Our Missing Hearts (53)
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When Margaret returns, nothing seems to have changed: the trash bag of cans is still over her shoulder, the plastic bag still dangles from her wrist. She peels off her hat.
Are you all right? she asks. You weren’t scared, while I was gone?
You’ve been gone for three years, Bird thinks, a few hours is nothing. He bites back the words.
I’m fine, he says.
His mother reaches into the plastic bag.
I didn’t know what you liked, she says, so I got some of everything.
Granola bars, nuts, candy, cans of soup, packages of salted almonds, a carton of Minute rice. As if she’d gone aisle by aisle, plucking an item from every shelf. It saddens him and touches him all at once, that she had no idea what he wanted, and that despite not knowing she had still tried so hard to please him.
It’s been such a long time, she says, since—
She stops, looking down at the bounty between them.
I should have brought you real food, she says, embarrassed, and Bird can see the meal she wishes she’d procured: hot and nourishing, balanced and wholesome. Green vegetables, mashed potatoes, corn glossy with butter. Meat sliced thin and fanned out on the white china plate. He understands: it’s been a long time since she’s taken care of anyone, and she’s nearly forgotten how. It’s been so long she’d forgotten such a meal could exist, let alone the world in which someone might eat it.
It’s okay, he says, this is fine. And he means it.
They settle on cups of instant noodles, something to warm their hands. The bottle caps, he sees, are all gone.
When the noodles are ready, she slides a steaming cup toward him along with a plastic fork. They are lemon-yellow and intensely salty, and Bird wolfs them down. On the other side of the coffee table, Margaret pauses, forkless, then slurps hers straight from the cup.
How long have you been living here, Bird asks. He fishes up the last dregs of his noodles.
Almost four weeks. Though living isn’t the right word. This is just temporary, while I get things ready.
This only raises more questions for Bird. Ready, he says, ready for what? What are you doing?
Have some milk, she says, filling a mug and nudging it toward him. It builds strong bones.
She fills one for herself and takes a gulp.
Besides, she adds, it won’t keep. No fridge. So drink up.
From the bag she pulls a can, pries up the ring with a fingernail, pops the lid off. Inside, jewels of fruit glisten.
Dessert, she says, setting the can between them, and this gesture, small as it is, warms him: he has always loved canned peaches and she still remembers this. He spears a golden wedge with his fork.
Do you like school, she asks suddenly. Is your teacher nice? Are the other kids kind to you?
Bird shrugs, a one-shoulder twitch, and scoops up a sliver of peach. It is her fault if they’re not, but he does not want to tell her this. They call me Noah, he says instead. Dad told them to.
His mother pauses. She’s barely eaten any of her noodles, and now she sets her cup aside.
Is he happy, she asks.
Her voice is calm and even, as if she’s asked about the weather. Only her hands give her away: her thumbs press so hard against her fingers that the nails have turned white.
Like most children, Bird has seldom considered whether his father is happy or not. Each morning he gets up and goes to work; he tends to Bird’s needs. Yet as Bird thinks about it, there is a melancholy around him, that hush he’d ascribed to the library but maybe—he realizes—is rooted much deeper.
I don’t know, he says. But he takes good care of me.
It feels important to say this, though whether he’s defending his father or reassuring his mother, he isn’t sure.
His mother smiles, a small sad smile. That was one thing I never worried about, she says. Then: Does he still read the dictionary?
Bird laughs. He does, he says. Every night.
She does remember, he thinks, even that tiny thing. It makes her a little less of a stranger.
He doesn’t like to talk about you, Bird admits. He said—he said to pretend you don’t exist.
He expects this to sadden her even more, but instead she nods.
We agreed that was best.
But why, Bird insists, and his mother sighs.
I’m trying to tell you, Bird. I really am. But you need to hear everything, the whole story, to understand. Tomorrow, okay? The rest of it, tomorrow.
As he heads up the stairs, she calls after him.
Do you want me to call you Noah, now? If that’s what everyone else calls you?
One hand on the creaking bannister, he pauses.
No, he says, cheeks suddenly aglow. You can still call me Bird. If you want to.
The next morning, back at the table, she works faster, hands moving quickly, aware time is running out. She begins without preamble. Like plunging into the ocean before she has time to be afraid.
* * *
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Two weeks after Bird’s ninth birthday. Over breakfast, Ethan had suddenly paused, stunned, and set his phone before her. Heads bent over the screen, they’d read the headline together: conflict erupts at protest; 6 injured, 1 dead. Below, a photo of a young Black woman—long braids pulled back in a ponytail, glasses, yellow hat. Still standing, eyes still clear and open, mouth still parted in a cry, a millisecond before her mind knows what her body already feels: a red rose of blood just starting to bloom on her chest. Clutched in her hands, a poster: all our missing hearts. And a caption: Protester Marie Johnson, 19, a first-year student at NYU from Philadelphia, was killed by a stray bullet in police response to anti-PACT riots Monday.