Wingspan

by Karis Walsh

  Ken followed Bailey through her living room. At first glance, it seemed like a normal, comfortable room, complete with cushy sofas and hand-knitted quilts. Normal, except for the regal hawk that watched their every move. Ken returned its unblinking stare as she walked across the room, but she was first to break the intense eye contact.

  “Set it on the examination table,” Bailey said when they entered what must have been a bedroom before it was turned into a makeshift examination room. The closet door had been removed and now held shelves of latex gloves and bandages and syringes. The hardwood floors and large window would have made it an elegant and airy room, but a clear plastic lining covered the floor, and the window was darkened by a heavy shutter. A bright lamp and metal table were the only light spots—clinical and functional as they were—in the room.

  Ken put the box where directed and inched toward the door Bailey had closed behind them. She had done her part and now it was time to leave, but she was mesmerized by Bailey’s sudden transformation. Instead of the awkward woman Ken had first met, she now had a fluidity and grace about her as she put on a pair of heavy gloves and opened the box. For a brief moment, the bird spread its wings as if about to fly away—its wingspan easily as long as Bailey’s five-and-a-half foot height—before she expertly bundled it in a cloth and covered its face and lethally sharp beak with a leather hood. The hint of elegance Ken had noticed earlier was clearly evident now as she handled the large raptor with practiced ease. Even if Ken hadn’t spent a sweaty half hour trying to wrestle with the ungainly bird, she would have recognized skill and finesse when she saw it.

  “Put your hands here…and here,” Bailey instructed, breaking Ken out of her reverie.

  “I really can’t stay.” She groped behind her back for the door handle. “I just expected to drop off the bird and go. I don’t have any experience with—”

  “Put your hands here…and here,” Bailey repeated, not looking at Ken.

  Ken walked over to the examination table. So she spent a few more minutes in the company of sexy bird lady Bailey. What could it hurt? Well, it might hurt the poor bird. She replaced Bailey’s expert hands with her own less-adept ones. She felt the steady rhythm of the bird’s heart beneath her touch. The twitch of muscles, the latent power. Even as part of her wanted to leave, she couldn’t stop her instinctive response to the powerful living creature she held.

  “It’s an osprey.” Bailey spoke quietly as she gathered supplies from her shelves. “Probably a male, judging by his size. They’re a bit smaller than the females.”

  Ken felt the bunched muscles of the bird pushing against her restricting hands. This one seemed plenty huge, and she was relieved she hadn’t found a female instead. She’d never have gotten her in the box. Suddenly her bundle lurched and a foot broke out of its wrapper and scrabbled against the metal table. Ken caught a glimpse of a white leg with two gray toes facing forward and two backward before Bailey came over and eased the leg back into the cloth. She covered Ken’s hand with her own and changed her position slightly. Even through the heavy glove, Ken felt the assured skill of Bailey’s touch. Confident and gentle. Ken focused on the bird again, concentrating on containing it rather than on the effect of Bailey’s pressure against her skin.

  Bailey filled a syringe and swiftly injected the bird. She seemed to have a sense of the osprey’s anatomy, even when it was covered with cloth, and Ken soon felt the taut muscles beneath her hands loosen and relax. Within minutes, she was carefully cradling a dozing bird, its slow heartbeat thrumming against her wrist.

  “Put this on,” Bailey said, handing Ken a heavy apron. “I’ll need to take an X-ray.”

  Ken took the garment and draped it over her torso while Bailey set up a decrepit portable X-ray machine. Ken had somehow been drafted into the position of surgical assistant, but she gave up any pretense of wanting to leave as she watched Bailey manipulate the osprey’s injured wing. Bailey seemed unaware of her presence most of the time as she spoke soothingly to the anesthetized bird, but occasionally she raised her voice enough to give Ken instructions about how to hold the wing, or to ask for an instrument.

  Ken didn’t know much about ospreys, but she realized what a privilege it was to have such close contact with a wild animal. The raptor was dark brown with a white head and belly, its glossy feathers at once pliable and stiff. While Bailey examined the X-rays, Ken trailed her fingertip over the leading edge of the bird’s wing and along the wing tips, tracing the delicate structure.

