Rise

by L. Annette Binder

  Two hours later give or take the car came into focus. He saw it before she called. It was working its way up the red dirt road that wound across the mountain. She’d scraped the fender sometime in the last few months, and the green paint had started to blister. It looked almost matte in the sun, like the Humvees the soldiers drove between Fort Carson and the city. She parked right below the quarry gate and stepped out from the car. She wore a knit hat he hadn’t seen before. She frowned right at him as if she could see him sitting in his chair.

  She opened the back door and bent down by the car seat. When she turned around she had their boy cradled against her shoulder. He was bundled up in a yellow parka like the Stay Puft man. She took off his cap and set it in her coat pocket. His fists were clenched against the cold. His hair was pale as corn silk. The January sun was shining but it threw off no warmth and she was holding up their boy. She raised him like a banner.

  Weights and Measures

  The nest fell from the eaves and landed below his window. The guys from All Year Gutters were up there walking on the shingles. Every summer they came, and they weren’t careful with their hoses. They hit his balcony and his mountain bike, and it didn’t matter if he complained. The president of the condo board was always somewhere else. Playing golf in Arizona or fishing in Cancún, and he didn’t stop to listen when Jason caught him between trips. He just waved and kept on going. Where’s that pretty wife of yours, he’d say. It’s been ages since I’ve seen her. Jason hated him even more then. Not even fifty and retired already. Always smiling and always wearing shiny leather shoes. Tan as a politician and he went to a salon where the ladies buffed his nails.

  He went outside though the workmen were still spraying the water. They were shouting over the thump of the compressor. The birds were wet and their skin was dimpled gray and they were dead, all of them, except for one still in the nest. They looked like tiny ducklings. Like plucked birds hanging from hooks the way he’d seen in San Francisco. They’d gone to Chinatown there just after they were married. They’d walked together on those narrow streets, and Shelby bought straw hats and umbrellas made of paper and a tiny painted tea set for when they had a daughter.

  He knelt on the wet concrete so he could see it better. It lay curled on its stomach like a baby in a cradle. Its eyes were closed, and he reached for it. Not even a trace yet of feathers. It was a tiny thing no bigger than his pinkie. It was a heartbeat in his palm. He was scared a little the way he always was when he touched something wild.

  His duffel bag was packed already and waiting at the door. He was supposed to be in Guffy where she was waiting at the cabin. Sixty miles west on the 24 past the fossil beds, past the Eleven Mile Reservoir where they’d camped together on their honeymoon. He’d taken ten vacation days, and they’d go on the trails the way they used to. They’d pick the first raspberries. She said it was important to find a happy spot. Not the condo where they’d spent the last eight years and not her new place either. She was staying out in Rockrimmon with some Christian Scientists, and none of it made sense. A pharmacist living with folks who think disease is an illusion. They didn’t vaccinate their kids against the measles or take penicillin if they were infected. She’d taken their beagle Lucy and the stationary bike, and she cried sometimes when she called. She asked him if he missed her.

  He built a nest of white socks on the coffee table. He filled the hot-water bottle and wrapped it in a towel. His mother had raised sparrows and gray-crowned rosy finches. She dusted them for mites and kept them in the kitchen. There’s nothing sweeter, she’d say, than a baby starling when it sleeps. She taught him how to wet their beaks and how to mix their food. Dog food worked, or cat food in a pinch, and he opened one of the Alpo cans Shelby had left behind. He soaked the food in water and mashed it with his fork, and he used a chopstick from the Shanghai Gardens to bring the food to the bird’s beak. It resisted at first. He had to work the stick against its mouth, and then it ate the meat. He’d forgotten how quick they were. It was like one of those sword swallowers at the circus how deep it took the stick.

  She called him at four and again at four thirty and left messages on the machine. “I’m waiting,” she said. “I’ve been here for hours.” The second time she didn’t say good-bye. She took a breath, and he heard the tears behind her voice. “You always do this, Jason. You always leave me hanging.” He should have answered the phone. She’d been planning this trip for weeks. There was still time to pick up the receiver, but he reached for the chopstick instead and fed the baby bird.

