Push(66)

David is staring at me as if I am certifiable. It’s clear that he is choosing his words carefully. “Can I be glad, too?” he asks.
“Fuck, yeah,” I say emphatically, trying to rein in my psychotic laughter. “If he dies, I am free from everything. All the bullshit. All the doubt.” I am quiet for a moment because I’m not sure if I should say what is really on my mind. Fuck it. “Is it wrong that I want him to die, David?”
He shakes his head quietly and wraps his arms around my shoulders, hugging me tight.
“Are you going to call your brother?” he asks a minute later. The thought stops me in my tracks.
“I don’t know.” Truthfully, I hadn’t even considered it. I’m not sure talking with Ricky is going to be worth anything. I can probably get more information from the hospital. “I’m not going to do anything tonight but hang out with you,” I say, realizing that if Michael is out of the picture, I lose a little bit of protective David. “That is, if you still want to stay, now that I guess you don’t have to.”
David lets go of me and steps back. He cocks his head to the side and squints his eyes at me quizzically. “I want to stay. Shit, Emma, I always want to stay.”
“Good,” I say. “Let me make us some dinner.”
While we are eating, I tease David about what good timing all this is for him. About how lucky he is that he doesn’t have to take his girlfriend to poker with him again tomorrow night. He gets a rise out of my comment, and then tells me that I can still come if I want to. He liked having me there, he says, except for the “fall-down drunk” part—but even that was kind of entertaining. I give him my best sideways snivel and tell him emphatically to f*ck off. I know he likes it because the current is there. Again.
After a minute or two of weighted silence, I tell David that Ricky’s note was postmarked on Thursday which means that, by now, Michael could be dead. I tell David that I will call the hospital tomorrow morning to find out what is going on. To find out if Michael is still alive. David says he thinks that is a good idea. It would make him feel better, he says, knowing that there was no chance of Michael showing up while he is at poker.
When we finish eating, I wash the dishes, and David dries. I look at him with a secret sideways glance, watching his arms move, watching the birds bend and flex. I put down the dishrag and quickly swipe my wet hands against my jeans. I turn toward him and grasp his arm, the one holding the towel. My palms and fingers rub against his skin, up and down his arm, feeling the birds. Feeling David.
He remains still as I push his sleeve up over the top of his shoulder, exposing his bicep. On the round of his shoulder is a brilliant, parrot-like bird. Its head is turned to the side, and one dark eye is looking out over its outstretched wing. Nestled under the wing is a tiny, purple hummingbird with an iridescent green head. The hummingbird looks small and lost. It is resting on a crooked twig that the parrot is holding with its foot. I notice now that, unlike all the larger birds with their outstretched wings and confident posture, the hummingbird seems unsure of itself. Unsure of whether or not it will slide off the end of the twig and drop. Unsure if it is able to fly.
I put my index finger on the hummingbird, pressing myself into this tiny thing. This tiny, vulnerable thing. The one bird that seems like a glitch. An anomaly in David’s confidence.
“Who did this?” I ask, raising my eyes to his. “Who put these on you?”
“An artist. In New Orleans,” he says, looking down at me. I expect him to look surprised, but he doesn’t. He looks calm and light.
“What does this one mean? This tiny hummingbird.” My voice is so quiet. And yet I can hear my own awe. “What do all of them mean?”
I am awash with emotion, and I’m not sure if it is because of Ricky’s letter or because I told David I love him or because of the hummingbird. Maybe it is everything. All of it.
David is silent for a long time. My hands move to his other arm. They grasp him by the wrist, and my fingers trail up along the inside of his elbow to the crest of his arm. I move up to his neck, then to his chin. I am holding his face like a child’s, rubbing my thumbs against his jaw and looking at his open eyes.
“They’re for my mother,” he says quietly. “She called me her bright little bird.”
I know that David’s mother died when he was young. He told me the night I came home to find my new kitchen. He said he was eight.
My fingers move back to the hummingbird. Tracing it. “Is this one you?” I ask.
He grins at me and shakes his head. “No. It isn’t me.”
“Then who is it?” I ask. He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer.
“That one belongs to the artist.”
“Oh,” I say, rubbing my finger against its folded wings. “Did you ask him to put it there?”
“No,” he says cautiously. “She put it there on her own.” She. He said, “she.” Why would a woman put herself, in bird form, on a stranger’s arm? She wouldn’t. She would only put herself on the arm of a man she cared for.
“Did you love her?” I don’t know why I ask, but I do. I can’t take it back.
David pauses for a moment before he answers. “I didn’t love her, no. But she loved me. Or at least she said she did.” Oh. Another woman loved him. Another woman said those words and didn’t hear them back. David must sense that I am sinking inside because he keeps talking, trying to pull me back up. “She was messed up, Emma. She was a junkie. How could she have loved me when half the time she didn’t even know if it was Tuesday?” His hands are on my shoulders now, and I feel as if he is trying to hold me up. Trying to help me find my balance.