Mouthful of Birds(9)

“Excuse me, Dad.”

And she’d stand up, go to her room, and gently close the door. The first time, I turned down the TV and waited in silence. There was a brief, sharp shriek. A few seconds later, I heard the pipes in the bathroom, the water running. Sometimes she came down after a little while, serene, her hair perfectly combed. Other times she showered and came down in pajamas.

Sara didn’t want to go out. Studying her behavior, I thought maybe she was suffering from the beginnings of agoraphobia. Sometimes I took a chair out to the yard and tried to convince her to come outside for a while. But it was no use. Even so, her complexion continued to radiate energy, and she looked more and more beautiful, as if she spent her days exercising in the sun.

Every once in a while, as I went about my business, I found a feather. On the floor beside the door, behind the coffee can, among the silverware, or in the bathroom sink, still wet. I would pick it up, taking care that she didn’t see me do it, and flush it down the toilet. Sometimes I stood watching the water carry it down. Sometimes the toilet filled up again, the water grew calm and mirrorlike once more, and I was still there looking, wondering if it was necessary to go back to the supermarket, if it was really worth it to fill the carts with so much garbage, and thinking about Sara, about what could be out there in the yard.



* * *





One afternoon, Silvia called to let me know she was in bed with a vicious flu. She said she couldn’t come visit us. She asked if I could manage without her. I asked if she had a fever, if she was eating enough, if she’d been to the doctor, and when I had her busy enough with her answers, I told her I had to hang up, and I did. The phone rang again, but I didn’t answer.

We watched TV. When I brought my food, Sara didn’t get up to go to her room. She concentrated on the yard until I finished eating, then she looked back at the TV show.

The next day, I stopped at the supermarket before going home. I put a few things in my cart, the same ones as always. I wandered the aisles as if I were doing a first reconnaissance of the store. I stopped at the pet section, where there was food for dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, and fish. I picked up some of the items and examined them more closely. I read their ingredients, how many calories they provided, and the amounts recommended for each breed, weight, and age. Then I went to the gardening section, where there were only plants with and without flowers, and flowerpots and dirt, so I went back to the pet section and stood there thinking about what to do next. Other shoppers filled their carts and steered them around me. The loudspeaker announced a sale on dairy products in honor of Mother’s Day, and then played a song about a guy who had all kinds of women but who longed for his first love, until finally I pushed the cart back to the canned-goods section.

That night it took Sara a while to fall asleep. My room was below hers and I could hear her pace nervously above me, get into bed, and then get out again. I wondered what condition the room was in; I hadn’t gone up since she’d arrived. Maybe the place was a real disaster, a barnyard full of muck and feathers.

The third night after Silvia’s call, before I went home, I stopped to look in the birdcages hanging from a pet store’s awning. None of the birds looked like the sparrow I’d seen at Silvia’s house. They were all brightly colored, and in general a little bigger. I stood there for a while until a salesman came over to ask me if I was interested in any of the birds. I said no, absolutely not, that I was just looking. He stayed nearby, moving boxes around and looking out toward the street, and then he realized I really wasn’t going to buy anything and he went back to the counter.

At home, Sara was waiting on the sofa, upright in her yoga position. We greeted each other.

“Hi, Sara.”

“Hi, Dad.”

Her rosy cheeks were fading, and she didn’t look as healthy as she had on previous days. I made my food, sat down on the sofa, and turned on the TV. After a while Sara said:

“Daddy . . .”

I swallowed what I was chewing and turned down the volume on the TV, unsure whether she had really spoken, but there she was, her legs pressed together and her hands on her knees, looking at me.

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

I made a movement with my hand and accompanied it with a nod. The whole gesture together meant Yes, of course. She was my daughter, right? And just in case, thinking mostly about what my ex-wife would have considered “appropriate,” I said:

“Yes, sweetheart. Of course.”

And then Sara smiled and looked out at the yard for the rest of the TV show.

We slept badly again, Sara pacing her room end-to-end, me tossing and turning in bed until I finally drifted off. The next day I called Silvia. It was Saturday, but she didn’t answer the phone. I called back later, and again around noon. I left a message. Sara spent the whole morning sitting on the sofa looking out at the yard. Her hair was a little disheveled and she wasn’t sitting up so straight anymore; she looked very tired. I asked her if she was all right and she said:

“Yes, Dad.”

“Why don’t you go out to the yard for a while?”

“No, Dad.”

Thinking of our conversation the night before, it occurred to me to ask if she loved me, but right away that struck me as pure stupidity. I called Silvia again. I left another message. In a low voice, making sure Sara couldn’t hear me, I said to her voice mail: