The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(3)

But over time the black moods stretched longer and longer, the respites shorter and shorter. Something was rotting him from the inside out, like an infection. The man I’d married seemed to be corroding right in front of me.

I learned not to touch him unless he initiated it. If I so much as brushed against him, even by accident, he’d hiss and pull away as if my flesh burned.


*

I met Jim West ten years ago on a grassy field one October morning just as the sun crested the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque and shot a bolt of light onto his dark mahogany hair, rimming it with silver. He was tall and powerfully built, with sweeping dark brows, a Roman nose, cheeks ruddy from the cold and the barest stubble. I thought he was beautiful. It was the first day of the annual Balloon Fiesta, and Jim was tugging hard on a half acre of multicolored nylon, laying it out flat on the frosty ground. He was volunteering on a hot-air balloon crew preparing for the Mass Ascension. All around were a hundred other crews, a hundred other bright balloons in various stages of lift, sucking in air, staggering up and up like some great amorphous herd struggling to its feet.

Jim planted himself in the throat of the balloon envelope, spread eagle, arms wide like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, holding it open so a massive fan could blow air inside. The balloon streaming behind him was bucking as it inhaled, and Jim trembled and frowned with the cold and the effort. His dark eyes swept the crowd—many of us students from the university—and when they lit on me, they stopped. His frown lifted. He shot me the lopsided grin I hadn’t yet learned to hate, and shouted something I couldn’t make out over the noise of the fans and the gas burners springing to life, belching jets of fire all around us.

I shook my head. “What?”

Jim shouted something else unintelligible. I shook my head once more and pointed to my ears. I shrugged in an exaggerated Oh, well, and Jim nodded. Then he mouthed slowly and distinctly, Don’t . . . go . . . away.

I turned to my friend Terri, who leaned into me with a giggle. “Oh, my God,” she murmured. “He’s gorgeous.”

“Oh, my God,” I groaned back.

A thrill shot from my curling toes to my blushing face, and suddenly I knew how the balloons felt—galvanized by oxygen and fire, bucking skyward despite themselves. It was a mystery to me why such a man would single me out—pretty enough, I guess, but hardly the type to stop a guy in his tracks. Of the two of us, it was Terri, the saucy, leggy blonde with the air of confidence, the guys would go for.

For a half hour or so, Jim toiled away, helping tie down the parachute vent, spotting the man at the propane burner as it spat flames inside the envelope, heating the air till ever so slowly the balloon swelled and ascended, pulling hard at the wicker basket still roped to the earth.

When the basket was unloosed and it lifted off at last, all eyes followed it as it climbed the atmosphere. Or so I thought. I glanced over at Jim and his eyes were fastened on me, strangely solemn. He strode over. “Let’s go,” he said, and held out his hand.

Gorgeous or not, he was a stranger. In an instant, the voice of my mother—jaded by divorce and decades of bad choices—flooded my head. Warnings about the wickedness of men . . . how they love you and leave you bitter and broken. But daughters seldom use their own mothers as object lessons, do they? This man who took my breath away was holding out his hand to me. Without a word, I took it.

I believed in love at first sight then.

I believed in fate.





February 15





Yesterday, Laurel asked about Tinkerbell again. Jim was there, and looked over at me curiously. I turned toward the stove to hide my face. I clenched my teeth to keep them from chattering. I pulled in a ragged breath and said as lightly as I could:

“Tinkerbell ran away, sweetie. You know that.”

Tinkerbell was a little mixed-breed dog that showed up at our door last Valentine’s Day—rheumy eyed, scrawny, riddled with fleas. Laurel went ahead and gave her a name before I had a chance to warn her we could never keep a sick stray. Jim would sooner shoot it, put it out of its misery, but I didn’t tell her that, either. I had picked up the phone to call county animal control when I watched Laurel pull the dog onto her lap and stroke its head. “Don’t worry, Tinkerbell,” she said softly. “We’ll love you now.”

If the dog didn’t understand the words, it understood the kindness behind them. It sank its head into the crook of Laurel’s arm and didn’t just sigh—it moaned.