  She hadn’t taken her engagement ring. He’d worked three months to pay for that diamond, and she left it on the dresser. Sell it, she’d told him. You need the money more than I do. The city doesn’t pay you near enough for all the work you do. He worked for the state and not the city. He worked for the Office of Weights and Measures. She could never keep that straight. He checked the scales and the packaged goods at every bakery from downtown to Fort Carson. He knew by feel if things were too light. His boss Milman called him Digit because his fingers were better than any scale.

  He sent the ring to her certified mail, signature requested, and he kept the green slip when it came. He put it on the fridge next to the Dominos menu. She was growing organic vegetables and composting her coffee grounds, and he was eating deep-dish pizza and Dunkin’ Donuts fritters. His pants were tight even when he left the top button open, and it didn’t help that he was working the bakery rotation. His shirt smelled like cinnamon by the end of the day, and he was always hungry. He ate sticky buns in a single bite. He could unhinge his jaw like a snake. She’d give him a hard time when she saw him. Fat men have lower sperm counts, that’s what she always said.

  The bird started chirping at five in the morning. He fed it in the dark. Every twenty minutes he gave it a little more, and he could see the knot inside its throat where the food was gathered. The sky lightened through his window. There were streaks of pink above the maple trees, and it was the first sunrise he’d seen in years without feeling the need to hurry. Other birds were chirping outside, and the magpies were sharpening their beaks against his chimney. The vibrations worked their way down the metal flue. He drank his coffee in the kitchen. He sat at the empty table where she used to read her magazines. We need to pay more attention to texture, she’d say, and she looked so serious about the house. She talked about the Roman shades and the lacquer on the cupboards. The skateboard park bothered her when the city built it across the street. It would hurt their property values. She cared deeply about things he didn’t even notice, but he didn’t mind and he didn’t complain because decorating kept her busy. If she focused on the house, maybe she wouldn’t notice what was missing.

  After the third time, she packed up the blankets and took apart the crib. The doctors said it was her hormone levels. They said her luteal phase was too short, but the creams and the pills didn’t make it any longer. She started talking about caffeine and pesticides and hormones in dairy products. She ate only organic and stopped eating fish because of the mercury. It’s those environmental toxins, she’d say. They’re disrupting all my cycles.

  Her friends were mothers, all of them. They named their kids Archer and Zephyr and Dax, and they talked only about mothering, as if they’d forgotten everything they’d ever cared about before. After a while Shelby stopped calling them, or maybe they stopped calling her, he wasn’t really sure. She set her sticks aside and her basal thermometer, and she didn’t mark the days down on her calendar. She was sleeping before he came to bed, and she was sleeping when he woke and he didn’t reach for her. He’d forgotten how things were before they began trying. He’d forgotten how to touch her without thinking about her mucus first or whether she was spotting.

  The walls of the nursery were still pale green, and she’d picked curtains from India that were stitched with butterflies and shells. Babies need light, she told him. They need to see the shadows moving on the walls. She knew about infants’ brains and how they developed. She talk
ed a lot about the importance of stimulation. It was a relief when she stopped reading her baby books. A relief and a sorrow both, and he didn’t go inside that room. He left it the way it was.

  He left her a message on her cell and told her he wasn’t coming. “Something’s come up,” he said. “I’ll call you when I can.” But he didn’t call her again or check his e-mail or go outside. He stayed in sweatpants and his hiking boots. He wore the clothes from his suitcase. It was better than going on a trip. He was camping inside his house, and nobody knew he was there. He didn’t brush his teeth until noon. He didn’t bother to shave. He explored the pantry shelves like a visitor, and he found things from before she’d gone organic. Ravioli in a can and niblets and Dinty Moore beef stew, an unopened package of Fig Newtons.

  He watched the World’s Strongest Man competition on cable. Just him and the bird sleeping in its nest. The men were pulling boxcars behind them and lifting the Atlas stones. They threw logs and kept the Hercules pillars from falling, and the guy from Iceland was winning again. The veins were bulging in his temples. Jason kept the bowl of mush beside him on the armrest. “How about you, Magnus,” he said. “I bet it’s time for more.”

