The Birder

I know I shouldn’t snoop, but nothing delights me more than peering into the private rituals of other people’s lives. Even a scribbled grocery list or water bill is exciting - it’s a secret simply in that it wasn’t meant for me. I like knowing what people do and how they function outside of the persona they project.

Grandpa’s office has always been a little creepy to me, but just enough to make it exciting. The dim lighting leaves otherwise ordinary objects shadowed in sinister little pockets. It gives me the same feeling I had as a child when I would reach to the back of the dark mailbox never knowing if that would be the day I encountered a spider or wasp. Once I can overcome my budding fear of that dark, mysterious room, it becomes an absolute treasure hunt. It is the one room Grandpa never let us play in as children, so it is the most appealing to me even as an adult.

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The false bottom of Grandpa’s desk drawer lifts away and down inside lay only one item - a small black book. Barely larger than my hand and gently worn. The drawer around it is clean, debris and dust free, and the book lay centered exactly in the middle of it. What a weirdo, I think. So meticulous, so mysterious.

I lift the book out and do the first thing any decent person should - I smell the leather binding, of course. Delicious, musty. The inside cover is unmarked but on the first page, in Grandpa’s unmistakably neat print, are two words. “Little Birds”. A title. Oh god, have I discovered his perv stash? Gross. Hilarious. I snort a laugh and turn the page. Birds.

But it isn’t porn. At least not in the traditional sense. I flip quickly through the entire book to determine its general purpose and then focus back on the second page. A girl is smiling back at me from the top left corner. A small photograph clipped from a newspaper. Her eyes are dark, crinkled at the corners in her joy. Her hair is curly and voluminous, a style from another decade. Below the photograph is a rough and, I cannot help but notice, incredibly skillful charcoal sketch. My skin crawls uncomfortably as I comprehend its sexual nature. She is bound hand and foot with her buttocks in the air, a gag in her mouth, her eyes distraught. I realize with discomfort that her look is not one of lazy arousal and pleasure but of terror and rigidity - her face turned back in fear.

Below the sketch and laminated in the two bottom corners are two items - a pearl earring and a lock of hair. The page has the feel of a naturalist’s journal but instead of birds, a human, a girl, has been observed and journaled. No feathers or wings, but limbs and wide eyes. I consider for a fleeting moment that my grandfather is into BDSM, as many people are, and that I should respect his privacy and put the book away. But the morbid and disrespectful curiosity within me leads me to the next page, and the next, and the next.

Each page is of identical format - a photograph, an aggressively sexual sketch, a small personal item, and a lock of hair. All girls, or young women rather, from a decade before my time. Straight dark hair. Wavy brunette. Kinky blonde curls. There is no theme. As I reach the last few pages, I feel a wave of nausea and of understanding that my grandfather may not be the simple family man I have always known him to be. The pages of this book simmer with violence. The sketches become increasingly disturbing, the poses more degrading. I hurry past each one, humiliated and fearful. And then I turn the last page.

There she is. My mother’s college roommate and best friend. I have heard about her my whole life. About her brilliance and kindness. About her bond with Mom. And finally about her murder. Of the agony and grief it caused, of the way it unsettled an entire community and utterly broke her family. Sherry was the companion of my mother’s youth. I know her face from the pictures in mom’s scrapbooks and from the small frames tucked away in various corners of our home. And here she is, in my grandfather’s little black book.

My ears are rushing, pounding. For a moment I cannot see, as my line of vision closes to black edges. I breathe deeply and force myself to look back at her page. Sherry’s sketch is different than the others. She is not posed, she is languid. Her eyes are open, but not fixed, not fearful, not pleading. Her mouth is slack, her jaw misaligned, giving her a look of absolute loss of control. My eyes slide to her abdomen and I slam the book shut. What I see I cannot accept and cannot believe. I cannot make myself confirm the cause of the disturbance sketched around her torso, the dark scribbles where her belly should have been pale and smooth.

“Maggie.” Grandpa’s voice is low. The dread I felt before does not compare to the fear I feel now as I turn and face him, the book still in my hand. I cannot move, cannot speak. What is there to do? Confront him about the contents of his journal? Accuse him? Beg him to deny everything?

Grandpa step cautiously across the room and takes the book from my hand, pulling it slowly from my clamped and sweaty fingers. As he tucks it into his pocket, I realize with dismay that I have just handed over the only thing I have to back me up if I come forward about my findings. I cannot fight him to get the book back. My throat is so dry I can’t form a single word. I make a move to step around him, to leave the room, so that his eyes are not on me. So that I can think. Grandpa wraps his hand around my arm to stop me. Not angrily, but I understand the threat in it and I suddenly feel weak and cold.

“Maggie, I am going to give you something.” He sits down at his desk chair and gestures for me to sit across from him. I sit down, afraid to defy him in the slightest. He is so calm and so confident in himself as he scribbles with one of his heavy pens.

“This is a check for twenty-thousand dollars.” My breath hitches. Grandpa slides it across the desk and, like a robot, I lean forward to confirm what it is. To my disbelief and horror, it is indeed a check for twenty-thousand dollars.

“This is my first gift to you. I have confidence that you will enjoy what this means. And I don’t think you would enjoy losing such consistent luxury once you’ve experienced it.”

He is paying me. Paying me to keep my mouth shut. And he is going to keep paying me. The need to gag overcomes me. I retch until I vomit into the waste bin by his desk. We both gaze at the mess for a moment and then look back at each other - a humiliating pause.

“Take the check, Maggie.”

I do. I put it in my pocket. I am too afraid to do anything but follow his instructions. We stand up at the same time and leave the room together, in silence. Sherry is still in his pocket, while the check burns a hole in mine.

No one will believe my story, not without the book as proof. I am 22-years-old. I am childish enough to have snooped through my grandfather’s office. I have been known to dramatize and exaggerate stories on occasion. And now I have twenty-thousand dollars, endless student loans, and a sickening secret.