  “Looks like a clean break,” she said, looking at the backlit X-ray with a feeling of relief. Bailey had to be able to fix the injury. Ken didn’t think she could bear to hear that the osprey would never fly again.

  “Well, yes, it is.” Bailey’s voice sounded more cautious than Ken liked. “A break in the humerus. It isn’t close to the joint, so it has a good chance of healing.”

  “But?” Ken prompted.

  Bailey turned away from the X-ray and came over to the table. She spread the feathers on the osprey’s belly. “But…do you see these small cuts? And these here, near the broken bone? He most likely was hit by a car. The scrapes are minor, and the break isn’t the worst I’ve seen, but he might have internal damage that I can’t fix. I’ll wrap the wing and suture a couple of the larger cuts, but we won’t know the extent of his injuries for a few days.”

  Bailey’s voice was matter-of-fact, as if she were reading the information out of a textbook, but her hands told a different story. Her gentle touch on the bird’s wing, the light brush of a fingertip over the osprey’s white head. Ken had no doubt Bailey would be devastated if the bird didn’t survive. She had a feeling Bailey had seen plenty of heartbreaking cases in this room and that her detached manner of stating possible outcomes was a way to protect herself from the pain of losing a patient. She let her fingers briefly rest on Bailey’s arm.

  “I know you’ll do your best,” she said. “Tell me how I can help.”

  Bailey pulled her arm away and muttered something about needing to get some supplies. She left the room and leaned against the wall, just out of sight of Ken. She had been fighting back the emotions that always arose when she saw a hurt bird. She would feel its pain, as if she herself were injured, and every time it was necessary for her to push those sympathetic feelings down and do her job with what detachment she could muster. Ken’s touch had almost made her lose control, had almost made her focus on the ache of injury rather than the logistics of healing.

  Bailey went into the room next door and searched for something she could bring back into the room to support her excuse for leaving so abruptly. She was comforted by the brush of feathers, but the touch of human skin was sometimes too abrasive, too intrusive. Ken’s hand had been anything but. Her touch had spoken to Bailey, given her an assurance of help and protection and understanding. Promises Bailey couldn’t trust because they had been broken too many times in the past. Ken was here for the moment, only reluctantly staying to help hold the osprey. She looked as out of place here as Bailey would be—with her vulture smell and casual, ripped clothes—in the world she imagined Ken inhabited. Bailey wished she could take back her insistent order for Ken to help. She’d be better off handling the bird alone rather than being distracted and vulnerable because of Ken’s nearness. And aroused, damn it.

  Bailey picked up a towel and went back to the surgery. Her first priority was to take care of the osprey. She didn’t have a reasonable excuse to make Ken leave now, but she could handle the situation by keeping her distance. No more touching, and she would think of Ken as an impersonal assistant. Better yet, she could use Ken as a guinea pig and try to incorporate some of Sue’s suggestions for teaching as she instructed Ken in her nurse duties. Bailey hurried back to the surgery, more comfortable now that she had a plan in place.

  Unfortunately, her plan didn’t keep her from noticing the way Ken smelled of spicy soap, exotic and mysterious as a pirate at sea. Bailey tossed the towel on the table next to her and arranged the
instruments she’d need for the osprey. She’d have to pretend she was instructing an intern. How to start? Tell a joke, Sue had said. A hawk walked into a bar. “Drinks for everyone! Put them on my bill!” Bailey coughed to cover her laughter.

  “Are you okay?” Ken asked. She was still holding the osprey as if he’d suddenly wake up and take flight.

  “Allergies,” Bailey said. Only the seriously exhausted would laugh at her lame joke, so she kept it to herself. So, no jokes. Maybe an anecdote.

  “You aren’t the only person to mistake an osprey for an eagle,” she said. “The dark carpals and flight feathers contrasting with the lighter-colored axillaries and belly can appear similar to a juvenile bald eagle. At least from a distance.” Bailey paused. Sue had said personal anecdote, not mini-lecture. She wasn’t sure how to make the information personal. “I have a book that shows pictures of them side by side, and I can show you later. Hand me a packet of gauze from the cupboard, please.”

  Ken found the gauze, and then the cotton and antibiotics as Bailey asked for them. Bailey had seemed nervous when she came back with the towel, but as she concentrated on the osprey she became less chatty, and her aura of calm returned. Ken hadn’t wanted to stay, but she found herself helping as much as she could. A different kind of help than she’d been called on to offer before. Instead of pretending to be strong and fighting to protect someone weak, she was working together with Bailey. She felt a new sense of connection as she fetched items, snipped gauze, and held the massive wing steady while Bailey joined the ends of the broken bone and wrapped it tightly. She watched Bailey’s hands at work the entire time, even as she listened to the quiet instructions and marveled at the fragile yet strong creature on the operating table.

  Ken had seen plenty of beautiful hands. Slender wrists, tapered fingers, neatly manicured nails. And skilled hands—whether they were designing or drafting or making love. But Bailey’s hands were different. They somehow had personality beyond their delicate shape and obvious proficiency. They managed to convey compassion and tenderness and single-minded focus.

  “That’s it,” Bailey said, breaking Ken out of her trance. “I’ll put him in the recovery room.”

  Ken followed as Bailey carried the large bird into yet another converted bedroom. There were several cages of varying size in the otherwise empty room. Bailey nudged open the door of one of them—one short enough so the bird couldn’t attempt to fly—and she gently put the osprey onto a nest of blankets before shutting the door and draping a heavy blanket over the cage.

  “Now what?” Ken asked. She had been determined to drop off the bird and leave, but now she felt a strange reluctance to go. She wouldn’t mind a tour of the facilities, an up-close look at some of the recuperating patients. Perhaps another hour or two assisting Bailey with rehab work. Ken was sure she’d come away from the afternoon with new ideas and images to file away for later use in her own designs. She had gotten out of the habit of flexing her mental muscles and examining the shape of the world around her, but she’d need those skills in her new job. In her previous work, her creative output had been as limited as the fuel she had been giving it over the past years. Bailey—no, not Bailey, but the raptors she tended—had given Ken a sudden surge of energy, a sudden desire to look more closely at something and see what connections she might find.

  “Now you fill out an admittance form, and then you’re free to go.” Bailey deflated Ken’s plans, her manner abrupt again now that her hands had stopped working. “Ospreys are migratory, so I have to file federal and state paperwork.”

  Ken took a last look at the covered cage before she walked out the door Bailey held open for her. “What about my bird?” she asked as they went down the short hall, past the staring hawk, and into the kitchen. “How do I find out what happens to him?”

  “Your bird?” Bailey repeated with a shake of her head. She pulled a form out of the pile of papers on her kitchen table. “He’s wild. He doesn’t belong to you or me.”

  Ken crossed her arms over her chest and refused to take the pen Bailey held out to her. The osprey had been on her property. And she had just spent an hour up-close and personal with him. She didn’t own him, but she damned sure deserved to know his fate.

  “Fine,” Bailey said after a long pause. “You can call in a week and I’ll let you know how he’s doing.” She tapped the pen against the form before holding it out again. This time Ken took it and sat down at the table.

  Obviously Dr. Chase had excellent bird skills but completely lacked people skills. Ken filled out her name and phone number, the date, and a description of the osprey and its injuries. She hesitated when she came to the blank asking where she had found the bird. She glanced at Bailey where she stood at the counter, mixing what looked like moistened dog food with some sort of meat. Unappetizing. Well, the food was. Bailey herself was definitely tempting, but she had a quirky streak that made Ken uncomfortable. Ken guessed she was the type of person who would be unwavering in her beliefs. Unyielding in her fight for what she perceived as justice. All very good if one was an injured raptor in need of her help. But what would Bailey think of Ken’s plan to develop her waterfront property? If she put the actual address where she had found the osprey, would she go visit the site one day and find Bailey chained to one of her trees?

