The Bird House

We drove up the snowy, winding road towards the cozy A-frame cabin. I glanced in the rear view mirror. Charlie was absently drumming his heels against his car seat, gazing out the window at the aspens slipping by, white bark blending into their white frosting.

“Almost there, bub!” I said, more cheerily than I felt.

In contrast to the descending twilight ahead, the rear and side mirrors blazed with red-orange and purply pink, like a portal through grayscale into Oz. Then the road swung around and the sunset slipped to one side, setting Charlie’s wispy hair aglow.

As the shadows lengthened, I finally spied a bit of bright blue standing out among the mounds of snow that lined the road. With a sigh, I turned at the mailbox in the shape of a birdhouse, with a jaunty wooden bluebird perched atop. My grandmother had always loved birds.

I drove up the freshly cleared driveway and parked beside the two tall, narrow pines – the twins, I used to call them. I turned off the engine and sat in the wintry stillness, looking at the cabin: the weathered auburn pine log walls with forest green shutters; the mosaic stone chimney; the porch with its rustic rocking chairs tucked into their vinyl winter jackets. I knew which porch step creaked and which spot on the railing had once given me a splinter. I knew every inch of that house, outside and in. And yet I felt like a stranger.

The chill was seeping into the car. Charlie began to fuss. I fished the housekey out of the glove compartment and lifted him into my arms. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go inside and get warm.”

I carried him up the porch steps, hearing the creak. We paused in front of the door. The big wreath with the colorful little plastic birds nestled among the artificial evergreen branches was missing. But the green rubber mat before the entrance still proclaimed, "Welcome!"

“Charlie,” I said, “This was your great-grandmother’s house. I came here for visits every June and every Thanksgiving, ever since I was as little as you.” He looked at me with his wide brown eyes, as if understanding every word. “And now -” I just couldn’t say it out loud yet. And now it’s mine.

We stepped into the toasty entryway, and I hung our jackets on the pegs. Robert, the trusty neighborhood handyman, had come in earlier to turn on the utilities and clear the driveway. I couldn’t believe he was still alive, since he had been around for as long as I could remember. I know he had been a great help to my grandmother in her final years, when she clung to her cabin life far past the point when my father had urged her to move in with us.

First things first. I changed Charlie’s diaper, laying his changing pad on the round braided rug by the couch. Then with Charlie in his highchair occupied with Cheerios and cooked peas, I fetched our bags and put the weekend’s supply of groceries away. I made myself hot chocolate in my favorite mug, handing Charlie a marshmallow. Everything inside the house was just as I remembered, except for the bare fridge. There were even some canned vegetables left in the pantry.

Yet if everything had been true to memory, Nana Abbie would have met me at the door in a warm, bosomy embrace, and my favorite cookies would have been waiting for me on the counter, and we would be sitting at the table playing Chinese Checkers or rummy while chatting into the night.

I crossed the living room and shut Nana Abbie’s door. I wasn’t ready for that yet.

During my college years my visits had become more sporadic. The last time I saw Nana Abbie was just before Mark and I moved to the midwest, he to start his new job and me to start graduate school. I had intended to come back for Thanksgiving like always, but Mark’s father had a heart attack, so we spent the holiday in the hospital. Then over the summer I landed a prized paid internship, so travel was again postponed. And then I got pregnant. Bed rest for five months, C-section, and a long recovery. And then the bleary, blurry days of juggling baby and school and Mark.

“You sound tired,” Nana Abbie had said to me in our last phone conversation, a week before Thanksgiving. “When you get here, I don’t want you doing any work. You just sit around by the fire and have a good rest.”

“That would be nice, if Charlie would actually sit still,” I had laughed. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

As we hung up I thought that Nana was the one who sounded tired. A few nights later she died in her sleep, in her room behind the closed door.

Charlie reached up to me, his fingers sticking together, his mouth a sugary smear. How could one marshmallow produce so much mess?