  The bird opened its eyes. It knew his face already and the sound of the chopstick tapping against the bowl. It looked strange as a dinosaur with its pointed little head. Its beak was bright yellow, but its mouth was pale inside and Jason could see the blood pumping through its veins.

  There was this girl who worked at the Gamburyan bakery on the way to the army base. Sometimes she went behind the store so she could feed the pigeons. They pecked around her feet, and she raised her arms when the bread was gone and swung her hips around. Jason had gone there for an inspection once, and he saw her dancing from his car. Her hair flew around her shoulders. It threw colors like oil on water. He gripped the wheel, and he didn’t want to open the door or step outside. Her head was back and she was smiling and he wanted to know why. What brought her outside when it was cold and the wind had started to blow. She wasn’t even wearing a jacket. What music was she hearing there in the alleyway?

  Her name tag said Dalita. He saw it when he checked their scales. She wasn’t older than twenty. They were cheating again on the cookies, but he didn’t write them any tickets. He wrote things down in his notebook and checked the messages on his phone, but all he could see was this girl and how her hair was coming undone. She was a younger version of Shelby before Shelby became unhappy. He was distracted on his way out. He set his steel coffee mug on top of his car and left it there, and he drove that way across town. He grabbed Shelby when he got home. He tried to dance with her in the hall. What’s wrong with you, she said. Why are you acting so strange? She smiled without meaning to, and he remembered the steps from the class they’d taken years before. Forward left and side right and they waltzed into the kitchen.

  The days were full of sounds. Magpies on the chimney. Somebody practicing the drums every weekday at noon. Gardeners with their blowers because they were too lazy to use a rake. Delivery trucks backing up on the street and telephones ringing and hollow core doors slammed in the entryway. Contractors working a tile saw in the corner unit. He was living inside a hive and he hadn’t ever noticed.

  The fifth day the pin feathers really started sprouting. He brought the scale in and set the bird on the platform. He had a Tanita scale from when he used to work in silver. He still had his jewelers saw and his set of Nicholson files and sheets of copper and sterling in different gauges. Before she’d left he made her hammered silver cuffs and ashtrays they never used. Baby cups and feeding spoons that she gave away to her friends. The bird perched on the scale. It grabbed around the edge with one long witchy foot. It weighed less than ten grams. Not even a third of an ounce. It was lighter than powder when he lifted it up. Light as eight blueberries or a spoonful of sugar and he could feel the drumming of its heart.

  His voicemail box was full. His father had called and both his older brothers, and Shelby was still trying. He cleared out the messages one by one. He didn’t check his mailbox in the lobby or log on to his e-mail account. He didn’t have a single place to be. This was how life used to be when he was only eight. The summers were so long, and he didn’t have camp yet like his two older brothers. No art classes or trombone lessons, just a string of dusty afternoons in his spot beneath the trees. His mother was working in the dress shop and his dad was still in the army and he was alone in the house most days. He spent hours on the backyard lounger. He read Asimov and Weird Tales, and there was nothing better. Frozen pizzas and pudding pops and those storms rolling down from Palmer Lake. The air shimmered sometimes. It was sweet like butterscotch from the ponderosa pines. His mother would call him from work before the thunder started. She’d tell him not to be afraid. She didn’t need to watch the weather to know when one was coming because she could feel them in her bunion. Ten years had passed and his father still talked about her in the present tense.

  The bird was getting bigger. It was hopping on his floor. Its feathers were in, and it ate from a bowl and not just from his hand. He set it on the window sill so it could see what it was missing. “Look what’s out there,” he said. “Everything’s blooming, but it’s not too hot. This is the best time of the year.” He rubbed his chin, and pretty soon his beard would be full like Jeremiah Johnson’s. It was really coming in. Who knew there’d be so much gray.

