I had a boyfriend. And you were here. And I was there. And I felt as if I were in two places. And I didn’t feel as if I was being fair to Aaron...or you. So, I just did what I thought was right, I guess.”

  He’s still slowly bobbing his head when I finish. And then he stills.

  “One more thing.”

  “Okay,” I say, but secretly I’m scared to hear it.

  “You did like me, right? I mean, you said you... I mean, I didn’t just make that up?”

  He’s wearing this face that looks as if he’ll just break in half if I don’t answer his question the right way.

  “I did,” I assure him. “Yes, of course.” I barely get the words out.

  “Were you in love with me?”

  I freeze and fix my eyes on him.

  “Yeah.” I don’t even think about it before I say it. “I did love you. I still love you. ...You’re my oldest friend,” I add, being careful not to cross any lines with him and his girlfriend.

  He softly chuckles and then drops his gaze.

  “What?”

  “I asked
you if you were in love,” he says.

  I don’t know what to say after that, so I just go back to stuffing the last ad into the paper and setting the paper onto the pile. I don’t know what he wants me to say. He’s the one with the girlfriend. He’s the one who just told her he loved her. He’s the one...

  “Wait,” I say, “why did you want to know?”

  Seconds draw out, and I can hear that clock on the wall and its unforgiving ticks.

  “No reason,” he eventually replies. “I guess I just always wanted to know that, and now...I do, so...”

  “Wait.” My mind is just now starting to process his question. “Were you in love? Like really, in love...”

  Before I can even get the rest of the sentence out, he stops me.

  “Did you read the letter?”

  I nod.

  He keeps his eyes on me, but he doesn’t say another word. And after a few more moments, he gets up.

  “I’m meeting Anna in Washington in a half hour. I should probably get going.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I cross my arms against my chest.

  “Okay,” he says. And then he tips his old baseball cap and escapes through the door.

  And then he’s gone.

  And I’m just left with a thought: Salem was in love...with me. And I broke his heart. And it still matters to him. But then, it’s quickly replaced with another thought: But he just left to go see Anna—whom he loves.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Savannah

  (23 Years Old)

  Day 6,593

  I’m rooting through an old box I stuffed full of ticket stubs for movies I don’t even remember seeing anymore and old Valentine’s Day cards from boys I’d much sooner forget, when I find it.

  I push the box away with my foot and bring the letter closer.

  Vannah,

  I haven’t stopped looking for your star tower. I know every day I’m getting closer. I can feel it.

  Rusty’s doing good. He does cat things all day. He stares at me while I’m sleeping and while I’m eating and while I’m watching TV. In fact, he pretty much just stares at me all the time. The usual.

  Your name is still echoing off the levees down in the bottoms. I went there and listened for it the other day, and sure enough, there it was. Savannah Elise Catesby—loud and clear.

  I wish you didn’t have to leave again. I wish I could have gone with you. And I know you have a boyfriend. But I still just wanted you to know this:

  One day I met a little girl when I was just a boy. And we spent our days on sawdust piles and teeter-totters. And cherry Popsicles melted into paper airplanes and then late-night movies and then things with wheels. And those days turned into years. And one by one, those sawdust piles dried up. And those old, wooden teeter-totters turned into boat docks and concrete slabs and truck cabs under dark skies and starry nights. But still, that same little girl remained.

  And somewhere in all that sawdust and concrete, that little girl stole my heart, and I was too busy being in love to even know it.

  I’m going to miss you, Vannah. But more so, I’m going to miss us. Because us is a pretty cool thing. And I hope someday you see that, too. Until then, my bird, I’ll just be waiting.

  Love,

  Eben

  I finish and reread one line: I was too busy being in love to even know it.

  My heart sinks. How did I not see that?

  I’m letting the old words soak in when I notice a stack of Polaroids. I set the letter down and pick them up.

  “Our memories,” I whisper, under my breath.

  I shuffle through the photos, stopping to remember the moment I took each one. And with each one, I know my smile is growing wider.

  “Savannah.”

  My heart almost leaps right out of my chest.

  I look up to see Salem standing in the open doorway to my house—Lester’s old house. It’s a nice day; I was just letting the place air out a bit.

  I quickly stuff the letter back into the box.

  “Salem?”

  “I saw your car out front,” he says.

  “Oh.” I haphazardly try to capture the stray pieces of my hair and stick them back into my ponytail.

  “You wanna get some lunch?”

  My eyes fall to my sweatpants and old tee shirt.

  “You look great.”

  I start to laugh. “I don’t. ...But I’ll go.”

  He waits, as I stand up, still holding the photos.

