No One Knows Us Here(63)

After all that rushing around tidying, sweeping, dusting, washing, and polishing, the apartment felt stifling. The radiators clinked off and on, off and on, and there was no way to stop them from pumping out heat. I stood on a dining room chair and fiddled with the top window sashes, jiggling them loose from their frames. Soon I had them open from both the top and bottom. The stale air flew out, and a fresh breeze rushed in.

Spring cleaning and airing out the house. These seemed like such old-fashioned, wholesome things to do. I put my hands on my hips and surveyed my surroundings, like a proud housewife. I would bake cookies, I decided. Something vegan. Wendy would come home from school, greeted by their freshly baked aroma. We would sit here in our immaculate, well-kept home, we would eat vegan cookies, and she would tell me all about her day—all her little triumphs and troubles and fears.

I really should be doing this every day. What kind of sister was I?

With the windows open, I could hear the viola. It wasn’t classical music. Something new. Whatever it was, it reminded me of the Ferguson stuff. Sam was composing something, maybe? Working on some new material? Good. He was moving on, as he should. That was what I wanted for Sam. At least, that was what I would want for Sam, if I were a selfless person.

I was still standing in the middle of the apartment in my proud housewife pose when I felt something whoosh over my head so fast it rustled my hair. I screamed and ran for cover under the dining room table. Through the legs of a chair, I watched as a bird darted back and forth through the living room and dining room, back and forth, up and down. It was panicked, its wings flapping furiously.

Finally the bird landed, balancing itself on the light fixture dangling from the living room ceiling. I stared up at it and debated whether or not I should crawl out from under the table. What if I did, and the bird flew at me? I didn’t know what kind of bird it was. It wasn’t a vulture or a crow—just a small, brown bird. I didn’t know enough about birds to know if it was the kind that would attack me. I didn’t want to crawl out from under the table only to have it dive at me, pecking my eyes out and ripping off my clothes with its angry beak.

A memory. I was about twelve, Wendy four. We were outside, making forts in the sagebrush. We’d found the perfect place, a clearing of bitterbrush we covered with more sticks and branches until we formed a little cave we could crawl into. We covered the floor with an old blanket and spent hours playing out there, pretending we lived there. We’ll run away, I told Wendy. At that age, it was all I wanted to do—get out.

It didn’t occur to me that you needed to run farther than your own backyard to escape.

One day Jason called to us from the driveway while we were crouched down in our fort. I laid Wendy down on the dusty blanket. Shh, I whispered. Let’s pretend we’re asleep. Wendy closed her eyes tightly and made fake snoring sounds.

Girls! Jason yelled, adamant this time.

We climbed out of the fort and scrambled up to the driveway to see what he wanted, and he was standing there, his hands cupped together. He told us to come to him, and he opened up his palms, slowly, until we could see what he had hidden inside. A tiny cottontail bunny, with two perfect ears, a quivering nose, and a soft fluff of a tail.

You can pet him, Jason said. We each took a turn, petting the animal with careful fingers. Its whole body was trembling. We could feel it pulsing under our fingertips.

He’s scared, Jason told us. He hid the bunny back inside his cupped palms. And now he’s going to die.

We screamed in unison. No, no! Don’t kill it! We thought he was going to crush the bunny with his bare hands.

Jason laughed. He had a deep, booming kind of laugh. I’m not going to kill it. He’s already dead, he said. It’s our human scent. His mother won’t let him back home. He won’t survive the night.

That haunted me for a long time. We killed it. We killed this helpless, trembling little creature with our human scent.

I crawled out from under the dining room table and into the kitchen, searching for something I could use to capture the bird. A dish towel? A colander? I settled on a stainless steel mixing bowl. Bowl in hand, I crept back into the living room. The bird had moved during my absence and was waiting for me on the coffee table, perched on a stack of books.

The plan was murky at best. Contain the bird by throwing the bowl on top of him and call animal control. Have a professional deal with it, an ornithologist. Someone in a khaki safari suit would arrive with a net and sort this out for me. Or perhaps I could fill the bowl with bait—sunflower seeds or worms or bread crumbs—and the bird would hop inside, allowing itself to be transported out the window where it could fly free.

As soon as I got within two feet of my feathered friend, he charged straight toward me. I screamed and held the bowl up to my face, but then somehow I lost my balance, stumbled backward. I landed on the floor with a thud, and the bowl went skittering off to the side. The bird took off again, zigzagging over my head, wings whirring.

“Stop!” I yelled to it. My screams were met with a shrill, almost sad little squawk and the furious flapping of wings. “Please, stop!”

Someone was pounding on the door and yelling my name.

It was Sam.

“Help!” I screamed.

The doorknob rattled. “Let me in.”

I ran to the door and crouched down, while the bird flew overhead like a bomber pilot.

Sam rushed in. “Where is he?”