Chapter 5
BIRDS
Morning comes quickly, and it seems not to care at all that I would like it to slow down. It is my last day in Detroit. My last day as a youngish, na?ve antique shop owner. In one day’s time, I will add estate owner to my resume, and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that title.
My black suede thigh-high boots click against the sidewalk as I make my way to the place I feel most at home.
This shop of mine has provided a cocoon where I would happily slumber in an oblivious wake state through the years, but with little warning, it seems now I am meant to transform.
To embrace something different. Something down south, beckoning me to it more and more since finding out it could be mine.
The day is breezy and warm, making my pleated chiffon skirt cling to the front of my thighs.
The back sways out behind me like leaves of a willow billowing in the breeze.
Willows were always my mother’s favorite tree, but the only glimpse I’ve had of one lately is the jade willow statue sitting in a hundred odd-shaped pieces on my shop counter.
There were many willows at the lake we lived near before coming to Detroit, and perhaps that is why my mother was so reluctant to leave.
The reason we came here was never quite clear to me then.
Young minds often miss the reasons for things, but they tend to feel the big picture, regardless.
And I know the reason we left that lake was important.
My mother had fear written all over her face that day she packed everything in the car.
I round the corner of the block to make it onto Sixth Street, and I’m just about knocked over by a heady dark floral aroma.
A small oak near my shop looks weighed down by a mass of black leaves.
This constant smell always lingers around this oak, but where else have I smelt this?
As I inch closer, I see the leaves are actually an iridescent blue-black, and are not actually leaves at all. They are feathers. Crow feathers.
The oak sits heavy with crows, every beady eye fixed on me.
They weigh on the tree and on my spirit.
An ominous and sensual feeling sweeps through me.
Not feeling comfortable in my skin, I aggressively shove my key in the door, breaking a nail in haste, and all but jump in to get rid of the feeling of being watched.
Once the door is closed, the welcome meow of Carya eases my nerves, and only then do I release the breath I’ve been holding since realizing what occupied that poor distressed oak.
When did I get a starring role in an Alfred Hitchcock movie?
I sweep my fingers along Carya’s back, my hand shaking from the eerie impression those birds left me with.
Carya meows once more and brushes against me, as if she knows I’m on edge.
She has been acting strangely ever since the estate lawyer came by.
I can’t say I blame her. My constant shadow these last couple of days, weaving in between my legs and testing my acrobatic abilities.
She doesn’t seem to want to leave my side, so it is then that I decide to take her with me to see my newly inherited mansion.
The day carries on like any other before my inheritance, a quiet pressure building within me.
If you looked at this day as an outsider, you would think nothing of it.
No show of outward distraction, but from my view it looks as if everything has been set ablaze.
Ripe with anticipation of the next part of my journey.
After all, all monumental change starts from within. I just wish mine had a clearer focus.
The door chimes, which sets my nerves on edge, but I’m greeted by a comforting smile.
Ashton places a steaming bowl of brown soup in front of me from the local deli, the blue and red design on the carryout bowl giving it away.
It’s rather warm outside for soup, but once the brothy aroma reaches me, I’m left with no choice but to see if its taste matches its mouthwatering smell.
Jumping from my stool and giving Ashton a quick peck on the cheek, I sit cross-legged on the floor with it. Ashton automatically mirrors my actions. He joins me with his own meal as we eat on the floor, discussing the many plans I have yet to decide on.
“Jade, you are too pure of heart. And that is such a good thing, but not down there. There is so much injustice down there…I would hate for you to be hardened because of it,” Ashton says. The worry consumes his words. I can tell from his posture he seems reluctant for me to go.
He fears I won’t mix well with the people in the southern states.
My mind has always been more liberated than most, and I have a hard time seeing unjust behavior toward anyone based on their color, gender, or societal ranking.
My mother is to blame for that conviction, and I’ve heard no one complain about it until now.
“Ash, I’ll be fine. If anyone needs to worry, it’s you. How will you manage Lollie while I’m gone?” I push his shoulder, and he smirks knowingly.
“Nobody can manage her,” the words fall out with a twinkle in his eye.
I tumble back into a fit of giggles, almost sending my soup bowl across the room.
I swear Ashton tries, but fails to hide his version of blushing.
His cheeks, normally tawny brown, turn a deep color of pink.
Why he reacts this way has me curious, but I can’t control my laughter enough to ask.
He and Lollie ended in a way I think Ashton rather forget. Ashton, head over heels in love, took Lollie to The London Chop House. The nicest restaurant in Detroit.
I was sure Ashton had plans to make their relationship official, at least it seemed that way with how he pulled on his necktie and kept messing with his hair, waiting for Lollie to finish getting ready.
I was over at Lollie’s beforehand, helping her choose her outfit, so I got to see firsthand the seriousness of this dinner. It was comical really—until it wasn’t.
Lollie called me in tears a couple of hours later, saying they were over and he would never see life the way she does.
That was all I heard about it from both of them, but I didn’t pry.
The feelings from them being of almost atomic bomb proportions had me nervous to detonate an already very unsteady tension.
Both have seemed to calm around each other since then, being that was almost two years ago.
I left them with little choice but to see each other almost daily, even if they barely spoke for that first year after.
Lollie is my oldest friend, but Ashton’s heart holds so much value.
Neither was going anywhere out of my life.
Ashton always seems to know when I need someone around. Today being one of them. His sun-kissed hair falls behind his ears and curls up a bit. And his smile is so wide and gleaming that it never fails to break my heart right open.
He is the optima of light, and that light dimmed when he and Lollie ended. Even dimmed, his light is a solar flare—igniting energy the moment he steps into a room. He came into my life as a friend from the moment he opened up shop across from ours, and he is one I hope never to lose.
Ashton leaves after finishing his food, his visits being short since having to carry the responsibility of his shop.
The rest of the day at the shop is quiet, per usual.
My heart tugs a bit at knowing I’m going to miss this comfortable routine of shop life.
One thing I’ve never been too keen on is taking chances, and this house feels like the biggest one of all.
This shop life is all I’ve known. My mother cast a shadow of fear over anything I ever dared to try. I know she didn’t mean to, but why was she so afraid? It’s no wonder I unconsciously picked up her unhealthy pattern over the years, as so many young children do.
Maybe the house, tossed into my hands like a dare, could be how I finally break the generational curse. To embrace the change that’s always stirred in me. To climb the tree of life without the dreaded fall to the ground that I have for so long expected as the only outcome.
I stay at the shop for one last night to clean it up and listen to records with Carya, a glass of cherry brandy in hand. With my liquor poured and the record player set to One of These Nights by the Eagles, I get into a steady rhythm of taking stock of what is in the shop.
I slowly brush my fingers along the edge of a painting dating back to the mid-nineteenth century of a young woman submerged in a lily pond fully dressed.
My mother found it in Europe years ago before I was born, and I've always thought it looked like someone I knew. At times, I saw my very own face in the woman’s reflective melancholy staring up in quiet contemplation.
“Why so sad, beautiful girl?” I would often ask as if she weren’t just mere paint strokes on canvas.
My thoughts wander back to the estate and the uncle I never knew.
The irony that my uncle was an antique collector is not lost on me, and it’s what stirs my curiosity the most. Would he own items as timeless as these paintings?
I have spent my whole life surrounded by the odds and ends of items from different ages, and now I wonder if perhaps it has been rooted in my blood all along.
As if my mind conjures it with the very word itself, a dense black door with pictures of various trees engraved in it floods my vision, pouring in from an unknown source.
I can pick out the hickory and oak carved larger and darker than the rest. A hawk glides above the hickory, while one lonely crow sits perched atop the oak etching.
It’s beautiful detail entrancing me into it’s imagined world.
I put my hand on the knob, about to turn it, but pull back instinctively with the feeling of something slick and warm seeping onto my fingers. My hand now covered in a dark red color that is slowly creeping up my arm in an act defying the natural order of the earth’s gravitational pull.
I catch movement on the door. The hawk and the crow become lifelike, growing before me.
The hawk swooping down at the crow. The crow heading right toward my head.
I open my mouth to scream, but before the scream falls on empty air, I am brought back to the present time.
Back in my shop. The beating wings of the birds still pulsing in my ears.
I grip the counter, fingers digging into the wood. It threatens splinters, but my frantic heart pays no heed. Forcing steady breaths through my lips, I find the stool to steady my legs and my heart, both are leaving me with little support. My fingers still feel the wet thickness of blood.
My visions have been getting worse. What were dream-like states that graced my mind every few months has now turned into a daily occurrence. I can’t help but recognize that whatever I am about to embark on has a lot to do with it.