  Ken filled in the address of her new firm. What difference did it make where she had actually found the bird? She put down her pen and leaned back in her chair, looking around the spacious kitchen. Like every other room Ken had seen in Bailey’s house, this one appeared to be dedicated to the raptor center. A stack of empty dog crates lined one wall, and an upright freezer—filled with God-knew-what—took up most of the dining area. The kitchen table, covered with feeding charts and local maps and ornithology books, was crammed in between the counter and the stove. A bag of something that looked disturbingly like a mass of fat worms sat uncomfortably close to Ken’s elbow. The room was certainly not user-friendly for the gourmet cook, not that Bailey seemed to use the kitchen for anything beyond making bird dinners. The only visible appliance designed for purely human use was a gleaming professional-quality espresso machine with a coffee grinder sitting next to it. Ken would have paid a lot of money for just five minutes alone with that machine. She was certain she could make magic with it.

  “You found the osprey in Bellevue?”

  Bailey swiped the form off the table while Ken was staring at her espresso machine. She thought she read guilt in one of Ken’s unguarded moments before her expression closed again.

  “I’ve seen birds in the city,” Ken said.

  “Yes, but did you see this bird in the city?”

  “Does it matter where I found him?”

  Bailey paused, fighting the temptation to answer Ken’s question with another question. This could go on all afternoon. “Yes, it does,” she said instead. Appeal to reason. “The data is used to track migration patterns. And if I’m eventually able to release the bird, I’ll want to let him go as close as I can to where he was found.”

  “Fine,” Ken said, snatching the form out of Bailey’s hands. She crossed out the Bellevue address and filled in one from Sequim.

  “Do you live there?” Bailey asked, curious about why Ken had lied in the first place.

  “I will. It’s just a vacant lot now, but I’m having a house built.”

  Bailey was familiar with the area. Private and quiet. Probably close to the water. And judging by the quality of Ken’s clothes and her fancy-looking sports car, the house was bound to be something special. Classier than a rundown old house filled with raptor cages. Bailey wouldn’t trade her center for a mansion by the ocean, but she occasionally felt like a prisoner in her home. So many beaks to feed, and whenever one patient recovered and moved on, there were always several more injured and ready to move in.

  “Will you really release the osprey at my place?” Ken asked. Bailey had seen too many people who wanted birds out of their yards, but Ken seemed pleased by the ide
a.

  “Maybe not right in your backyard,” Bailey said. “It’ll depend on the neighborhood and how busy it is. But close-by, at least.”

  “I’d like to be there when you do.”

  “Maybe,” Bailey said. She wouldn’t commit to anything just yet. She had been in the rehab business too long to make promises of any sort. She had no idea whether the osprey would even make it through the night, let alone survive long enough to be released. She didn’t encourage people who brought injured birds to the center to keep in touch because she hated them to have to share her disappointment if she was unable to save them. Ken had only given her glimpses of emotions, but Bailey couldn’t bear to have one of them be sadness, no matter how fleeting. She wasn’t sure why she felt protective when Ken seemed perfectly capable of putting up her own defenses. Maybe because the emotions Ken did show were so pure and clear. Bailey had learned how to hide her feelings as well, and she didn’t want to be responsible for building more walls around other people.

  Besides, the last time Bailey had let an outsider get involved in the release of a bird, she had gotten trapped in the university’s grip. Vonda Selbert had been determined to stay involved when she brought the young eagle to her after he had flown into her picture window and fractured his bill. Bailey had wired his beak together and overwintered him while his growth plate regrew. In the spring, Bailey had returned to Vonda’s home—where Vonda had filled every window with decals and hanging streamers—and together they had released the now-mature eagle. Vonda had been so moved she had wanted to help as many birds as possible. Bailey appreciated the thought, but she resented the new impositions in her life. Who knew what damage Ken would do to Bailey’s life if she were allowed to stick around during the osprey’s recovery? Bailey didn’t want to find out. Vonda had succeeded in wearing down Bailey’s energy. Ken seemed capable of breaking hearts.