Properly cleaned, Charlie sat on the living room rug and played with the blocks I pulled out of the big cedar toy chest—the same blocks I had once used to build doll beds and horse stables and skyscrapers. I sat on the couch with my cocoa. I missed the fire. The wood was laid out in the fireplace, but I couldn’t chance it with my curious little crawler.

“Mama left you the cabin.” Dad had called me in mid-December with the news. “Nancy and I are heading there to sort out her papers. You should come.” Nancy was stepmother number three. So far she seemed to be working out.

“Dad, we all just flew out there for the funeral. I can’t come back so soon.”

“She left you the cabin,” Dad repeated, with emphasis. “We’ll keep everything else there as-is, for when you’re ready.”

In January, everything fell apart. Charlie and I both languished with the flu. By the time we recovered, I had missed so many classes that the semester was a wash. Mark and I groused at one another. Our Valentine’s date ended with a screaming match. That Wednesday, my weekly everything’s-just-fine video chat with Dad dissolved into a blubbering meltdown.

“You need to get away,” he said firmly. “Find some warm clothes and take a road trip with Charlie to the cabin this weekend. No one’s been there for a while but I’ll make sure it’s ready for you.”

So here I was, sipping cocoa in Nana’s cabin. In my cabin. I shook my head. No, that still didn’t sound right.

I looked up to see Charlie’s behind scooting out of the living room into the narrow hallway. I snatched him up before he could turn left, into the bathroom. Instead, we entered the door on the right – my room whenever I visited.

In front of the bed, taking up most of the floor space in the tiny room, was a polished mahogany crib. Draped over the side was a knitted baby blanket in soft blues and greens. I could picture Nana Abbie sitting on the couch with her yarn basket by her side, pausing from her knitting every now and then to sip her tea.

A note in her neat cursive was pinned to the blanket:

For my darling great-grandson Charlie. Sweet dreams! Love always, Nana Abbie

I went through the motions with Charlie of bath, bottle, bed. Finally, finally he slept soundly. I headed toward the kitchen to do the dishes but didn’t make it past Nana’s door. I touched the doorknob, and felt my throat open to a gasping sob. I sank down and wept.

Of course I had cried at Nana’s funeral. But this was different. This felt like I was turned inside out and all the pain of her absence was pouring out of me as I lay huddled by her door. I didn’t know if I would ever come to the end of it.

My cellphone chimed with Mark’s ringtone, but I ignored it. My tears subsided and a sorrowful silence engulfed me. I became aware of Charlie’s gentle rhythmic breaths. Suddenly I felt cold, and bone weary. With apologies to Nana Abbie for leaving the dishes to the morning, I dragged myself to bed.

Mercifully, Charlie let me sleep in. The morning was bright and I felt refreshed.

After breakfast I held Charlie up to the big picture window and pointed out the birdhouses hanging from various trees, providing sanctuary to non-migratory occupants. I was used to seeing this vista in the spring and fall, not winter. I could just make out the outline of the neighbor’s house through the stand of aspens that usually had fluttery green or orange curtains hung on their stark white poles.

With Charlie down for his nap, I made my tea and settled on the couch. The baby’s naptime was typically when I sprang into action—doing homework, housework, cooking, calls, errands. But today I had left all that behind. All I had to do was sit.

I recalled a conversation a few years ago when Dad and I were both visiting Nana -- one of his many attempts to convince his mother to move.

“I worry about you being alone, Mama,” he said.

“I have Robert to help when I need it, and the neighbors are not far off,” Nana had replied calmly.

“I mean, what do you have to do all day, when you’re by yourself?”

“I sit, and I knit, and I look out the window and watch the birds,” Nana had answered, with a bit more bristle. She crossed her arms. “Is there something more important you think I should be doing?”

Now, cuddled under one of Nana’s afghans, I knew there was nothing more important than to sit there and watch as the clouds cast scrolling shadows on the snow, the evergreen branches swayed in harmony to a sudden breeze, the chickadees and squirrels squabbled over pine cone seeds. A white-throated sparrow popped out from a snow-dabbled bush and whistled. A flock of finches arced over the pines, a pale yellow smudge against the pale blue sky, and disappeared beyond the ridge. I felt strangely comfortable with the quiet.