  “What do you got there?”

  I stop and follow his gaze to my hand.

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I shake my head and hide the Polaroids under a book on the table. “Just let me get my keys.”

  “Sure thing,” he says, rocking back on his heels.

  “This is weird.”

  “What’s weird?” I ask.

  “You and me. You and me, sitting down, talking about our days over cheeseburgers.”

  I smile. “Well, technically, they’re just burgers.”

  Tiny wrinkles form at the corners of his eyes.

  “Who runs out of cheese?”

  I shrug. “Diners run by friends of Dillon Denhammer run out of cheese.”

  He lowers his head and laughs to himself.

  “But anyway, I don’t think it’s that weird—you and me eating some lunch, that is.” I take a bite of my burger.

  “Savannah, I never thought I was gonna see you again.”

  I stop chewing and look up. There was something in his voice—some frail, vulnerable piece—that made me take notice.

  “Why would you think that?” I ask, after I swallow.

  He shrugs. “Because I had no reason to believe I would.”

  His sharp thought stabs right into my heart and stays there. When I made the decision not to write back to him, I don’t think I ever intended never to see him again. I think I just...didn’t think at all. I think I just made a choice that I knew would get us through the next few days, and maybe the next few months.

  “And then one day,” he goes on, “there you were, in that newspaper office, just standing there, staring back at me.”

  I fight back a small smile.

  He stays in my eyes for a few, fleeting moments, and then I panic and grab a fry. “How’s Anna?”

  Something in his look shifts, and he clears his throat and stares down at his plate. “She’s good. She just got a promotion.”

  “Oh, really? What did she get promoted to?”

  “Oh, it’s another step up in her certification. She does hair at Kerlin’s Salon.”

  I smile. “That’s great.”

  “She’s really excited,” he adds, as I take another bite of my burger.

  “Whatever happened with you and Andy?”

  “Who?”

  “The high school boyfriend.”

  “Aaron?” I ask.

  “Yeah, maybe it was that.”

  I laugh on the inside.

  “Turns out he was cheating on me.”

  “Oh,” he says, looking sorry now that he had ever brought it up. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t be. I didn’t lose too much sleep over it.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I didn’t. But he might have. Turns out, my friends snuck into his dorm room in the middle of the afternoon and took everything he owned, including his mattress, and threw it out the window and right onto Hudson Hall’s lawn.”

  I pick up my drink and take a sip from its straw.

  “I had crazy friends,” I add.

  We both laugh. We laugh as if we never missed out on all those years. We laugh as if we’re still those same, two junior high kids, hiding out under those stairs. But eventually, it grows quiet again. And I’m okay with the quiet, too. I’m okay with just me and him and my thoughts.

  I just can’t believe that same boy I knew when I was five is sitting across from me now. He even looks different from how I remember him at seventeen. The man in front of me is tall and strong and filled out
in all the places you’d expect a good-looking man to be filled out in—even down to the biceps peeking out from his fitted tee shirt sleeves.

  “Why do you always wear that key?” I ask.

  His eyes find mine fast.

  “What key?”

  “That key at the end of that chain,” I say, pointing a fry at the silver popping out from his collar.

  A surprised glow washes over his face.

  “Oh, come on, Eben.”

  Instantly, he cocks his head. “You called me Eben.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You haven’t called me that since the first day you got back here.”

  “Hmm.” I try to think back. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  I push my lips to one side. That’s probably about the time I found out he had a girlfriend. “Anyway, about the key.”

  I watch the edges of his mouth slowly turn up.

  “That’s the key I gave you, isn’t it?”

  He just stares at me, as if he doesn’t know what to say.

  “How did you know?”

  “I always knew,” I say.

  His eyes narrow, right before he pulls on the chain. And sure enough, a shiny, little key pops out of his collar.

  “You haven’t found it already, have you? And you’re keeping it all a secret for yourself?”

  He laughs. “You would know if I just so happened to stumble upon an observatory that belongs to this key.”

  This time, I’m the one with the narrowed eyes. “Would I?”

  He lowers his gaze and smiles.

  I want to know why he kept it. And I want to know why he still keeps it around his neck. But I don’t intrude. Not today, anyway.

  “You’re gonna find me that star tower,” I say, biting into another fry. “And then, the first thing you’re going to do is find me.”

  His lips curve up even more, and then he nods. “Of course. Of course, I will.”

  And then carefully, in almost a calculated kind of way, his eyes find mine.

  There are sounds from the café—plates clanging, silverware dropping, people murmuring—but they’re all being drowned out by the silence between our stares.

  You don’t have to say it, Salem.