Whisper to Me(101)

I stood there, waiting for the voice to come back again and comment. To say, “Yes. You’re worthless.”

Or,

“You disgust me.”

Or,

“It’s your fault she’s dead.”

But the voice didn’t say anything.

Strange.

A couple of minutes later you pulled up, one arm out the window of your pickup. You were wearing your Ray-Bans; the sun was shining brightly. There was a hummingbird hovering in the air over the rosebushes Mom planted, which had grown out of control, its red breast quivering. A few songbirds were chirping—our neighbor Mrs. Cartwright puts seed out for them.

I listened to the unchanging language of a sparrow; that same liquid phrase of notes, over and over; a musical motif that would never alter. It made me think of Philomela, and I thought, What if that sparrow was Paris?

I guess you probably know the story. There was a king, Tereus, and he was married to Procne. But he desired her sister, Philomela. So he raped Philomela and then, to stop her telling anyone, he cut out her tongue and imprisoned her, telling his wife that her sister was dead. But Philomela wove a tapestry depicting what had happened to her, and had it smuggled to Procne.

Procne, learning of her husband’s crime, killed their son and served his flesh to her husband. Incensed with rage, Tereus pursued Procne and Philomela and tried to strangle them—but before he could, the gods turned them into birds: Procne into a nightingale, and Philomela into a swallow.

And that’s why the nightingale sings “tereu, tereu, tereu,” because forevermore it’s accusing Tereus, naming him, exposing his hideous crime. Like Echo mocking her murderer, Pan, by singing his voice and his music back to him.

There are no nightingales in North America of course. Just ordinary thrushes.

Anyway. That was my state of mind. Standing in the yard, thinking of stories about murder and cutting out tongues, and the ghosts of women turned into birds.

Maybe she really did run away.

Maybe she did go to New York.

“And maybe I’ll just never know,” I said aloud. And then burst into tears.

I concentrated on the sound of the sparrow.

Cheep-cheep. Cheep-cheep.

No, I thought. She’s dead. Paris is dead.

And what if she was in the sparrow’s voice? Like Procne and Philomela? A sparrow, instead of a nightingale or a swallow? What if she was telling me a name, telling it to me over and over, accusing someone?

Cheep-cheep.

It didn’t sound like any name I recognized.

Or what if she was in the cranes in her bedroom, the ones she’d made with her own hands, the two hundred and sixty-one cranes—Paris gone but still there, multiple, spread across paper birds?

I shook my head.

Crazy.

“What’s up with you?” you said, as you walked up.

“I was wondering what the sparrow was saying.”

You listened. “I think it’s saying, ‘I am a sparrow,’ ‘I am a sparrow.’ Over and over.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Why, what were you thinking?”

“Oh,” I said. “Pretty much the same.” I didn’t want you to know the kind of crazy thing I was thinking. Clearly I have no such compunction now.

We went over to the pickup and got inside. “So,” you said. “What did the cop say? Did you find out anything?”

“Nothing.” I told you about the parents, the empty case file that gave us nothing. But you know that of course. As I spoke, you drove the F-150 into town, and to the alley where the plush warehouse was.

“What do we do now?” you said.

“I have no idea.” Without warning, I started to cry again.

“Oh, Cass …”

You put your arms around me. They were strong, and the sound of cars passing was just a quiet shushing in the background, and I could smell you, the scent of you, and I wished that moment would never, ever end.

But it did. Those moments always do.

You pulled back, touched away a tear from my cheek with your thumb. Gently. So gently.

“But you said the cop was holding something back,” you said. “That he knew something.”

“Maybe.”

“Then we need to find out what it is.”

“Oh sure, that will be easy,” I said. “We’ll just make the cop tell us everything he knows, using our irresistible powers of suggestion.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah, hmm.”

You made a kind of pained shrug movement. “So we’re stuck.”

“Yeah.”

You got out of the truck and pulled up the rolling door, then drove the pickup into the warehouse. It was a duller day; the beams of light shining down from the windows were less bright, the piles of toys lost in the gloom, as you looked deep into the warehouse. It was spookier—I could just make out the animals closest to us, their plastic eyes shining in the light from outside.

“Creepy,” I said.

“Yes.”

We made our way into the shadow-crossed space of the warehouse.

“What are we looking for?” I said.

“Seven mixed Disney characters, small,” you said. “Two SpongeBob, medium. Three Moshi Monsters, large.”

“Okay. Which way do I go?” I couldn’t think of anything better to do than to help you.