  Last summer a pregnant woman in Omaha lost her balance and fell from her bedroom loft. Her husband was a musician. She landed on a microphone stand down in the living room. The metal passed through her abdomen and came out between her shoulders. She survived and her son did, too. He was born healthy and unmarked. Another inch either way and it would have speared her baby or her liver or her heart. There was a lesson to be learned from this story. He watched the news so he could understand. Sometimes things are fragile and sometimes they’re resilient and who knew why this bird had lived when all the others had died. His father smoked two packs a day and he’d been exposed to Agent Orange, but it was his mother whose lungs had failed. Women did drugs and fell down stairs and birthed their healthy babies, and at their core things were a mystery. He needed to rise above them. He needed distance to see their pattern.

  The bird learned to fly when he wasn’t watching. It was the last Saturday of his vacation. He came in from the bathroom, and it was sitting on top of the TV cabinet. It looked at him with those rust-colored eyes. It flew from the cabinet to the sofa and back again. It flew as if it had been flying for a thousand years, as if gravity were a riddle and it knew the answer from birth. “Look at you,” Jason said. He stretched out his arm like a falconer, but the bird didn’t come to his wrist.

  They started calling from work on Monday at 9:30 in the morning. His boss Milman wanted to know where he was. Personnel had you down for ten days, the secretary said. She coughed a little and cleared her throat. Maybe they have it wrong. By noon Milman himself was calling. It’s not like you, he was saying. Eleven and a half years at Weights and Measures and Jason had never taken a sick day. Not even when he had mono or when Shelby lost the babies. He should have stayed with her those first few days. Nobody needed to tell him this. They should have talked more or gone together on a trip, but he’d gone to work instead and wrote up his bakery tickets.

  Milman called all Monday afternoon and then again on Tuesday. When the ringing became too much and the flashing of the light, Jason unplugged his cordless phone and set it in the closet. He wedged it between the beach towels, and the house went quiet then. Even the bird stopped its singing.

  Any time now they’d contact his next of kin. They’d reach Shelby or his father and ask whether he was okay. They might ask the police to send a cruiser by. He could explain things away, but he lacked the will. He could blame it on a fever or a case of stomach flu, and he’d be back on his rounds. Maybe he’d see Dalita bringing the birds down from their wires. The Mesa Mercado would still be charging a dime too much for golden raisins. They h
ad a problem with their scanner. And the bakery at the downtown Farmers Market mislabeled the sourdough loaves. A nickel here and a quarter there and there weren’t enough inspectors to keep the stores honest. He could spend all his days going from one place to the next, and it wasn’t any use because people were the problem and not just the machines.

  He opened the door and stepped out onto the balcony. It was Wednesday morning just before seven and the air was already warm. Another perfect summer day. One of thousands in his life. He was forty-one years old, and he’d have another thirty summers maybe, another forty if he was lucky. The bird jumped from the counter to the floor. It followed him outside and hopped onto the glass table. If two had lived and not just one, they’d fly away together, but a single bird wouldn’t leave. It knew no face but his. He wanted to tell Shelby that he missed her. Not the way she was now but the way she used to be. He wanted to tell her to be grateful.

  In another hour all the noises would start again.The contractors would come in their white trucks and the gardeners with their blowers. But right now there was nobody in the courtyard or walking on the street. Just a kid at the skate park who had the place to himself. A skinny kid with plaid shorts so loose they’d fall down if he wasn’t careful. He moved like a pendulum when he turned on the concrete. He moved like an ocean wave. Physics could explain his movements. It could map out the forces and the curves, but it didn’t reach things at their core. What could science say about something like grace.

  Mourning the Departed

  Filipina ladies made the best funeral dishes. Sausages and beef with bananas and garlicky noodles, and once he went to a funeral where they cooked a pig up whole and people stood around and fought for the cracklings. The German widows did a nice job, too, with all their butter cakes. His choice today was limited, though. Mexican and Korean, and he wasn’t going to eat that spicy Korean food again. He’d gone once to a funeral at their Baptist church up on Academy, and all they had was fishy balls and little silver fish that still had their heads. He was sick afterward for days, and he’d go to his own funeral before another Korean one, that much was certain.