Facing the Cardinal

Dan parked his car in the gravel lot of the small apartment building just as you turned onto Bird Road. The 4-unit brick complex sat across from the large yellow home with the big lot that faced the main road. Just across the road, the train tracks reliably rumbled hour after hour. Visitors often found the noise jarring, but if you lived there, you were used to it and at night, the soft, low sound lulled you to sleep.

Dan left everything in the car — his luggage, his phone, his wallet. He took only his keys. He made sure the car was locked and took a few steps to the faded grey asphalt of Bird Road. He turned and faced the tracks, and just then, a train passed by. He recalled the time the circus had come to town. Well, to the larger town just north of where Dan grew up. No, he wouldn’t be going to the circus. But, because everyone knew the train schedule, people had planned to line up and wave and cheer as the train passed by. So, Dan and his parents and his sister stood on the sidewalk across the road and waved as clowns waved back. They marveled at the brightly colored cars and wondered which one carried the lions.

Next, Dan turned so he could see the yellow house. That house — an old, wooden farm house — would always be the type of house he dreamed of owning. It was three stories tall, had a wraparound porch. A dog and a few cats played in the yard. The whole neighborhood had been a farm before the Yates family sold it years ago. Now, the youngest Yates boy (by now, a man with a wife and three children) lived there and worked at a bank in town. The yard was fenced and the driveway gated. It was clear the Yates family was NOT like all those who lived on streets named Dove and Wren and Robin and Cardinal.

Dan turned again. This time, just as he passed the squat house with a stone façade, he could make out the home where he’d been a boy. The home his mother insisted was still home. It had been twenty years since Dan had been inside the Cardinal home. He always met his mother somewhere in public on the once a year visits to his hometown. They’d always see someone who had watched Dan grow up and Dan’s mom would brag about Dan’s life in the big city so far from here.

“Can you believe it,” she’d say.

Dan just smiled and nodded and shook the person’s hand.

At the end of Bird, Dan turned left. There was the house that seemed to always attract people using or selling drugs or both. The smallest house in the whole subdivision. The one right next to Dan’s. The one he could see just outside his bedroom window.

He kept walking until he was right in front of the orange brick home that held so many memories. He walked just into the yard, just out of the street.

He was facing it. He wouldn’t go in. His mother wasn’t home and he didn’t have a key anymore. But he did stand there.

As he did, everything flooded back. All of it. The nightmares. The screaming. Being locked in a room all day. Being locked out of the house and forced to stay in the tiny backyard until a light illuminated on the back porch.

He stood and absorbed all of it. Dan was 5 again. He was 7. He was 13 and the whole day that changed his life forever was happening again.

He was 14 and getting a call from a girl. He was 16 and making plans with a friend to get out for the night, the weekend. He had just turned 18 and was about to graduate from high school. He was in his car making the drive to college.

Then, he did it. He said the words. He said all the words. To his dad, his mom, his sister. He faced the home and said the words and got it all out.

He stood for one more moment.

He turned and walked toward Bird. Right turn, past the yellow house. The gravel lot with his mid-size luxury sedan. The tiny beep to unlock. A seat on warm leather. Hot tears streaming down his unshaven face.

Dan should have done this years ago.

But, he was here now. He’d done it now.

Dan had faced the Cardinal. Dan had finally won.