Mark and I had gone to St. Lucia Island for our honeymoon. I remember we were headed back to our beach blanket after an energetic swim, and I paused a few feet from the shore to look out over the horizon. My feet began to sink into the soft sand, as the tide swirled the silt and the incoming waves lapped around my legs. I held myself still, senses tuned to the patterned movement of earth and ocean about me. That was how I felt now, rooted to the couch, allowing this scene that had captivated Nana to wash over me.

Eventually Charlie wailed his protest at being awake and stuck in the crib, and I rejoined the current of tasks to be done.

“Oh, no, Charlie!” I yelped as his bowl of applesauce landed upside down on the floor. I opened the utility closet to find a mop. A big parcel wrapped in plastic caught my eye. Inside was the wreath for the front door.

I wiped Charlie’s face and hands, then sat him on my lap to show him the wreath. There were twelve different little birds peeking from the branches, one for each month.

“Look, there’s a bluebird, and a blackbird, and a hummingbird, and …”

“Bur!” he said, reaching for the cheery red cardinal. I moved the wreath out of reach. “Bur!” he demanded, squirming in frustration.

Then it hit me. “You said bird!” Beyond the usual “mama” and “dada,” Charlie had few other words in his repertoire. This was big.

I hung the wreath on the front door, where it belonged, then showed Charlie the carved woodpecker that sat on the mantle. “Do you want this bird?” I asked.

“Bur,” he agreed, holding the woodpecker tight.

Later that evening, as I sat rocking and feeding Charlie his bottle, my phone buzzed. It was Mark. This time I answered.

“Charlie said a new word today,” I said.

“Oh? What word?”

“Bird.”

“That figures,” Mark said. He had been to visit Nana Abbie a few times. There was a pause. “How are you doing there? What’s it like?”

“Peaceful,” I answered. “Even Charlie is a little quieter here, I think. And – it’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

I searched for words to wrap around the feeling. “Being a mom, here. It’s like being a kid and a grownup at the same time. It’s all mixed together.”

“Well, you have until you’re a grandmother to figure it out,” Mark said, and I simultaneously laughed and groaned.

“You’re not thinking of selling the place, are you?” Mark asked.

“Never,” I said quickly. Then, tentatively, “Have you been thinking of me?”

“Always.”

We stayed on the line together and kept a companionable silence as I rocked Charlie to sleep, his arms wrapped around the woodpecker.

The next morning Charlie and I bundled up and ate our breakfast on the porch, squinting in the windy sunshine. Charlie laughed every time a clump of snow slid off a branch and landed with a slushy plop. Then I reluctantly started the process of packing up. I knew that the later we left for home, the more I would have to drive in the dark, but I kept finding mundane tasks to delay our departure.

Finally all that remained was to get ourselves into the car. Charlie fussed and tried to twist out of my arms as he realized he was headed for the car seat.

“It’s okay, Charlie. We’ll be back in June,” I promised as I maneuvered him in. “There will be lots of birds here then.”

“Bur!” he said, leaning forward excitedly.

“Yes, birds, Charlie. All different colors. You won’t believe how loud they can get in the morning ...”

“Bur!” he insisted, pointing. “Bur, bur!”

I turned to see where he pointed. A bluebird sat on the mailbox, plumage shining in the light glinting off the snowbanks, right beside the painted wooden bluebird. The real bird had its head tilted toward its decorative companion, as if in silent conversation.

This was an uncommon sighting, I knew. Most bluebirds migrated south, but a few lingered through the winter if they found shelter. As we watched it fluttered up and flew past us into a birdhouse Nana Abbie had hung from a low branch in one of the twin pines. The pine branch swayed slightly, shaking loose sparks of snow.

A sapphire head popped out of the entrance and stared down at us for a moment, bright-eyed, before disappearing back into the tiny yellow wooden house.

“Bird!” I breathed. Charlie and I shared a look of wonder, as he kicked his heels with joy.

* * *

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